I still remember my first day at school. It was in Kuwait. My father took me in his car and drove for some time in the desert. My mother refused to come with us because she knew that I will cry a lot and will not let go of her when we reach there. I remember few things about Kuwait: the famous Kuwait towers, the beach, and my redhead friend.
I returned to Egypt, my home country, when I was 8 years old. My parents put me in a traditional English school. We had 50 pupils in each class, and 7 classes per grade. That is around 2,000 students in the elementary school building alone!
I made my first friends at this school and I am still in touch with few of them, thanks to Facebook.
In grade 11, I went to an American school. It was a new experience and I was so impressed by the positivity characterizing the American culture that I wanted to go to there for university. But my parents did not agree, so I entered the American one in Cairo!
After getting my bachelor’s degree in Psychology, I took a job with a market research firm, and got married at the same time!
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I still remember my first day in Dubai. I was amazed by its fancy airport, wide streets, and high rise buildings. This was when I took my second job with another market research firm.
Dubai has unique demographics. It is consisted of 90% expats and only 10% nationals! Expats are mainly Indians (60%), Arabs (20%), and westerners (10%, mostly British).
It has very luxurious hotels and malls, almost every family has a full time maid, and a Mercedes S-class is as common as a Corolla in the streets.
After living there for few years, I decided to move to Canada.
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This time I am not impressed by the infrastructure or the modern facilities, this time I am impressed by the people.
I can see people who have very important values.
They value the human being.
They value knowledge.
And they maintain optimism about the future.
But what really impressed me the most, is the down to earth attitude of the Canadians.
Canadians live in a top-ranked country in terms of living standards, yet they are not snobbish. It is a characteristic reflecting decency and good manners.
I hope that we will never lose this trait.