Teach to Fish volunteer artist Ed Chee (November 2024)

Subject: Reflection of my time spent in Luxor, Egypt with the Teach to Fish charity, Esther and the kids - some who are now in their late teens or adults.

I've known Esther since high school - but this is the first time I had time (after speaking to her years about volunteerng) to helping her on her charity. I am an artist (in Animation), so i will 'paint' you a picture of what it was like.

In my mind, i was going to help out a children's orphanage at some 'building' with a leraning area, and teach them some art, animation over a few sessions

BUT hold on, there are a lot of other issues that these kids have to deal with first, Ed!

Although Egypt is beautiful, with the front-facing tourist activities like visitng the pyramids and the national treasures, behind the wall of hieroglghpys, and art, behind that is economic poverty. Not everyone - as there are levels in every society, rich, middle-class, lower teir... but on a whole Egypt seems to me as a society facing many economic challenges.

I tailed, observed, and participated with Esther for two weeks, as we visited farming villages, delivering grocery supplies to extended poor family members of the orphans to last them a few more months - just in time it seems, as one family had completely run out of food-stocks the day before and prayed to God to help them out.

The biggest thing we did that stays with me, however is when we visited a girl’s orphanage “Sunshine” (worse than the last younger girls orphanage which had more provisions from the government) - Now, when I say orphanage, yes they are orphans but they are not 'kids'. They are adult young women in their late teens to mid twenties - But orphans that Esther has known since they were children - since she has been working in Egypt for 15 years... Picture this: a dark concrete building, seven layers of chipped paint on the walls, cat feces on couches to floors everywhere, an empty pantry that required re-stocking, a recently fixed washroom but showers with no hot-water. Apparently the electricity can shut off at 6pm and they only recently received replacement light bulbs for the hallways. These girls had also run out of feminine hygiene supplies - which Esther took the time to shop for and restock with donated charity funds.

On the boys side of the orphanage, there once was a building that housed them all, but recently the Egyptian government has moved them out to a Sudanese desert compound, giving them housing (nice) but housing 4-5 boys (aged 17-20) in one apartment - 30 minutes driving distance far away from the city core - for work, (not so nice). They receieve 1 meal a day from the governemnt (?) but other than that they are left to fend for themselves with whatever little money they have. Which gets spent on 'fast-food'.

They've never been shown how to cook for themselves. Therefore, the most rewarding activity for me was heading to their apartments and doing a cooking session with them. We taught them how to cut an onion, vegetables, brown some ground beef, and making their first ever self-cooked, pasta dinner. That will live with me forever, as I hope the new skills will set them on a path to self-sustainability.

Other highlights for me were working with the older orphans on composing emails in English for job applications, to being asked dating advice from one of the older orphans, as 'oh right' they don't have an older male figure they can go to for advice like this.

In the end, there as a lot of work, a lot of driving, with the help of Esther's amazing, volunteer on the ground NQIs (like NGOs but “non-qualified individuals” is the technical term) friends, who helped driving us and translating.

But most of all, I recall a lot of laughter. It speaks to the humanity in all of us that we all share the same values of life, the needs for friends, family and Love and Hope.

Ed Chee