As you can imagine religion effects every element of daily life in Egypt. You can not fail to embrace it or you would be in a constant battle with every situation you came up against.

It is actually fascinating and i have even got into the habit of telling the time by the the meuzzins rather than from my watch. Especially when on the Feluccas where watches are banned to instigate a relaxation which can't be captured when the seconds are ticking.

Trying to get my head round the people's religious perceptions and their reasoning behind it is something which will take a while. Religion here is a way of life not just something which people take or leave or do on Sundays or Christmas as in the UK.

Have started reading some amazing books by a famous Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz which are an excellent insight into how people live their lives behind closed doors.

Essentially, by Egyptian perceptions i am a woman doing a mans job. Also Egyptian perceptions of western women mean that we have to work doubly hard to build up relationships with the locals that we work along side. Trying to build solid platonic friendhsips with people who have such different concepts of love and attraction is quite a battle but still in the realms of possibility. It just means that you have to define the boundaries quite clearly and act with dignity to gain respect. Quite frustraing sometimes though as we can never have the level of frienship and closeness with the local community that the boys can.

Egyptian men are very affectionate to each other so that when greeting the male tour leaders there is lots of kissing on cheeks and back slapping which feels very peculiar when I appear with a distant shake of the hand and a not quite direct eye contact. The boundaries are sometimes quite hard to decipher and everyone plays it differently. Its fascinating talking to the other tour leaders and seeing how each of them acts and reacts. I am trying to learn from their expereinces so that i can try and get the balance as accurate as possible from the beginning. Although i'm gauranteed to make my fair share of mistakes to learn from as well.

Being blonde is so not an issue and the level of hassele is far less than i had anticipated, infact its less than i found in Turkey. Or May be i've just become better at dealing with it.

One thing that has become almost immediately apparent is that i am going to have to grasp the language as much as possible. It makes life 100% easier as the communication barrier can again be enormously frustrating. Especially when trying to problem solve, you are lost without a few basic Arabic words. Sign language has its limits and is hopeless if you need to get across specific details and have 15 people on your back wondering what the hells going on!