How to make a difference wherever you go…

\”To make a \’difference\’ in someone\’s life, you don\’t have to be brilliant, rich, beautiful or perfect. You just have to care.\” – Mandy Hale.

Here I am in 40 degrees of heat lying on a sunbed soaking up vitamin D, in the fabulous holiday destination of Egypt, and thinking… half way through the year is a great time to review future goals.

Even when the body is resting, on a 3 day Nile Cruise, it\’s hard to switch off the mind. Aside from the annoying harassment to buy goods, the Egyptians are friendly people. In the last 6 days of my stay in the Egyptian cities of Cairo and Luxor I\’ve had so many conversations with guides and staff at two different hotels.

One hotel was a shock to our system because everything was so outdated. Imagine trying to check into a hotel in the heavily polluted city of Cairo at 11pm to discover that the entrance is on the 4th floor and the only way to get there is via a lift? Now imagine the lift to look like something you would see in a film from the black and white era, with a belt (which could snap any minute – so we thought) pulling it? A hardworking man who works 10 hour shifts left a deep impression on me when he told me that he visits his family in Aswaan only once a year.

The second hotel had excellent customer service and did everything to make our experience a memorable one. The 2 men who did their housekeeping duties whilst singing and floated around from room to room always smiling and joking, left the greatest impression on me. When I found out that reviews on Google enable the staff to get extra hours of work, I couldn\’t leave without giving them a 5 star rating for customer service as it was excellent! If you ever travel to Luxor, I would highly recommend a stay at the Nefertiti Hotel and excursions through their partner organisation Magic Carpet who provided great tour guides like Khaled and Imad who organised our Nile Cruise for us. These guys really did go above and beyond. A small act (it took me a few minutes to write a review – check out Google reviews for Nefertiti Hotel) can make a big difference to others.

It\’s difficult for the soul not to be affected by the divide between those who have everything and those who have very little. I\’m still thinking about the man who has family living in Aswaan where our Cruise will end. Twice 2 different girls as young as 9-11 years old randomly went up to my daughter and hugged her whilst we were crossing the road in Cairo. They wouldn\’t let her go and she felt bad when my husband told them to let go. It wasn\’t until they kissed her rings that my daughter got alarmed. We realised that begging had probably become normalised behaviour for these young children. It was heartbreaking that these children were not in school, something that most children take for granted in the UK. I discovered that the boys (as young as 12) who sell tickets for entry to the toilets at the Train Station and those who run kiosks on the platforms, work to feed their families. There simply isn\’t enough hours in the day for schooling as well.

Do you remember the goal I set at the start of the year – to plant 1,000 fruit trees to support sustainable development goal 15? So far just under 100 trees have been planted, but planting season in Bangladesh, India and other Asian countries is best during the rainy season, which started in June.

Agriculture provides the main source of income for people living in Luxor. My gut tells me I could probably have a few trees planted in either Luxor or Aswaan. I\’ve been told planting season here is not until September, but what if I just paid someone I could trust for the trees to be planted in September? I have faith that once the person is convinced of the ultimate outcome and the reward they will reap, they will not let me down.

The care and attention we received from a hotel that wasn\’t even a 5 Star hotel, made the greatest difference to us. It\’s how people make us feel that leaves an everlasting impression on us. It really isn\’t too difficult to make a difference wherever you go… once we look deeply at what we have received, it becomes impossible not to reciprocate.