I had heard so much about the Village of Hope in Burg al-Arab, Alexandria—in fact even edited stories for Watani about it. But it is one thing to hear about a place and quite another to see it. So it was with expectancy and excitement that I accepted an invitation from Nada Thabet—founder of the Village of Hope in 2000 and Nobel peace prize winner for 2005—to visit the place which acts as a rehabilitation centre for mentally handicapped children. I boarded a minibus together with Mrs Thabet, Mrs Caroline Held, the wife of the Swiss ambassador to Cairo, and a group of volunteer workers from different places in the world who were interested to witness first-hand the Village of Hope. The Swiss ambassador, H.E. Charles Edward Held, was to join us at the village.
Surprise
Once on the bus, Mrs Thabet made the surprise announcement: “Do you know you contributed to our acquisition of this bus?” “How?” I asked. I was not aware Watani had made any such contribution. “You wrote a story about the Village of Hope,” the small, bright, vivacious woman who is Nada Thabet laughingly said, “A woman contacted you and asked for my telephone number which you gave her. She then called me and displayed an interest in our work; we met and, following a visit to the village she decided to donate the minibus to us. We already had a bus donated to us by the Japanese embassy in Cairo, but it was not enough to collect all the children since they live in places scattered all over Alexandria.”
I was too overwhelmed with emotion to manage any reply apart from a belated “God bless you!”
Working miracles
Once we had left Alexandria behind, the desert road to Burg al-Arab stretched before us. The topic of volunteer work in Egypt dominated the conversation. The Swiss Embassy in Cairo takes a keen interest in such work and has contributed to several activities including those concerned with educating the visually impaired. I found Mrs Held extremely well-informed in this domain and eager to help.
Sitting next to me was Dr Ibrahim Fawzy Mansour who is the Village of Hope’s consultant psychologist. Our conversation naturally turned to mentally handicapped children in general, then in particular to his charges in the village. “I dislike the terms of ‘retarded’ or ‘mentally handicapped’”, he said. “I infinitely prefer “mentally deficient”; different members or systems in the body may suffer deficiencies, and so may the brain. This does not mean it is incapacitated.” Dr Mansour said. “Mentally deficient persons are capable of many things, just give them the opportunity.”
“It is obvious to me you love the children very much,” I said. “Without love,” Dr Mansour said, “you can achieve nothing whatsoever with the mentally deficient. Love, on the other hand, works miracles.”
The boarders
We arrived at the Village of Hope. The “village” is composed of a central two-storey building as well as another one-storey building which houses the classrooms and carpentry shop, surrounded with basins of cultivated land, some open and some used as greenhouses. The first floor of the central building houses the administration, the kitchen, dining area, sitting room, and crafts centre.
Mrs Thabet took us upstairs to the boarding quarters. Each bedroom included a pair of double-deck beds, cupboards, a dressing table and night tables, made of wood. “They were donated to us by the German embassy in Cairo,” she said. “How many boarders do you have?” I asked, “We have 45 students aged between eight and 18, but we have only eight regular boarders,” she said. “I do not encourage parents to shirk off their responsibility towards their mentally-deficient children, since this is detrimental to the child and the family. I accept boarders only in cases where it is better if the child is cared for outside the home; in cases of disputes between the parents or when there is illness in the family requiring a mother’s full attention, and such like. We also accept boarders on temporary basis such as when a sibling needs to sit for a critical examination.”
As we went around, we noticed a very elegant dinning room on the second floor. “This comes from my parent’s home,” Mrs Thabet said. “I lost both my parents in a car accident. When we—my brothers, sisters, and I—had to decide what to do with our parents belongings, everybody agreed they would donate the furniture to the village.”
“Potatoes!”
“Nada,” I said, “you always said this project was born out of the difficulty you went through when you had a mentally-deficient baby. How did this come to be?”
“When I had Maged,” she said, “I could find schools or facilities to help him till he was 14. After that: nothing. This was when I started thinking there was a terrible need to train him—and so many others like him—to live a respectable life. Hence the idea of the Village of Hope.”
“We built the building and began taking in students. Mrs Thabet said. We started cultivating the land. The first crop we planted was potato. It grew beautifully and, when it was time to reap it, I called all the children to help. They were so excited to dig up potatoes from the earth that they were all exclaiming ‘Potatoes! Potatoes!’ And I was astounded to hear Yusri; a child who had never managed to speak a word, shout with the others ‘potatoes!’. It was the first word he had ever uttered. No words can describe my amazement, my happiness, my feeling of reward.
“And with this incident came the realisation that, as a plant grows slowly, so does the mind of a mentally deficient child. The fields and the kitchen became the first workshops for the children.”
Come meet the cow
“But you are so far away from any urban centre,” I remarked. “What do you do about supplies? You have to be well-stocked.”
“We try to be self sufficient,” Mrs Thabet said “We have dug a well, we plant our own vegetables, we have our bakery—a donation from the World Bank.”
“Yes but how about things like eggs and milk?” I asked.
“We have our own cow,” she laughed. “Come meet Pakiza.” And sure enough, opposite a clover field which, Mrs Thabet explained, was planted especially for the cow, stood a stable which housed Pakiza. “She’s pregnant,” said an excited Mrs Thabet, “We expect a calf soon”.
From the heart
We visited the children in the different classrooms. The classes are classified according to mental ability, a proud Dr Mansour explained. The children are trained in personal care, social behaviour, handcrafts and basic skills. Each group of children sat with two trainers round a table. “What qualifications do you require in your staff?” I queried. “Only that they should love the children, Mrs Thabet said. “Anything else we can train them at. But there is no way to teach or train them to love. This has to come from the heart.”
But once the children “graduate”, what do they do? “They work if they can find a job,” she said. “Two of our graduates already found work. Otherwise they can work here in the village. Several of them work at our bakery.” Her eyes shone as she said: “The revenue from the bakery pays the salaries of our staff, we sell our products at Fathallah supermarket in Alexandria. Alas, not all consumer outlets are willing to sell the village products; they claim the social taboo against mentally-deficient people is too entrenched to allow sales of their production”.
We were welcomed by two young men offering us samples of the bakery’s produce, croissants, petit fours, salted biscuits, all excellent quality. After the first sample we each went back for more. “These are by far the best croissants I’ve eaten in Egypt,” Mrs Held said, and everyone agreed.
As one busy young man stood working on the packaging line, Mrs Thabet exclaimed “Maged! There you are.” She turned to us and proudly introduced her son, 24 years old today, dark and handsome. Does he realize he was the inspiration behind this wonderful work? I thought. But this was a question that went unasked.
Great family
As we left the bakery we were in for another surprise. Another dark, handsome, young man approached. “This is Mamdouh, also my son,” Mrs Thabet said. “He works with the Credit Agricole bank in Alexandria, but has come this afternoon to welcome you all.
“Mamdouh was always such a great support,” she said “He taught Maged so many things: how to swim, how to cycle, how to colour.” “I taught him cycling when once we were on a family holiday. I wished to cycle, and found there were bicycles for two persons. So I had Maged sit behind me; as I pedalled, the pedals he rested his feet on moved; he quickly got the idea and learnt to cycle.”
“I think you were very wise in including him”, I said. “Other brothers would have fought.” “Oh we had our fair share of fights!” Mamdouh laughed, “That’s why I taught him to colour. He was always after my books, notebooks, and pencils”.
A burly, confident, good humoured man came in. “I am Murad Lotfy Thabet,” he introduced himself. “Nada is my wife; or better still, I am her husband.” A truly amazing family, I thought. A great man behind a great woman.
Overwhelmed
Some good smells were wafting out of the kitchen, and we were asked to have lunch, and what a lunch! There were dishes of the tastiest koshari I ever had, complete with fresh tomato sauce, and accompanied with salad fresh out of the garden. Even though we’d exclaimed at the huge portions we were served, we ended up wiping our plates clean.
We boarded the bus back to Alexandria. I took a moment to contemplate the sense that overwhelmed me: the fullness of love.