THE MYSTERIOUS INVITATION
“I know the ticket’s are coming Mars,” I texted Mario back on WhatsApp, “I’m not sleeping tonight.”
It was 9 pm on a Sunday night, and we were chatting about my mysterious invitation to Egypt. It had been a whirlwind two weeks and still felt like yesterday when we were driving home from Bloemfontein, me with my feet on the dashboard, telling him about the email I’d received. I thought it was spam, really.
“We’ve seen your South African The Voice Audition video and we want you to come to Egypt to sing for this big conference thing,” was the just of it. I ignored for two days and then brought it up again when we were on the road after I had clicked through all of the links in the email thrice to cross-check.
OFF WE GO…
Before I knew it, we were being sent VISA instructions, I was learning lyrics to my portion of a song, and… it was all happening in preparation for the 2nd ever, Annual World Youth Forum in Sharm El Shiekh. Well, it was all happening except for the plane tickets. Our host (Mario traveled with me as my manager) eluded to a date that I was going to be flying to Egypt but didn’t confirm and now we were on the eve of that date, and still without communication. I had a hunch though — as I often do — that the tickets were going to come. The only problem was, that he was home visiting his parents in Kwa-Zulu Natal, and if the tickets did come, he didn’t have anything packed.
I didn’t sleep and they did come at 12:03 pm that evening. Because of my hunch, I had already packed my bags for the 2-week trip, and at 3 am drove to Mario’s apartment to pack his bags (he had given me a key the week before saying, “You never know when it may come in handy”) in order for me to catch the flight to Johannesburg at 6 am in order for us to meet there travel to Pretoria, visit the Embassy and Ambassador for our Egyptian VISAs and be back at Johannesburg for our evening flight. *We had no way to understand how big the event was and how many people something like a ‘plane’ ticket had to go through — especially as it involved government.
When he walked out the gate at Johannesburg Airport, we started laughing. It was unbelievable. We were doing this. I phoned my boss and arranged to work remotely, we told our friends we were on our way to Egypt, laughing at the craziness that was about to ensue.
ARRIVING IN EGYPT
In our meeting with the Ambassador, he had spoken about how big the event was, but, the penny only dropped when we got off the plane at Sharm El Sheikh airport and were greeted with WYF 2018 banners on everything! From the planes themselves to the busses, to the stairwells and elevators and our personal limo driver. Yes, you read that right, our personal driver for any and all occasions.
We definitely had no clue as to how big it was or what we were getting into.
We were grateful to arrive at our hotel, the Hyatt Regency, to freshen up not long after landing. The weather was hot (heat like we’d never experienced before — just a minute out in the sun made you sweat bullets) and muggy, and we’d been traveling for a long time.
We were the first of the artists to arrive, I learned that there were about seven other artists from different countries that would also be singing alongside me, and so we could explore in the meantime. The hotel offered snorkeling from their private beach, and we knew that would be first on our list of things to do. The reef, they’d said, was only five-steps and a dive away. Say no more.
MEETING THE TEAM
The rest of the artists and their management arrived over the next two days, and we socializing with each of them: Carmen Soliman (Egypt), Adel Ebrahim (UAE), Amine Aminux (Morocco), Kostas Ageris (Greece), Carolina Russi (Italy), Fatin Shidqia (Indonesia) and myself from South Africa.
We were invited to sing the opening song for the World Youth Forum 2018 but, and were also required to film a music video that would play concurrently during our performance. We shot this over two days and rehearsed our performance at night. *You Can Watch The Music Video At The Beginning Of The Blog.
The weekend was a welcome respite from the production schedule and some of us quickly made plans to take a last-minute trip to Cairo (I mean, why would you come to Egypt and not visit Cairo — Read my Cairo In 24-Hours blog, here).
Mario going home the weekend before our trip turned out to be serendipitous as it ended up the last time he ever saw his mother. She passed away from cancer in the early hours of Saturday morning while we were on the bus back from Cairo. He left Egypt for home the next day.
THE BUILD UP
The next week came and we fell head-first into daily rehearsals each night in the build-up to the main event set for Thursday evening.
And, when Thursday eventually arrived, we were ushered into backstage by officials and waited as the anticipation rose! The World Youth Forum is a platform that allows promising youth from all over the world to meet in one place and engage views, recommend initiatives to decision-makers and influential figures, and you could feel the magic of the nations gathered in that one space.
I found it so apt that the grandson of our dear Nelson Mandela addressed the room just before we came to the stage to sing Men Kol Makan (which means From Everywhere in English) and people waved their flags, cheering for their bothers and sisters represented in that one place.
Beyond rounds of applause, limos, fancy hotels and elegant dresses, I left Egypt feeling full and feeling grateful. It is not everyday that things like this happen, and, it is not everyone to whom these things happen.
I continuously look forward to more adventures and even more mysterious invitations — and, can’t wait to see where one will come from next…
Read more about my travels, here (some practical blogs and some story blogs, like this one)…
- Cario In A Day
- My Top Amsterdam Tips
- Amsterdam, Through My Top 4 Coffee Shops
- Morocco, A Travel Light Story
- Top Morocco Travel Tips They Didn’t Tell You
Love,
Eden
#TheGoodSis
#TravelLight
