Writing about one’s life experiences can be fun but also extremely eye opening. This book was truly an act of love for me. With a genuine smile on my face, I would sit at my desk for many hours, write my memories down on my laptop, and dream once more of being back in Egypt. This book has also been a blessing to me in many ways. It kept me from being so homesick for Egypt and my friends there. It also provided me the opportunity to relive my life with my Egyptian friends and to record permanently these special memories. Finally, it is now giving me the great honor to share with others a look at Egypt and its people through the eyes of an ordinary American woman.
The process of writing my book was very methodical and carefully planned. I knew from the very first day that I wanted this book to be read by people all over the world—not just Americans and Egyptians, so I decided to make the language simple and clear enough to be read easily by non-native English readers and also to be easily translated into other languages if needed. I wanted to portray the special events I shared with my new Egyptian friends as well as the ordinary day-to-day routine of living in a foreign country and trying to adapt to a new lifestyle and culture. I wanted to show a realistic image of my life in Egypt—the good, the bad, the truth. I wanted to highlight as many Egyptians as I could, including my remarkable students who taught me as much as I taught them. I wanted so much to put a positive image of Egypt back into the eyes of the public who had witnessed so much protesting and violence in the streets in the past year.
So many special moments occurred during the times I lived in Egypt. It was at times somewhat difficult to decide what to include or discuss and what to ignore or leave out. Occasionally after the completion of my book, I have thought of other stories or events or details I left out that might have been interesting to include, but overall I have no regrets. The words flowed freely from my mind as I was writing. As a teacher who taught writing to numerous students for many years, I do believe that the first spontaneous thoughts that enter a writer’s mind can often be the best, especially if passion for your topic is a part of your writing process as it was for me with my book. So would I go back and change anything? The answer is no—at least not as far as the content is concerned. However, even though I acted as my own editor and felt competent doing this because of the literally thousands of papers I have evaluated as a teacher, I did find two errors in the book. One was a typo—a left out parenthesis—and the second mistake was a problem with subject and verb agreement which as an English teacher is unforgiveable to make, so I am a little upset with myself that I did not see this in time to correct it before publication of my book. Hopefully, only experts in English will discover where these mistakes are. This is my wish anyway.
Overall I am pleased with what I have created. I chose a variety of events in my life, including 153 personal photos which in themselves were a problem because the resolution was not up to the high quality needed for publishing and had to be fixed, but they had to be in there as far as I was concerned because it was another unique and creative way for my story to be told. Finally the book enabled me to share many of my previous life messages and my profound new insights gained while living in Egypt. My book will be used as my new platform to continue to teach, to inspire, to entertain, and to enlighten readers and new students all over the world.
Randi D. Ward
April 12. 2013
