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If you look at segment of a pavement in the street. You will come to a similar conclusion like mine; Pavements mirror the state of Egyptian institutions.

Each segment is being swept and kept clean by a Kanas. Everyday, in the morning, he sweeps pieces of paper and cigarette butts. Finishes a segment and moves to the next. Regardless of his work, the pavement is still as ugly as it was. Still very dusty and looks awful. Every month a group of workers come to fix this pavement. They apply a layer of white and black paint. It will look fresh and bright for one day. The next day, it will look as it used to; poor and ugly. It is the shoddy structure of the pavement which is full of damages and dents that collects dust and dirt very quickly.

The pavement helps very few people. But will be a bad experience for almost everyone. Only few pedestrians use it to walk from one point to another. It is not accessible, it changes sizes and dimensions every few segments and follows no set of rules. For a blind man a pavement might be his worst nightmare. For an old man, it is a mountain to climb, the thought of it sends pain all over his arthritic joints. For a lively kid, it is the place to decorate his knees with wounds. For a toddler, it is exercise in pulling his arm out of its socket, as his mother pulls him upwards every few minutes so he can avoid hurdles.

Human rights groups condemn the trafficking and exploitation of kids used as camel jockeys. They lobby hard to stop the use of young children slaves in such a dangerous sport. In 2003, UAE responded by a law that prohibits children under 15 or weighing less than 45 kilograms to take part in the sport. However there are evidence that young kids are still used.

Qatar recently responded by developing, with a Swiss robotics firm, a remote controlled robotic camel jockey.

The poor animal will be controlled with a wireless remote!

Yay! Akheran, some content that belongs to our popular culture appears on the www. I found 5 picture books of your favourite cartoon character and national hero.

• [Bakkar and the little bird|http://www.icdlbooks.org/icdl/SaveBook?bookid=atfbird_00110001&lang=English]
• [Bakkar at the zoo|http://www.icdlbooks.org/icdl/SaveBook?bookid=atftzoo_00110005&lang=English]
• [Bakkar in the library|http://www.icdlbooks.org/icdl/SaveBook?bookid=atflbry_00110003&lang=English]
• [Bakkar loves school|http://www.icdlbooks.org/icdl/SaveBook?bookid=atfschl_00110004&lang=English]
• [Bakkar visits the dentist|http://www.icdlbooks.org/icdl/SaveBook?bookid=atfdent_00110002&lang=English]

UPDATE:

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Bakkar goes to Disney World, finds him

Started the pediatrics round, again.

Well, I need to explain this. The first ten days in the my internship. We were randomly distributed. I went to the pediatrics hospital in those few days. There, I got the worst flu in 15 years and had a good amount of grief and distress from the conditions of some children and the death of two of them.

After that, I had two months in Surgery. I learned lots of practical stuff. I didn't manage to attend lots of outpatient clinics, so I didn't really feel that I increased my knowledge of surgery. I enjoyed the Accidents and Emergency though. Lots of appendicitis, cholecystitis and renal colic. Most interesting were wounds and poly-trauma patients. Despite the most annoying thing about poly-trauma patients. They need lots of work.

Today, I couldn't find any information about [Aya|http://whirlpool.foolab.org/node/22]. The girl with a huge Subcutaneous Heamangioma. She was transferred to another unit.

All plans for ROC related matters collapse as everyone decides to abandon Cairo. Why not me then. I am in Marina for a couple of days.

UPDATE: I am back. Damn the me7war was so busy. I spent an hour in 8km. And as usual an air quality shock, while entering Cairo.

ANOTHER UPDATE:
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Marina from space.

Or, how to survive censorship.

What is going on with Bahraini web publishers is sad. They [will be facing legal action|http://gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=110287&Sn=BNEW&IssueID=28036] if they don't register their sites with the government, including sites hosted on servers outside Bahrain.

The good thing is; [Bahraini bloggers will do something about it|http://www.mahmood.tv/index.php/blog/1569].

What they are going to do will either back fire or provide them with the freedom they want. [We|http://www.egybloggers.com/], on the other hand, are entering a sensitive period. I am not sure if we will be always granted the level of freedom we have now. Our government did censor sites in the past.

I also have learned that there is an ISP reseller in Egypt that is blocking the [Egyptian Blogregator|http://manalaa.net/egblogs]. This was reported by [Boody|http://slashproc.net]. No one is sure if this is because the content of the aggregator or for other silly reasons. No one knows if this block was done by other ISPs, or not.

After the [Chinese cars|http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-04/15/content_434431.htm] that will be assembeled here.

I would like to present to you, the [Chinese university|http://english.people.com.cn/200504/25/eng20050425_182605.html], here is an excrept:

;:China and Egypt on Sunday signed an agreement on establishing the Egyptian Chinese University (ECU) in Cairo, the first Chinese university to be set up in the Middle East region.

Now, I can't really understand why do we need this. May be for business studies and technology. Which [Americans|http://www.aucegypt.edu/], [Germans|http://www.guc.edu.eg/], [British|http://www.britishcouncil.org/egypt-education-british-education-in-egypt.htm], Canadians and [French|http://www.universite-fe.edu.eg/] are all trying to do.

But, what are they going to teach in this Chinese university in regards to history, society and politics ? Would it praise the ideology of the People's Republic of China ? Will this university allow Egyptian students to discuss topics that are taboo in China ?

Here are some depressing facts about Hepatitis C in Egypt.

• Egypt has the [highest HCV prevelance worldwide|http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?issn=07374038&uids=12644558], rural areas have the highest level of infection.
• In the rural areas of the Delta, prevelance rate of positive HCV antibodies is around [24%|http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?issn=00359203&uids=9231192]. Cairo; 19%.
• It is the [most common cause of liver disease in Egypt|http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?issn=00029637&uids=12452500].
• In Egypt people who did the following are in a [higher risk for infection|http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?issn=02709139&uids=11124843]:
  ** previous injection chemotherapy for Bilharziasis*,
  ** blood transfusion,
  ** surgery,
  ** repeated use of syringes and needles.
• [91%|http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?issn=00221899&uids=10950762] of Egyptian HCV carriers are carrying genotype 4. Which has a poor response to therapy, compared to other 6 genotypes.

Well, I didn't blog about myself since this [post|http://whirlpool.foolab.org/node/22]. Three days later I started my General Surgery rotation. It is two months long. I had 10 days in pediatric surgery. Not much work, but the operations are very cool. Not enough to learn much though.

I learned lots of practical skills in the General Surgery and managed to see several operations. Unfortunately, the two months are approaching their end, and I didn't go to the outpatient clinic except once.

Demerdash hospital sucks. Two female patients on every bed. And the patient wards are more of a barn than something suitable for humans. Patients are left at night and one can hardly find a nurse visible. And there are LOTS of dumb logistical problems that delay everything.

After 6 years of not practicing any sport, I decided I couldn't leave my body to rust. I started jogging. Went twice. Last time I managed to do 4.43Km in 25 minutes. I was impressed that I can still run in the first place.