Students and faculty at New Century Charter School had the privilege of spending some time with a dozen visitors from Egypt recently.

The group consisted of 10 women involved in agriculture and two translators who are spending time in and around the Hutchinson area on an excursion organized by Dennis Berquist.

In addition to visiting farms, veterinary clinics and other agriculture-related industries during their 11-day stay, they spent parts of two days with faculty and students at New Century.

After a brief tour of the facility, they talked with a group of World History students, asking and answering questions about a variety of topics, bringing out cultural differences and similarities.

Students were introduced to information about agriculture, geography, family structures and education in Egypt. They discovered that as one generation follows another, last names are added on to a person’s name until the name gets too long, at which time the most distant name is dropped off.

Following the introductory talk, students asked numerous questions about money, climate, the importance of the Nile River, the pyramids, and the visitor’s perceptions of Minnesota.

Luke Jensen, a student at New Century, was excited to talk with the visitors as he has been planning on doing a project on the ancient Egyptian society, and the contacts he made will allow him to communicate electronically in order to attain information and verify the accuracy of the project that he is developing.

New Century faculty members also had an opportunity to spend time with the group after school where they continued their discussions on comparisons of schools, industry, agriculture and views of the U.S. government.

It was such a pleasant experience for all that the Egyptians modified their schedule and returned the following day in order to talk with more students who had not been able to attend the session the previous day.

When asked for their perceptions of their visit, Hamdi (one of the translators) said that they were impressed by U.S. individualism and timeliness and surprised by the influence of the U.S. media. They were also pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the Minnesota landscape and the friendliness of the people they have encountered.

Staff and students alike were inspired by the visit and exchanged e-mail addresses, promising to keep in touch and to continue the process of learning more about each other’s countries and cultures.