When we started working in the project “We Try…” we never knew and we might never know where it will end. We as Ikhtyar knew that we should start by learning about “other women” so we are not deceived by the fact that we talk in the name of other women and girls whom we never met. We knew that working in Minya won’t be easy, it won’t be east to knock on the door of the Misr Association for Development in El Barsha village in Malawi district and say: “We want to learn and we want to try together”> It took us a year to experiment, to learn and to share stories, a full year to learn about our privileges that are offered by the city and the agency of women and girls in rural places.
Sharing, willingness to learn and understand were the main characteristics of the whole experience. The experience of drawing the borders of the place so we understand it as comers from Cairo, sharing food and outings to learn about the surroundings and to discuss the tools we will use to reflect on the process. We chatted for hours to develop our work methods, the messages in mid of the nights to reflect our disappointments. The excitement of writing a theatre performance together, the co direction of it> We can say a lot but shortly we can describe it as “ when we went and never came back”, we came back with a new understanding and we will continue to learn and discuss, thanks to Misr Association and Megraya.
