On the point for languages - in tourist locations, that's how it works. Lack of experience will be made up for verrrry quickly. Sorry, but that's how it is, don't shoot the messenger.
I got lucky - and I am the last English-only speaker that was hired by my dive centre. This was occasioned by the fact that my dive centre had recently acquired a deal with a british tour operator, and also that I had trained one of their other instructors.
And actually, I can do pretty well in German thanks - in the same way as many Egyptian dive guides, I can run a boat without having to speak English - but I can't teach Open Water. As for my Arabic, I am ashamed to say it's very poor, but I am not linguistically talented but at least I can communicate with our captains and bus drivers - it's very basic, but I do try.
There is indeed a significant contingent of english-only staff in Sharm. Many of those have been here for years, from an era when Sharm was - or at least its dive centres were - not as multi-lingual as today. I would suggest that multi-lingual instructors are in the majority these days. There are still jobs for english-only speakers, but for they are getting harder to find.
And Shadow - when you say that nobody wants us out - sorry but that's not true. I am all for the 10% rule being enforced; I was under the assumption that it already was, actually - at least, that seems to be the case in Sharm. There is, however a vociferous minority that wants us all out.
We live here and work here because we love it - pure and simple - this is not a job to do nor a country to live in if you don't love it. Sharm El Sheikh is built on foreign tourism; it's the only reason it exists. Foreign divers were recruited by first the Israeli and subsequently the Egyptian governments to promote diving in the region, and it's only the last 6 years that it got really silly. All the other diving hotspots in Egypt grew from that, as did the all-inclusive beer drinking holiday resort things that fill Sharm to overflowing these days. Hundreds of thousands of jobs and dollars generated from something that was, to a large extent, popularised by European dive tourism.
As a foreign dive tourist and now employee, I do not wish to sound like I feel I am therefore owed something for these reasons.
I'm not taking anything; most of my money goes straight back into the Egyptian economy (albeit though some of it may have been previously recycled in the UAE courtesy of Al Ahram breweries and fine Sakara beer); what I would like is the opportunity to do something that I love in a place I love to do it, without somehow feeling that I am not welcome here.
As for the quality of Egyptian guides and instructors? There is a great deal of talent and quality out there. I know this, because I work with some of them. There is also a great deal of ignorance and malpractice and sadly I see this coming mostly from the Egyptian DMs. For the named diving centres, this is not the case, and I've seen plenty of foreign dive staff doing stupid things, but there's this whole market of "book in the hotel, do a day's diving trip in Ras Mohamed" which means "you'll get 20 minutes scuba intro experience in Marsa Bareika (which is off limits to divers) with badly fitting gear in a short wetsuit in the middle of january" and this is the kind of operation where the casually signed off DM resides.
I speak only from what I see, and of course I don't see everything, but diving three times a day in the national park gives me a valid opinion, I think, much as I dislike having to write it. I hope Shadow and Solly and Co. don't take offence.
With or without us foreign folk as staff, Sharm will survive, Egpyt will find that, after the revolution, the poor will be a little less poor but still poor, the rich will be - as always - a little bit more rich, and the people in the middle will tell all of their friends on facebook. Just like any revolution in any country, just like the 80's rock band repeating the same old chords in a slightly different order to the last track on the album: Status Quo.
I'm quite happy here, thank you very much, I'd like to stay.
Sakaras are on me,
C.
