THE DAY'S NEWS

The day was sunnier than usual; the crocodiles at the bank of the river Nile didn't come out today. The local news reporter had gone out with his colleague to find a story that they could show to the public. Even though the news station was going to temporarily replace him with a new reporter just to see how things would go, he didn't mind. He was helping his colleague find any news that may seem interesting to the people in his locality.

For the past few days they had been unsuccessful with finding an interesting story. They decided to visit some tourist spots – maybe the tourists could provide some interesting stories. But before the two headed off to their first destination, they decided to take a lunch break nearby, where they met an archaeologist. Turns out that the archaeologist also had to go to some of the spots, so he offered to show them around and give them some ideas on what they could broadcast on TV.

The three had a stop at the pyramids of Giza which were crowded as usual. However, when they reached they saw people suffering from heatstroke right in front of their eyes! Maybe they could write about that? No, it wasn't a good idea. They took a stop near the Sphinx which was still crowded but not as much as the pyramids. They also took a little detour to visit the remains of the Library of Alexandria, where they met a bookworm who loved the idea of them doing an entire report on this historical site.

As the reporter walked from one destination to the next he got more and more restless. He started to look around the area, taking a break from thinking about ideas for the studio he worked at and just let his mind rest. Only then did he realise that Egypt looked different.

He always knew that barren deserts could be just as beautiful as the green meadows he lived in for a part of his life. Not every part of a desert will be covered in sand – there will always be some patches of greenery, and he lived in a very green area. When he reached the Al-Azhar Mosque, the reporter felt that the mosque was trying to tell him its history of thousands of years. As if the walls were about to show him years' worth of evolution, since the time it had been built.

When 2 PM rolled around it was nearly time for the local TV station to deliver its daily news. He asked the news studio if they can tell the people of their locality about some of their historical sites.

The reporter chose the Al-Azhar Mosque to broadcast for today's news. The news studio agreed to this idea.

The day's news went something like this: Hello, today you won't see the local news reporter in front of your screen. As you know, for the past few days we haven't had success in finding any news so today we'll be doing something different. We will be talking about our country's historical sites and their significance to our culture.

The reporter decided he'd take the next day off. So the next day, he got ready for an early walk before the sunrise to go see it from a popular sightseeing spot. It took him about an hour to reach his first destination. After watching the sunrise he decided to take his breakfast by the ruins of the Library of Alexandria. He also took a long hike to get some fresh air. The reporter saw how beautiful the desert plains looked. When he reached the bank of the river Nile he saw crocodiles had come out and were rolling around in mud and decided he shouldn't try to get too close to the Nile that day.

By 10 o'clock the news reporter had reached at the site of the Sphinx and had seen the broken nose of the Sphinx, and thought about why it was broken. He had a few theories but he thought to himself, "I don't need to worry about that. Today's my day off."

As 3 PM rolled around he stopped at Karnak. He also decided to visit the statue of Ramses II because why not? The news reporter decided that natural beauty wasn't the only significant part of Egypt; its history was too.

Later on the news reporter took a taxi to visit the national museum of Egypt. He thought that admiring things all day wasn't going to make him feel better; he also needed to know about the history and culture of the country he was living in. When he entered the museum he wasn't expecting to see things that school had taught him during his childhood. He saw everything he already knew, which kind of disappointed him. Still he took a walk through the museum to see if there was anything that he didn't know was mentioned anywhere.

After the news reporter's trip to the museum, he reached his last destination: the Al-Azhar Park. It was nice to just sit down and reflect on his day and experiences at the different areas of this country and seeing them for what they are. Although his day was different than he had imagined it to be, he had fun. This experience was useful, he thought, now that he had more ideas for his series of reports for the local news channel.

The writer is a student of Class 6 at Scholars' School & College.