Though you may not have read (or plan to read) the 7 Habits, you don't need to know anything about the book to appreciate these 7 lessons which match at least the titles if not the spirit of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits.

Be Proactive: At first, when we arrived in Assiut, people would say to us, "We'd love to have you over for dinner." Then, we would sit alone in our apartment and wait for the phone to ring. It didn't. We learned that here, it is the visitor who must invite himself or herself to the hosts. Well, once we figured this out, the invitations started pouring in (well, we were doing the pouring), and our social life took quite the upswing.

Begin with the end in Mind: "Will it be on the Exam?" You teachers out there know this question. Guess what? Egyptian students ask it, too. So, as we work with the teachers to improve their English and give them new teaching methods, we too must be aware that all the ideas we give the teachers will ultimately be tested by whether they improve (or at least maintain) exam performance.

Put First Things First: Time is precious. We all know that. So, when we visit a busy principal, we keep this Habit solidly in mind. Whenever we meet a principal, we immediately set to… exchanging many Arabic platitudes and greetings and enquiring after one another's families, etc. But then, it's right to… drinking tea. After all, you can't conduct business with a dry palate. And then, after the tea it's… well, actually, after the tea, we do get down to business. We need to remind ourselves often that these preliminaries are the "first things" of this culture.

Think Win/Win: Whether we like it or not, we often find ourselves haggling over prices. It is very stressful for us, but really, we should be thinking about it in terms of Win/Win! For example, if a taxi drives us across Assiut and then "extorts" 25 piastres more than the set fare, we still had a cheap (30c) ride across town, AND the underpaid taxi driver has an extra 20% for his family. From an objective perspective, it's hard to see anyone come out of this the loser. And the driver enjoyed a good haggle to boot!

Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood: Sometimes, when the Arabic gets too thick, we find ourselves concentrating so hard on formulating our own sentences that we miss key words (like "not") and suddenly realise we've agreed to purchase 6 camels at twice their normal price in addition to buying our small water. Well, this specific example hasn't happened, but communicating in a second language has these sorts of pitfalls, and although "smile and nod" is sometimes easiest, it does leave gaps in comprehension. So, when possible, we do try to understand first before we cobble together our own sentences.

Synergize: The first person to provide a viable, coherent definition for the word "Synergize" will receive a picture of "Lake Camels" by email.

Sharpen the Saw: Sharpen the saw, mend the pants, fix the suitcase… In Canada, when things broke -- especially small things, we would generally chuck them and replace them. Here, because labour is so much cheaper, we can often get things repaired. For example, we recently had the screen in our mobile phone repaired for 25LE (about $5 CDN). Two broken lamp switches and a faulty power bar? 2LE. Try doing THAT on the other side of the Atlantic.