Nigeria, May 24 -- The nurses at Al Shifa Hospital in Makkah are well-trained, diligent and passionate about their work. They are very active as well. When I started to come around - returning to this world through the gate of the other world - I imagined the hospital as an army unit and the nurses as soldiers. Mostly Egyptians, they were active, agile young men aged between 23 and 35.

Among my favourites is Walid Abdel Elah Ahmed, an Egyptian. A strong, good and cheerful young man with a wife and a six-month-old baby girl, he clearly enjoys his job. I was always happy whenever he was assigned to me. The system there is that there are shifts, or "change of guards", every morning at 8 am and every evening at 8 pm. Each patient in the Int...