CAIRO (Egypt Today), March 18, 2008:
OMM AHMED | Wife of Bawab - Gateman or Doorkeeper
The true meaning of poverty was rammed home as I stood in our drafty garage talking to Omm Ahmed, our bawab’s wife. Shabrawi, her husband, had gone off to buy bread for the family. I asked if he had gone to the bakery next to the supermarket a few blocks down the street; after all, they sell perfectly good, fresh baladi bread for 40 piasters a piece. Not that expensive, you would say. Omm Ahmed regarded me as if I was crazy. “Do you think we are going to spend all the money we make on bread? Shabrawi is in Arab El-Maadi, standing in line to get the five-piaster bread,” she chastised.
And chastised I was. I consider myself an empathetic person. I have been to and reported on slums and ‘poor’ districts for longer than I generally like to admit. I have interviewed people living six or seven to a room, people who make under LE 200 per month. But the very basic everyday image of what this really means never hit me so hard as when I had that enlightening chat with Omm Ahmed.
It’s enough to make you wonder about the state of poverty in Egypt.
..........
HUSSEIN SHAABAN | Retired civil servant, father, grandfather, 72
My pension is LE 194, which is good as pensions go. But this money is not enough for anything. We spend it during the first week of the month, and then we borrow from whoever will lend to us for the rest of the month.
I have five daughters and one son. All the girls were married and living with their husbands, but the youngest got divorced a year ago and is now living with us together with her three children. She does not work, but sometimes gets a job altering dresses and then we have enough to get us through a day or two. My son is married and lives with us. I had to agree. His mother and I gave up our room: He lives in it with his wife and two kids. My wife and I, together with my daughter and her kids, sleep in the living room. We get by, alhamdulillah.
My son is a good craftsman, but is moody sometimes. He keeps quitting jobs, so one month he makes money and two or three months he does not. We have to make this pension last, which is becoming more and more difficult every day. Prices are increasing all the time. The money is barely enough to keep us eating bread.
I hope the ration card works. I have an old one, and am working on getting new ones for my grandchildren. We really need the government’s help. It must remember the masses, the public.
We love the President, may God grant him good health. Please tell him to remember us. I am sure he would not agree to what is happening to us.
By Manal el-Jesri
Read full report in EGYPT TODAY
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