Fayoum - 20th of June, 2006

I wrote this after one of my field visits to Fayoum...

Fayoum, a governorate less than an hour away from the capital of Cairo. A place I visited as a tourist, and a week later as a development specialist. And no one would ever imagine the existence of such communities and such large number of people living under these conditions and such circumstances.

I was asked to conduct some interviews on a trivial issue whose results I already knew. However, the visits have added a lot to my personality, experience and emotions that I appreciate every single second I spent in the field. I went to this school were I spent about an hour talking to 20 girls whose ages ranged from 7 to 12 years. They were creating their own statues out of dough and coloring them with water colors. They made some very nice artistic statues of turtles, the pyramids, and snakes. When I started talking to them, they all smiled and laughed with shyness and whenever I asked a question, they would stand up to answer it out of politeness. They are so simple and fragile, yet strong and responsible for so many tasks. Even their going to school is done just for the sake of them getting food at the end of the month for their brothers and sisters. It’s an economic need. A need to feed the huge households.

One of the houses I was invited to was made of bricks. It was so close to the school and looking at the terraa. They invited me to sit in this room on a rug (7aseera) and I had a chance to conduct my meaningless interview and ask them some questions that had nothing to do with my study. All the people in fayoum are so generous. Although they are very poor, you can’t pass by a house without being invited by it’s inhabitants for lunch. I was asked by all my interviewees to have lunch or have tea at least with pie, but I simply couldn’t add a burden to those families by consuming their own food. However, I drank some tea at one of the rich houses in the rural settlement I was visiting. This house actually had a room furnished with golden chairs and a big couch. They made me tea and brought me their electric fan, which is probably one of the luxuries in the village. They also brought me the kids into this relatively luxurious room to interview them and for me not to have to move in the sun and hot weather. However, I insisted on going to the school, where I met the children and their fathers. The kids were adorable. One of them is called Rahma, which is mercy in English. Her name touched me as well as her very cunning and naughty smile. I will never forget her wit and smartness. She is 7 years old and her father died leaving her with 2 brother and 2 sisters. Her older brother is the wealthy man who invited us to his house for tea and cool air. He is married to 2 women and has 4 kids himself. His eldest daughter is 18 and told me with a very nice smile that she’s getting married by the end of this year. And when I asked her if she will be having a job or staying at home like most women in her village, she informed me that she has a diploma and wishes to teach in community schools.

During the interviews, Rahma sat right in front of me in a round table where all the girls and one boy sat and I chatted with them all. Rahma answered all the questions for all the children sitting around. She knew everything about each family. And when I teased her by telling her to give a chance for others to answer for themselves, she gave me this very naughty smile and never stopped talking all the time. She was so amusing… I definitely hope to track her journey of life. She is so bright and so adorable (MSA). I will never forget her. And when I asked them all to write their names down for me on a sheet of paper to check their hand writings, I was impressed by their ability to actually write their names in the extreme poverty they are living in. They go to school to get the food for their family, they work on their fields with their parents, they cook and clean the house, and they fetch things from the market for their mothers. They basically do everything at such a young age. A 7 year-old girl like Rahma, does all these tasks and still have the energy and time to play with her brother’s kids who are older than she is.

Another family whose size shocked me is one consisting of 9 children. Hanan actually has 8 brothers and sisters and her father died. She goes to school, again, to obtain food for her family, and her eldest brother, whose married and has 2 girls, farms the land (with rice and vegetables she said), on which the 2 families totally depend. I was amazed by the ability of these people to survive all the hardships of life, and I actually kept thanking God for everything I have. Water is a luxury, health is a luxury, food is a luxury, even the paved roads is a luxury for people of my country.

I felt happiness that I have never felt before. I felt satisfied for the first time in my life. Going to these areas makes me happy and meeting those people and listening to their problems and seeing them smile at me makes my day J. I loved everything about it, the dirt, the smell, the crowdedness, the kids running around and smiling at me with shyness, the parents inviting me for tea, the simple houses, the cattle moving all round me, the ducks swimming in the lake with the ladies washing their clothes and dishes in the same lake and the kids bathing with the cattle. I simply was amazed by everything and happy. Happy for no reason but the fact that I created a smile on those people’s faces and shared a minute of their lives.