An hour and fourty five minutes to drive from Down Town Cairo (Tahrir square to be exact) to Heliopolis... A distance that takes 20 minutes on a friday, when I'm not speeding... The streets are not wide enough for the huge number of cars going in the same direction all at the same timing... And still, the country imports more and more cars, and the old ones are not being destroyed still... We seem to use car that age back to the 60's when there were no cars... The cars that advanced countries put in museums as a piece of antique, still moves on the Egyptian unbearable streets..
I opened the tap this morning to find brown water coming out... Although I live in the decent, urban district of heliopolis, which supposedly comprises high class residents, still the water came out brown and I had to wash my face with bottled water... I couldnt wash the mug to drink coffee... I coudnt take a shower... This is one of the basic facilities that a human being cannot live without... And it happens in Egypt.
I work in Tahrir, in a government organization; a ministry if I have to be precise... My job basically involves the development of my country one way or another... I studied economics and development with the aim of doing something, making a change, making life better for the coming generations... I had a dream of making a change, but after working in the government, I realised that there can never be a "change"... there can never be "development"...
We are supposedly hired as "the well educated" people that would help this country develop. However, you still find those people who got the job because they have connections. And when you sit and have a conversation with most of them, you realise that they know nothing at all about the world... They are mostly dumb and are there to stablise the corrupt system... They unaware of anything but the fact that we should "spend" and benefit the most out of the money of the donors and recieve the highest salary possible... How can I work with a team of 3, when 2 of them know nothing about the project we work on? And still, I have to obey, lie, become a hypocrite, and accept to do humiliating things that are much lower than my level of thinking...
Then comes the building that fell in Alex. I knew a whole family living in that building... 2 parents, and 4 girls... They all died just because the person responsible of taking care of the maintainance of this building wasnt there to do his job... Or maybe he didnt know in the first place that there is something wrong with the building... They all died, and the authorities started doing something about it, when it fell, when the people died...
And the 8 to 13 year old kids who take a boat to the coasts of Turkey and Italy to find jobs as illegal imigrants. Why the hell would a kid think of that dangerous step??!! Is it that hard to live in Egypt? It is harsh enough that it encourages children to risk their lives, leave their families and their country and throw themselves in the middle of the sea/ocean and swim to a shore, where people talk a totally different language? Are we living in hell and nobody told me about it? And Sawiris announced in the "Akhbar el Yoom" Newspaper today that he is making available a number of 2500 jobs especially for the families of those victims... Thank you Sawiris, who totally believe that "masr awla b awladha"... Should I laugh, or be happy that there is hope?
What about the traffic guy who seems me talking on the phone while driving and once I give him 10 pounds, he removes the ticket? What about the blackouts we get in the summer because of the high use of air conditions at homes? What about the wrong ingredients in bottled water that was discovered by the consumer protection authority and the government had nothing to do about? What about the litter and garbage thrown everywhere by the people? I can continue forever, if I have the time...
The other day, I fought with my best friend online over the fact that he hates Egypt and that he hides his identity coz he doesnt want anyone to know about his shameful nationality... It was so harsh to hear someone say that about his own country of origin... He was born here and lived here all his life, but he couldnt make it after that... He couldnt continue the struggle... He couldnt tolerate the corruption... Especially after living abroad... I fought hard, and told him that I still have hope to make a change... I still have hope to make it better... But today, I lost hope... Today, I decided to leave this development/government/crappy business and move to the private sector, where u worry about nothing but consumerism and utility.
Thank you Om El Donia, You proved me wrong... I shouldnt have loved you that much...
