wa7ed mn el nas

Last time I was in Egypt I had to do some trips using the underground (subway), well I won’t argue with you on how many flaws can be detected or how crowded it is, crowded to the point that your body will start to take the shape of whatever ur leaning at, but hands down it’s the best means of transportation in Egypt, it’s very time efficient - the average car speed In Cairo is 13 km/hr-.

On one trip to el Maadi . I managed to get a seat (which deserves a big fat WOW), I only managed to enjoy it for like 1 station, coz one old man and his wife came in and they looked at me with that freaking kind smile on their face, I offered them my seat -which is a rare commodity by the way- they gave me some nice words and a prayers, but I wasn’t bugged at all coz it was only 2 stations to my destination, listening to my mp3 player, just before the train leaves the station in which I lost my seat, I took a glimpse of the ppl walking by the platform, thousands of them they all look utterly in a hurry.

That man was walking among the crowd he seems completely normal holding some papers in his hand, he has the most Egyptian-look features I’ve ever seen in my life; the average height, the slightly dark skin, the curly short black hair, the body that seems ok but that is in fact, very scrawny from the malnutrition with a small belly, wearing some sleazy clothes.

Just by looking at his face u can tell the amount of suffering he is dealing with, from the wrinkles he carries along on his forehead; he seems twice his age, moving quickly with a bit of hobbling.

That man was going to “Mogama3 el Tahrir / el Tahrir complex” .. Coming from some of Cairo’s shantytowns, he is a blacksmith working his ass off… to hardly supply his family needs, this was his second visit to el mogama3 in a month, his first visit was concerning his son, he wanted to transfer him from the school that has been demolished by a landslide - luckily his son didn’t go to school that day coz he had to help his father to work an extra shift to bring together some extra cash for his grandmothers medications- but the school told him that all the records of all the students are lost and there is nothing they can do he should go to the educational administration in mogma3 el Tahrir, he made sure that he has got all the papers he has got concerning anyone in his family since the day they were brought to life to make sure he wouldn’t go back and forth to get some silly piece of paper, skipping all the bureaucracy and the tons of silly comments hailing upon him from every clerk in there, they (the administration) finally told him that they will “take care of everything”.

Although they didn’t take care of anything, his second visit has nothing to do with his first, for the second visit he was going to the health administration, his mother had a serious disease and she had to undergo a surgery to keep her alive but the only hospital that can perform this procedure requires a down payment or an insurance coverage and he’s got nothing literally nothing, he spend every penny on her falsely prescribed medicines by the same doctor who told him that she needs to undergo the operation, so he was going to the health administration aiming high to have her surgery paid for by the government expecting the least to do nothing at all.

The wagon started moving and I came back to life after that immersion in these long thoughts in that short period of time that lasted for couple of minutes, what can possibly be running in that man’s head, he might have more problems that I could possibly imagine, the horrible scenario I drew maybe to him is just the normal daily issues that he should deal with and he is not bugged by it anymore .. he has something else to deal with, which none of us could possibly imagine wat that can be, or maybe……. it’s just my imagination, and he is just living a great life.

But what I m sure of is that as imaginary as this story might sound, there is someone in Egypt suffering beyond my imagination.

Ziad El Adawy