Bread - the staff of life

So, it’s Friday again and so Mohamed is out and I am at home and have some time to write. Two weeks today and by this time I will be safely tucked up in Lahni’s house in Maroochydore, having spent over 24 hours on the road and in the air and having kept a couple of appointments on the Sunnie Coast, hopefully managing to stay awake all day so that I can get over the jet lag a little quicker.

As I said it’s a long way home – I leave Cairo at 7.30 pm on Wednesday night and I get to Dubai at 5 minutes past midnight on Thursday (actually only a three hour flight but I’m moving forward through time). I get to spend a fabulous 8 hours at the Dubai terminal which, regardless of the fact that is it the middle of the night, will be packed and buzzing and I will be very lucky if I find a spare spot on the floor to catch some sleep. At 8.45 am (Dubai time) I take off for Brisbane via Singapore, a journey of around 16 hours flying time, landing me at Brisbane at 7.00 am on Friday 30th, seven hours ahead of Cairo time (now we are on daylight saving here). A quick trip up to Maroochydore in time to get me to my first appointment at 10.30 am I hope.

While one part of me gets more and more excited I must admit another part of me recognises that I will really miss Mohamed, I mean really miss him. He will go and stay with his sister Hagar so I know that he will be extremely well looked after, better than I look after him I’m sure (even though I am getting the cooking under control), and with the exception of the massages. Still, it’s amazing how quickly he’s become quite indispensable to me and it will be hard to leave him behind.

It’s been a pretty good week with a few ups and downs. First there was news that the Hyundais wouldn’t be available for 2 months, reversed later in the week by the news that we could have them in the next week, imported from Dubai. Then there was the office that was on the market and off the market. And there were the turtledoves nesting behind one of the air-conditioner units that we have been really enjoying watching and feeding. On Tuesday the mama vanished and on Tuesday night the first egg hatched. Unfortunately we’ve had to watch the poor little baby struggle and finally succumb. If I hadn’t been leaving I would have tried feeding it but it wouldn’t have been self-sufficient in any way in 2 weeks. And last but certainly not least for me was the realisation that Mohamed wouldn’t be able to come to Australia at all. By the time I leave we will have 5 cars and drivers all depending on him to find the work and keep the books, collect the accounts and pay the bills. Unfortunately, there just isn’t anyone else who can do it for us at this time. For a number of reasons I’m really very disappointed.

And of course world news has covered those two huge disasters in China and Burma. Such incredible loss of life and devastation, so much tragedy on such a grand scale.

Today we had a really nice day, after the mosque we met Rania and Hagar and the boys (and Allaa after he finished work) at Felfela, well one of the Felfela chain of restaurants. This one has a large area with a stage and on Friday afternoons and evenings it has a floor show of middle eastern music and dancing and a man with an excellent balancing act. It was sort of the first place Masry took me out when we were just beginning to discuss marriage, so it brought back some nice memories as well. It was so good to see the ladies again, even if we hardly share any conversations there’s something very pleasant just being in their company. Perhaps because it is the company of women. And the boys are so cute of course. When Omar fell asleep today I took him from Rania and I had a wonderful long snuggle – about an hour. Before that we played some hand games and I got lots of smiles. Before I leave for home I really want to take the camera to the house (or have them come here again) and do some portraits of the boys as they are all beautiful looking children with real character – ideal portrait subjects.

I’m sorry I can’t put any pictures of them with this – Masry has asked that I don’t put any photos of either his sisters or the children on the net.

This week I also found another copy of my favourite magazine – Egypt Today - and read some really interesting stuff about the Egyptian economy and society that surprised me. Here’s a quick recap of a few of the latest official statistics:

- inflation is running at 14.4% as at March (6.9% in December last year)
- bread and grain prices increased by almost 50% in the first 3 months of this year (UN figures)
- 20% of Egyptians live below the poverty line of US$2 per day and another 20% hover just above it
- approximately 50 million people eat subsidized bread every day at an average of 3.2 pieces per person (220 million loaves)
- smuggling, selling or hiding subsidized bread is now a crime
- 29% of GDP is spent on food subsidies (75 billion Egyptian pounds)
- the export of rice has been banned until October
- around 40% of Egyptian marriages end in divorce (this one was a big surprise)

There is a food crisis in many countries (particularly African countries) of course but I must admit, although I’ve seen the queues at the government bread outlets I hadn’t realized the extent of the problem, as I don’t see any news in English except on BBC World, for which both Egypt and Australia do not exist – unless George Bush visits Egypt or Australia is playing cricket. According to my magazine source there was a shooting in the queues in February and someone standing in the queue was also run over. They estimate the number of deaths attributable directly to the queuing problem to be between 7 and 15. Obviously the bread and grain shortage and sharply escalating food prices are serious national issues and although the government has put a number of strategies in place to fix some of this it may take a little while yet to significantly improve the bread situation and of course even longer to resolve the inflation issue.

What I do see on a day-to-day basis is that many Egyptians live on a tiny wage and add to their quality of life with the tips they receive for almost every service or transaction. Of course there’s the usual tip on top of your bill at restaurants or coffee shops. Every visit to a bathroom anywhere means a 1 pound tip for the attendant (and interestingly no-one minds if you just go into a shop or food outlet to use the toilets). When you sit in a parked car and the man sweeping the street comes along past you, it’s a 1 pound tip. You pay for your food at the street takeaway and add a 1 pound tip for the man who fills your order. There’s a 1 pound tip for the man who makes your coffee, packs your bags at the supermarket, fills your car with petrol or the child who wants to wipe over your windscreen when you stop (especially if your car has just been cleaned and you don’t want it done). There’s the one pound tip for any man who helps you park in the street or in a car park. There are bigger tips for the tradesmen, the men who install your appliances or come to fix them, who deliver your furniture or clean your car, who cut your hair or the women who wax your legs. At the current exchange rate for Oz dollars, one pound is equivalent to 20 cents. But if you live on around 5-12 pounds per day, one pound makes a huge and significant difference. But also over the course of a month it also makes a hidden difference to our cost of living by probably two or three hundred pounds. But it’s worth it and I’m glad each day that Mohamed has a good heart and is happy to share what we have with those who so obviously have less.

Time to go to bed – I’ll be in touch again as soon as I can

Love to everybody

Lyndall

The search goes on

Taken at Sokhana - my first sightings of the Red Sea

Hi everyone

It’s Friday night and Mohamed is out with his friend at the café. Although as I've reported before Egyptian men are very used to "café" society and Masry certainly is, he has decided that one night a week will be fine for him if it is OK with me (much better than 3 or 4 or 5) so Friday night will often be the night I write …

Not a lot of news this time round as I have had some kind of stomach bug most of the week and have kept myself quiet in the house while Masry has been out and about seeing the companies for whom the Coasters have worked and presenting end of month accounts etc. and meeting with the drivers.

A few people have asked me about “the company” I write about and the vehicles. Here’s the story. Towards the end of last year the government announced that they wouldn’t approve any new company licenses for tourism companies in early 2008 and when they did begin to license companies again the fees would be significantly higher. Masry has long had a dream to own his own company working in tourism, beginning with a company that provides transport for tourists (a Level C company). So Masry duly made an application at the beginning of December, only to be told that the doors had already closed and they didn’t know when they would begin to approve applications again.

As well as fees to pay (quite substantial ones in the tens of thousands of US dollars) there are other requirements for a tourism transportation company. You must have a certain amount of money in the bank (200,000 Egyptian pounds) that must stay there for at least a year (I assume as a sort of guarantee), and you must have vehicles that provide over 100 seats. So once you do all this and can operate your company you must prove yourself for at least a year and then you can move up until you eventually can operate a Level A company, which can offer the full range of services, accepting tourists from outside Egypt, selling tickets, providing guided tours etc.

Now, the papers have been lodged with the Ministry of Tourism and the waiting goes on. But meantime there are other things that can be done. To begin with you can purchase vehicles and come to an arrangement with an existing company for them to be registered under their name and umbrella, so to speak. For this you pay several thousands of pounds each year. You also pay all costs associated with the vehicle and employ the driver and you are responsible for finding work for the vehicle. The vehicle wears the name and logos of the sponsoring company (and count towards their seat provision requirements). You take the money direct from the companies for the work done. If you get your own company at some stage the vehicles are then transferred to your name.

So that is what Masry is doing at the moment. To begin with he purchased two Toyota Coasters in January. They have been working since the beginning of March. There is also an order in with Toyota for a Hiace and with Hyundai for 2 H1s, all of which should be here soon, in a matter of a month. The Hiace will be placed with the same company (Mena) while the Hyundais will be placed with a different company (GITS – Gabry Inter Travel Service).

One of the other things that you can do is to buy an existing company (at any level) that someone wants to sell. This may be a company that has been operating as a going concern, or a company that has been approved but has never operated. In each case you really buy the “paper” from the owner. So that has been an ongoing search with the involvement of lawyers and people who work in the government and many others, usually men who know someone who knows someone. Or maybe with the help of a lawyer for an important man or the driver of a government official (or even the driver of the wife of a government official) – all at a price of course. This is Egypt after all.

Several companies have been located but each time Masry comes home and says “Congratulations (Mabrook), now you own a company”, there’s a problem in the next day or so. The seller changes his mind, or the lawyer finds that they owe taxes or have another problem with the government, or the price suddenly goes up out of reach. Masry’s search has been unsuccessful so far.

And there’s a third alternative. An application has been lodged with the lawyer (and government I think) with a fee paid to the lawyer of course, for a Level A company, which is (by all accounts) to be approved in a year’s time. Once the paper is in our hands a further substantial fee is paid to the lawyer along with the licensing fee to the Ministry. So that’s also in train.

To help fill in time while we wait we have also been looking for an office and trying to decide whether to buy now or to rent when the time comes. Currently we are looking on the estate at the new buildings going up on the first street facing the road.

Last weekend the government announced a 30% increase in salaries for those workers for whom it sets the salary scale. That was on the public holiday that as far as I could make out is a little like Labour Day in that it’s for workers. Two days later the government also announced significant increases in taxes and prices on many items, many of 30%+ increases but some less – petrol, oil and diesel, cigarettes, steel, cement, new vehicles, vehicle registration fees to name a few items. The office we looked at on Monday that was 350,000 pounds is today 400,000. We’re having a think about what to do. I’m afraid if we wait another year we’ll never afford to buy. The upside I guess is that the house has gone up significantly in value virtually overnight. It will take a little while to see what effect it will have on food prices and the cost of living in general.

I presume it makes the news in Oz but there is great consternation in many places about the cost of food. The UN has shortfalls in the monies promised to provide food relief in Africa. There were riots in Lebanon yesterday about food prices (although this seems to have now turned quite political between Hesbollah and the government) and there are problems across Africa. There was also a major demonstration in Cairo a few weeks ago about the same issue and about wages.

I don’t see enough news in English to know what the cause of this is exactly – is it all tied up with the situation in the States? I have noticed how the Ozzie dollar and the US dollar are neck and neck, as everything here revolves around US dollars I guess that’s a good thing for me for now. But any food crisis can’t be good for the world as a whole.

Looking forward to seeing some of you when I get home...


Lots of love for now

Lyndall