Over the past years I used to listen over and over Egypt is very poor country. People live in deep poverty, there are no fortune, no education neither good manners. People are insulting, not respecting others and even killing each other.
The most important question of all of this – IS THAT REALLY TRUE?
Specially, Is Egypt Poor country? Well, let me little bit describe my point of view on poverty in Egypt……
In Egypt nowadays we have two main sectors: Extremely rich and extremely poor. Of course we have also people in the middle phase but its not too much as the two previously mentioned sectors.
You may now ask yourself which one of the sector prevails? and it is really controversial topic and each of person will answer you differently depending on his life` s experiences.
So before I tell you my opinion I want to mention few facts about the wealth of almost all people here.
FEW FACTS
1.BRIDE
If a lady get married so she will have an engagement and 2 wedding. And the man who will marry her, he must bring her some amount of a gold. The amount of the gold depends on dealing with the bride`s family. Some family accept only one ring, another wants 2 ring, necklace, gold watch, bracelet etc…simply everything what you can imagine of gold. So the bride determines the price for which she is going to marry.
Also mostly on engagement the bride has some jewelry and on the wedding she will receive totally different and new one.
But whats surprising people who live in bigger cities and they are actually supposed to have more money so they are able to marry for lower price. And people who lives in countryside and where they are supposed to be really very poor they are gonna marry only for really a big amount of money..
And if you want to know why it is so – firstly its really very old Egyptian tradition from pharaoh`s time and secondly the women here are thinking if they get divorced so they can sell the gold and use the money on her new life. So we can say its some protection for the woman and also depends how much they trust the man to who they are going to marry.
2. Home
After the man engaged the selected lady, he must bring her home – house or a flat in which they will stay. And pay attention – they do not borrow the flat, they really buy it so they own it. Also the woman must like the flat and together they buy equipment.Again pay attention – not only the woman buy the equipment, the man pay half of the equipment.
But important is the man must keep the life style of the woman on which she is used from her father`s house.
3. Work
The man also must provide his daily, monthly or yearly income and of course a work. Here the best work position for you is to be a doctor or engineer. You will have a lot of money, and all the girls will wants to marry you.
And by showing the work and income you make the lady sure of her future life and that you will be able to care about her in any situation. And of course we will not lie on each other, every woman wants to have a comfortable life.
Some girls also wants the man to have a car or place to stay in holiday – the best in the sea side etc.. Simply again it depends on the girl which life she is going to choose and accept.
Please do not misunderstand me in this point, because we have a lot of girls or ladies in Egypt also working and some are very successful and rich from her own work. But in Egypt if the girl earn some money by herself so its only her money on her own use. she is not forced to give it on a food or family or to her husband. of course if she wants she can give any time but it must be her own decision.
And also mostly working women are unmarried women. Why?? Because Egyptians love to have a lot of children. 2,4,6 sometimes more…And its very rare that some one has only 1 kid. so with such amount of children its really hard to go to the work so they stay at home and focus on the children and husband. But of course they have a hobbies – they are NOT prisoners !
Few times I saw married woman working but honestly – she did not have more than 2 kids, someone helped her with the kids, or she was already old with adult kids, or she worked from home with someone.
But the important thing The Man must be able to feed his family since the start to the end.
4. Divorce
Before the man marry the lady he will write a contract with her dad. And the contract is about the case of divorce. If the man divorce the woman he will pay to her dad amount of money. And again it depends how they will deal.It can be 1 EGP (1 EGP – 12 DOLLARS) or 1 000 000 EGP or more.
Well, I see this contract as a protection for Not -divorcing the woman.
5. Shops with a gold
The last thing I will talk about is Egyptian shops with a gold.
Oh My God, I swear I have never seen in my life so extremely huge amount of jewelry and gold shops than in Egypt. It is on every step. Wherever you go you will see streets full of shops selling gold, brilliant, diamonds …but the gold is the most. And trust me a lot of customers daily, sometimes I think they only buy buy and buy a gold.
My opinion
So my opinion at the end – for me Egypt is definitely NOT poor country. Yes I admit I saw here a cities of poor people, its really horrible the people built even homes from rubbish and also a lot of people on the streets. But look at this, in Egypt live around 100 millions people and maybe nowadays much more so imagine that only 5 % of 100 millions will be poor. Well 5% is almost nothing but from this amount of people it suddenly is 5 millions people on the streets. And now you are going to say “Wow 5 millions its too big number!” Well, look at the population its only 5 percent !
In the Czech republic where I was born we have 10 millions people in all the country. And they also have a big amount of people live on the street. But they will tell you we never reached 5 millions poor people. Of course not ! Because in this case it would be 50 % !!!
What I want to say is do not listen media and have your own mind and opinion. Each of country on this whole world must be compared by itself. You simply cannot mix the countries together. Each country has different traditional, different fortune, different poverty…And it is the Life…. No country is perfect.
But my last words – ” I see Egypt as a rich country indeed.”
Books I wrote, you can read here:
The Niqab Girl 
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