QALYUBEYA: Mohamed Al-Fiqi sat on the wooden couch in the unpainted and scantly-furnished living room. "Your father may come home with fruit, but I won't come home with fruit, he said. The Al-Fiqis live in a small, unfinished two-story home. Mohamed's son Sherif is the breadwinner of the family of eight. He works at a private factory with a monthly income of LE 400. The salary has to provide for the family of eight, this makes fruit unaffordable. The Al-Fiqis live in the village of Bahada, one of the biggest villages in the Qalyubeya province of the Nile delta. The village has over 30,000 inhabitants. For 15 years Sherif has been working at a private factory that manufactures carpets and blankets. He spends three hours in transit to and from work. At the factory, the 44-year-old works a seven-hour shift, which he spends standing up without an official work break. In 1997 the company employed 7,000 laborers, today the number is down to 1,500. Despite the poor pay, Sherif is afraid that he too might lose his job. For many like Sherif, the biggest predicament is locating new job opportunities once they are unemployed. On the weekend and after work hours Sherif farms a plot of rented land, the family uses the crop it yields for cooking at home. "We don't eat rice and meat, we eat bread and cheese, Mohamed Al-Fiqi explained dryly. Sherif's oldest son Wagdi studies international commerce at an agriculture institute. The annual fees are LE 3,000, besides book money. A family friend working at the university waived the book fees for the first term. But the family is still trying to pay off the rest of the fees. Wagdi's three sisters attend schools in Bahada. When asked how the family makes it by, Sherif explained that without loans they wouldn't be able to. "I can't do without oil or flour. I can't tell my daughter not to go to school. Why should she be punished? he asked. In 1984 Sherif traveled to Mosul, Iraq, where he worked for five years. He found a job as a waiter at the Ninevah hotel. It was a five star hotel, and everything he had ever dreamed of. Five years later he returned to Bahada to get married. The Al-Fiqi home is small and simple. The staircase and the upper floor look as if the workers stopped in the middle of construction and simply decided not to continue building. The homes all around are two and three stories taller than the Al-Fiqi building. Each of the neighboring families has members working abroad. Most of them work in Kuwait; one family has relatives in Saudi Arabia. Twenty years ago it took a lot of convincing for Mohamed Al-Fiqi to let his son leave Egypt to find for work. Now he would do anything for Sherif to work somewhere else in order to be able to better support the family. "I wish I could fix up the house a bit, Sherif told Daily News Egypt, "but I can barely afford to eat. Inflation and minimum wage On Feb. 28, Sherif joined workers from all around Egypt to raise their concerns at the Journalists' Syndicate. They demanded the minimum wage to be raised to LE 1,200 or for the government to set price controls on inflation of market prices spiraling out of control. Sherif doubts either will happen. Many years ago Sherif recalled hearing President Mubarak on the radio saying that he would set a minimum wage of LE 1,000 but then bread would cost LE 1. For the family in Bahada this is no better solution. Life needs to be made affordable. Today, government-subsidized bread costs 5 piasters, but is expected to double in July. The Al-Fiqis buys 10 loaves of bread daily. It is usually the most the bakery will sell them. The owner will claim he was not given enough flour to sell customers what they needed. The subsidized bakeries in villages, Mohamed explained, were not inspected like those in the cities. Only a small proportion of the subsidized flour therefore was used to bake bread and sold at regulated prices. A 50 kg bag of subsidized flour costs the bakery owner LE 15 or 16. Sherif explained it would be sold in the black market for LE 120. With bread as a staple food and the bakeries only producing a limited amount, people have no option but to pay the new price. The 10 loaves the Al-Fiqis buy every morning is not sufficient. They are forced to bake their own bread, a loaf of which costs 50 piasters, 10 times the subsidized price. But it isn't just bread that is getting more expensive, everything is. Just one year ago a liter of cooking oil had cost LE 4.50, today it is up to LE 12. Flour has increased from LE 0.60 per kg to LE 2.50, Sherif told Daily News Egypt. "Every day prices are increasing. Sometimes prices change from when I go to bed at night to when I wake up in the morning, Mohamed exclaimed. When asked about inflation effects on farming, Mohamed just cursed. Locally made fertilizer is no longer available on the market. What used to cost LE 30 is now available for LE 150 on the black market. At the Journalists' Syndicate Sherif pointed to his shirt. It was ragged and worn on the edges. "I bought this shirt in 2001. I don't have another one. On the weekends my wife washes it so I can wear it the following week. At the house, sitting quietly on the wooden couch, Mohamed uttered in his sullen voice, "the country will change only with protests and when all join together as one. "Ink and paper won't bring change. People will read this and then throw it away at the end of the day.
