Travelling workers have become a common sight in the streets of many of Egypt's big cities. Eslam Soliman listens to their stories Far from the places of their birth and their families and waking daily at a very early hour in the shantytowns in which they live, working men, often from Upper Egypt, travel every day to the same areas of the cities of Cairo and Giza to look for a job. These men, travelling workers, or so-called omal taraheel, dress in traditional galabiyas and wait in the streets from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon looking for construction jobs. While they look as if they are all more or less the same age, in fact their ages range from 18 to 50. Sitting in the street, they place a hammer and other tools in front of them to announce their presence and their line of work. Yet, despite common perceptions, many of these workers are educated and some of them are even university graduates. One such is Mohamed Shehata, a 19-year-old from Girga in Sohag governorate. Like the other travelling workers, this young man, who holds a diploma in agriculture, has been sitting in the street in Agouza in Giza since seven in the morning, waiting for a contractor who needs labourers to construct or smash down walls. This is the fifth day that Shehata has not found work, though he says he has got used to it as he has been working in this way for four years. Throughout those years he has returned to his home in Girga in the winter to study and sit for exams, then travelling back to Giza with relatives and friends to find work. "Every two months I return to Girga to visit my family," Shehata says. Another young but larger guy, Arafat Mahmoud, is sitting nearby. One of the men working with the group has a Bachelors degree from the Faculty of Law, he says. "I've been working for six years now, and in all that time no journalist has ever talked to us. No one cares about us," Mahmoud says. According to Mahmoud, the number of such travelling workers increased in Egypt after the 1990 Gulf War. "My grandfather and relatives were working in Iraq until the outbreak of the war in 1990, and as a result they had to return to Egypt. But they didn't find any job opportunities in our governorate," he says. However, while there are few job opportunities in Upper Egypt there are many more in the new cities springing up around Cairo, and workers settling in Giza are bussed to construction sites in New Cairo, 6 October City and Al-Salam City. "While there are a lot of jobs there, there are still too many travelling workers," Mahmoud adds. After the workers have waited for hours in the sun, a contractor comes with a truck to gather some of them. One of the workers, Shahir Omar, in his mid-20s, told Al-Ahram Weekly that salaries range from between LE50 and LE260 per order, and that they are hired not only by Egyptians, but also by Arabs, North Africans and Americans. Sitting in a quiet square in New Cairo City where the workers gather, another travelling worker dressed in trousers and a shirt explained that, "it is pretty hard to find a job in my home area in the Gharbiya governorate, but here there are plenty of jobs, and New Cairo is witnessing some outstanding developments, as you can see through the modern architecture everywhere." When they leave home and come north in search of work, many workers settle in the shanty district of Mit Okba, since "there we can easily eat, drink and smoke at cheap prices. Dozens of us rent one flat at a very cheap rate," said a 50-year-old one-eyed worker, also from Girga, who has two daughters and four sons. He used to be a tenant farmer on good land until he turned 22 years old and the owner ended his contract. This man says that over the past three decades being a travelling worker has been a satisfying job, despite its temporary nature. "Throughout those years everybody was fair with me concerning salary: no contractor was unfair." However, he adds that recently the work has been affected by rising prices of building materials, as well as of iron. After a few minutes silence, he adds that "on average my salary is about LE60 or LE70 per order. Getting older limits opportunities for work." Since the workers stay in the city streets for hours or days looking for work, it might be expected that their presence would annoy local residents. However, the workers say that most people are kind to them. During Ramadan, for instance, the residents of the neighbourhood distribute meals and money before Iftar, they add. As for the youngest travelling worker, 18, who preferred to withhold his name after advice from his brother, he started working when he was only 10 years old and said that he does not have a specific field or skill. "I transport building materials and I can build walls," he said. Because of the difficult life he has lived, he left the Nasser Sporting Club in Girga, where he was junior team goalkeeper, and became a travelling worker. "Captain Essam El-Hadari [of the Egyptian premier league] is my role model. I wanted to be like him when I was in the Nasser Club," he says. For this young man, Sohag is still his home, and he goes back to his family and friends every two months for 15 days. Though it is very early in the morning and the work is hard, he occasionally advises friends and relatives to come and work with him in Giza.
