CAIRO: Leaning against the metro door, a young girl looked pale and exhausted. Struggling to keep her eyes open, it was difficult to not have been watching her before she lost consciousness and hit the ground. A few women ran towards the now unconscious girl – whom I learned later her name was Sammar. One woman tapped on her shoulder asking her to wake up, the other offered her a bottle of water, while two others held her from the underarms and helped her up the minute she regained consciousness. Now that she'd gained consciousness, a woman who was sitting by the door offered Sammar her seat while another woman dug into her purse finding candy and offering it to the girl, who accepted the two offers politely. I learned later that 25-year-old Sammar, who was still having difficulty speaking, had donated blood on her way to the metro, and had been feeling dizzy since. I can't say this was my first time to witness somebody losing consciousness on the metro in Cairo. I'm not sure whether it's the lack of oxygen or the crowdedness, but over the years, I've seen this happen more than once – definitely more often during the hot months of the summer and the month of Ramadan. “It all started with an idea,” 20-year-old Wafaa Ashour, a young entrepreneur who sat on the opposite bench from Sammar, told me. Having inherited a piece of land from their father, all Wafaa and her brothers needed to turn their idea into reality was some cash. As soon as the siblings applied for a loan and received the money, they started working very seriously on developing a water filter company. “The biggest challenge is dealing with bureaucracy,” Wafaa said, adding that in order to get anything done in this country one must go through a thousand processes and get a thousand permissions – which could be very discouraging. She believes that if it weren't for this challenge, a lot of young people would have developed projects as well. Wafaa's 17- and 18-year-old brothers, like her, have “temporarily” dropped out of school to concentrate their efforts on running and developing the water filter company that they now own with their older sister. Friends and relatives have also joined forces with the siblings, who are now quite popular in their neighborhood for giving their neighbors and friends job opportunities. Wafaa encourages young entrepreneurs in Egypt to not let the bureaucracy get to them and pursue their dreams despite the challenges. BM
