CAIRO – She was standing alone in front of her tinplate house, eating a piece of bread and gazing at the people who walked past. She threw childlike glances at each one of them. I tried to catch her eye. Since she was only four or five years old, she did not understand who all these different people were and why they were all wearing black. It was as if she was asking: "Why are they all in black, is this some kind of uniform?" When she became aware that I was looking at her, she ran shyly towards her tiny tin house, whose door was a transparent white curtain. Before reaching the door and the safety behind it, she stumbled over an abandoned shoe, stood up quickly and ran into the house. I followed; when she entered the house and turned back to look at me through the white curtain, I was much closer than expected. She retreated two steps and clung to her mother who was cooking something quite smelly on a kerosene stove. The mother also looked towards the door and behaved as if she was seeing a ghost. “Who are you?" she asked aghast. Her reaction surprised me, considering that the woman lived next to cemetery full of tombs and graves. "I was just walking around, and your child's smile attracted me. I wanted to give her something," I replied and gave her some coins. She took them and started to pray for me. Her name is Umm Emad, a mother of six, living with her husband and children in a tinplate house near a large cemetery in the heart of Cairo. Umm Emad and her family have been living here for 5 years without water or electricity. "We get water from a tap, everybody here uses it. It's along this way," she indicated. "Would you like some tea," she asked. I declined. Umm Emad, who is in her mid thirites, left her hometown in Upper Egypt to come to Cairo. She is not afraid of spending night after night in this bleak place. "When I hold my children tight I feel safe. And even if I feel scared, what can I do? This is where I live. I have gotten used to it,” she said. When her husband told her five years ago about his desire to leave Upper Egypt and travel all the way to Cairo to find a good job opportunity and bring the children up in the capital, she agreed. They packed their bags and left their town behind, not knowing what awaited them. "My husband's brother lives in a tomb. The relatives of the departed appointed him to guard it; they come once a month and give him and his family some money. My husband wanted me to live like his brother. I refused because I was afraid of staying in a place of such finality," she explained. Although a tin house near the cemetery is not much better, her husband could not afford anything else. "Some of my children are working as street sellers and the others are just like this one,” she said and pointed at the little girl. “We hoped that after the revolution everything would be better," she continued. I asked her what she meant by that. "I just pray to God to give me the chance – before I die – to see my sons in better houses. Don't say that this is a fantasy! No, it must be possible, insha'allah. Just think about it! It was impossible to imagine Mubarak in jail, but it happened, there he is. Nothing is impossible!" she smiled through invisible tears. When visiting the cemetery, you'll find that people live there without healthcare services, education and adequate housing. The hostile reception from the residents didn't allow me to have a conversation with them. I just looked at them while I passed. They stared me in a way that made me hurry. In Egypt too many people live in cemeteries and shanty town tin houses. Umm Emad is not the worst case, many live in much more dire circumstances. The streets are full of homeless people. Many live under bridges. In Egypt, bridges play a very important role and serve multiple purposes. The destitute use them as shelters or to relieve themselves. The space leading up to a bridge can also be turned it into a cultural place, like el-Sawy Culture Wheel in Zamalek. But the most dangerous places in Egypt are the slums. According to the government, there are over 1200 slums in Egypt, 171 in Greater Cairo alone. When mentioning shantytowns, we talk about millions of people who have been suffering from utter neglect for many years, who live in mud brick dwellings and informal settlements. Most slum-dwellers are not able to offer their children education and healthy food. The number of slum residents in Egypt is around 12 million, but accurate figures are almost impossible to obtain. Many children who live there do not have birth certificates or anything to prove they are Egyptians or legally in the country, according to Amnesty International. "I have no other place to stay. We suffer a lot and complain, but no one listens. We're told we're thugs and deserve to die. But we aren't thugs, we are normal people and part of society," said Ali Hassan, a vegetable seller (without a market) who lives in Ezbit el-Haggana, a slum located at kilometre 4.5 on the Cairo – Suez road. The slum's population is around one million. Ali and his young son used to go to Nasr City every day to sell vegetables. "Thank God, some good people pay more than they have to when they see my young boy," said Ali. A recent study by the National Centre for Social and Criminal Research stated that slum dwellers in Egypt live in abject poverty and suffer from illnesses like asthma, allergies and renal failure due to lack of sanitation and safe drinking water. Although Egypt may be going through a transitional period, it does not mean that the needs of those struggling to live in dignity should not be urgently addressed, experts warn. Around 9 per cent of Egypt's workforce of 26.2 million are unemployed, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics CAPMAS. Out of the 1200 slums in Egypt, 420 are deemed unsafe, according CAPMAS.
