CAIRO - There is a bed and a refrigerator on one side of the room and a small clothes cupboard next to a small table on the other, while just outside the door stands a small stove. Hamdy Salama, a bawab (doorman), and his wife, Rania Ahmed, live with their two children in this small room on the ground floor in the building, which he guards. But their humble dwelling lacks a bathroom and a kitchen. This means they have to wash in the WC in the small mosque in the same building where Hamdy works. "We can only use the bathroom outside of prayer times," Rania says. "The most convenient time is from 7am to 11am." She and her husband can control their need for the bathroom, but for their children it is difficult. Rania therefore gets her little children to go to the toilet before worshippers begin to show up at the mosque for prayers. Because of the inconvenience, Hamdy and Rania, who both have diplomas from technical schools, are looking around for another place to work, with a small room that would include their own bathroom. “I have to work to put food on the table for my family," Hamdy explains. “I don't have the luxury of choosing where we can live; I have to accept anywhere, for the sake of working and earning money." He says that their job has forced them to accept this place, as the owner of the building lets them stay there for free, without paying for electricity or water. All they have to do is keep an eye on the building. A report from the Higher Council for Planning and Urban Development reveals that nearly 16 million people, about 20 per cent of the Egyptian population, live in dilapidated accommodation unfit for human inhabitation. Of these people, an average of between five and seven live in one room, although, according to the report, the world average is only 1.25 people living in a single room. According to the report, the high number in Egypt causes disease, crime and many other problems. Rania, Hamdy's wife, works three times a week as a maid, cleaning people's homes. She has to work to help her husband, who only earns LE700 per month, which is not enough to live on. She has to leave their two children, aged six and three, with her husband, to go to her work. Rania earns LE170 per week. When the residents of the building want Hamdy to buy some things for them, he has to go to the market and leave the children locked in the room, so they cannot go out into the street. “The prices of everything have increased and all the basic commodities cost a lot of money. We spend LE600 per month on food," Rania told the Egyptian Mail in an interview. Just once a week, she cooks rice, vegetables and chicken or beef; on the other six days, they eat fried potatoes, pasta or rice, without any vegetables or protein. "I'm not rich enough to offer our children a balanced meal every day. I have to buy cheese and jam to feed them when they feel hungry," she added, while washing their dishes in a large plastic container outside the room. Rania has had to stop buying beef, as it now costs LE60 per kilo. She now only buys chicken, paying LE27 for 1.5kg. Hamdy and Rania had lived in Fayoum, before coming to Cairo seven years ago. In Fayoum, Hamdy worked as a plumber, but it was not a steady job, so they decided to move to the capital, hoping for something better. “We tried to find a small flat to rent, but the prices were very high," Rania, 28, said. “We can't afford the electricity and water bills, let alone the rent, which would come to a total of at least LE700 – and then there's our food to think about," she explained. But she still hopes that she and her husband can save up enough money to rent a small flat, so their children do not feel ashamed at having to live in a single, small room, from which they could easily be turfed out at any moment, if they were to have a problem with any of the tenants. Abu Zaeid Rageh, a housing expert and a member of the Higher Council for Planning and Urban Development, says that this kind of inhuman housing is expected to increase, due to the increasing prices of housing units. Many of the Egyptians cannot afford to live in a flat and Rageh expects that the number will rise dramatically, if no-one does anything about this problem. Amm Gamal, another bawab, has problems similar to those of Hamdy and Rania. He, his wife, their four sons and their only daughter live in a very small room in the garage beneath a block of flats in Nasr City, northeastern Cairo. The furnishings in their bedroom consist of a small table, a TV and three blankets. The seven members of his family all huddle at night together on the floor in this small room, with only three blankets to stave off the cold. “I only earn LE300 per month, although I've been working as a bawab for 25 years," says Amm Gamal, 55. “I can't educate my children, because I've no money to do so," he adds with tears in his eyes. Amm Gamal, 55, makes his five children work in order to help him pay for their food. “The Government should take care of poor people and really try to help us, instead of just talking about their achievements on television," he stresses.
