That's Me in the Middle
Hanging on a fence in front of someone else's house, originally uploaded by Miloflamingo.
When people talk about women getting harassed in the streets or anywhere else, I'd like to direct anyone's attention to this wonderfully flattering photo of a 55 year old woman standing in a paddock with a young friend. Would YOU harass her? Probably not, although the friend gets her (un)fair share of it. There really is no question about it in my mind. In a vast area of the world it is considered okay for young men, as well as those who just wish that they were young, to comment on the women in their immediate vicinity, and some of these individuals feel that it is their right to do more than comment. It is a major pain for many women and an aggravation that most men really can't quite comprehend in a personal way. After all, no one is harassing them, right? Maybe we should organise a movement that supports "Turn the Tables" Day, a day during which all the women we can arrange turn around and whistle at and comment about any men in their vicinity. Imagine the chaos!
The house in the picture is someone else's rather over-sized version of a country house. I live in a 100 sq metre cottage down the road. It is totally possible to insulate yourself from the culture around you by means of affluence. A lot of Egyptians and a lot of ex-pats do it here all the time. The owners of the house behind me have done it. Within your walls you are free to do and be whatever you want. But movie sets take a lot of maintenance, and I'd rather be riding or gardening.
Many of my observations on my life in Egypt are coloured by the fact that I moved here just before I turned 40, a mother with two children. I would have had many very different experiences had I come as a student or an ex-patriate worker or even as a tourist. I see the world from my vantage point, as hard as I may try to see it from other people's as well. I've seen the affluent life style and I've seen the flip side as well when my husband died unexpectedly in a private plane crash and I found myself having to manage the transfer of virtually all of his business assets to banks and creditors to secure the finances of a factory that he had been just about to put into operation. Everything we owned was pledged to secure the loans and with his death, the banks decided that they'd rather take his companies. As he was a one man show, a classic entrepreneur, there wasn't much option. A quiet life with a bunch of dogs, horses, parrots, and water buffalo looks pretty good after four years of negotiations with banks to settle a USD 250 million debt. The banks did okay since the factory is probably worth almost twice that. Easy come, easy go. There really is a lot more to life than the pursuit of wealth, but it doesn't hurt to have the skills with which you can get by in terms of a living.