I do love Egypt!
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I get so frustrated and annoyed when people ask me, “why are you thinking this way,” and call me fa’reya. In Egyptian dialect this means that a person does not want to live a better life with higher standards.
I lived in Kuwait for 10 years and came back in 2004 to attend university at AUC. I was, and still am, thrilled that I returned to my beloved country, Egypt. However, my dad still works in Kuwait and visits whenever he can.
A lot of people, family and friends, believe that this is a huge advantage because they think that when I graduate from AUC I can return to Kuwait for work. I see the most surprised expressions on their faces when I say I will stay in Egypt, and their response is, “you are fa’reya.”
The reason they call me this is that the standards of living in Kuwait are much better.
I would get higher pay if employed there and would live a much more relaxed life than if I remained in this country, or so they think. However, I believe that nothing is worse than the feeling of being away from your homeland ,beloved family and friends.
I love this country and can never imagine myself away from it again. I was born here and all my beloved live on this land, so why should I leave it?
I see the overwhelming problems Egyptian citizens face, but aren’t I Egyptian as well? So why should I leave the people to face those problems alone? Why not share with them? Maybe I can make a difference in their lives and if I don’t, I’ll still be there with them, facing those same problems.
No country in the world lacks problems, and I believe that the best way to solve problems is to face them and not just run away because you don’t want to be overwhelmed.
Part of what I love about Egypt is all the chaos from traffic to day-to-day problems that range from bureaucracy to not being able to accomplish a task in one day. No matter how bad those peoblems are they really make me think, but most importantly they make me write more and more.
Being a journalist, as I hope to be, maybe even a fa’reya one, I want to stay in this country and write about everyone’s problems, hoping that from writing people will notice those problems and try to solve them. , Writing about people’s problems will make the authorities notice that there is something wrong, it will at least make them think!
I am sure that people reading this column will also think that I am fa’reya; however, I am sure that I will make a difference in at least one Egyptian citizen’s life and because of this I will never leave Egypt and will continue to help those people until I make this difference, even if people continue to call me fa’reya.
Mars_galaxy86@hotmail.com