Is this it?

Is this it? A question I ask myself everyday. Is this the culmination of all the dreams and aspirations I had for this chapter of my life. Did I put in all this time and effort just to be admitted into this glorified rat race.

Everyday I wake up and put in all the effort I can muster just to retain my spot in that race with the only outcome being barely enough money to cover the essentials. Completely wrapped up in achievements that mean nothing seen in their proper scope. Slowly climbing the hierarchy becoming a part of the system I loath. One day if I'm lucky I may even head this sweatshop managing younger slightly less depressed versions of myself... That's the best case scenario.

Designed to entrap you within the system is built to foil any attempts to escape it. Once you are in you grow dependent on it, gradually losing your grip on the bigger picture and at one point start believing that this bubble is the entire universe and even start resisting anybody who tries convincing you of anything else.

A Dark Hot Summer is Ahead

Rolling blackouts are back, people all over the city reporting electricity blackouts, and its only the second hot day this year. The country is already suffering from this crushing diesel outage and its impacting all facets of life, and now as it seems we are heading towards a gas shortage induced electricity outage.

The diesel outage which is impacting all facets of our lives started around a month ago slowly getting worse, already there are 10s of cars queuing up for any gas station that has diesel, the real problem is that this country is running over diesel. The entire logistical system runs on diesel and now we raw materials and merchandise are stuck where they are. The future looks even more grim when you realize that farms actually run on diesel as well. sowing machines, water pumps and even tractors, everything runs on diesel. The 3 ministries responsible for power are playing a blame game with one another each pointing at the other claiming their responsibility, while in reality its a matter of lacking the funds needed to import the required diesel. Simply speaking we don't have the money needed to keep this country running.

Natural gas requires a lot of time to import, it takes 4 or 5 months. On January we were supposed to import the gas needed for this summer, that didn't happen, the direct result is that we don't have the gas needed to run the electricity stations during this summer. The reason is mainly lack of foreign currency and the fact that since our credit classification was lowered several times over the last 2 years, and now we need to pay in advance. We are out of money, out of gas and out of diesel. Over the next few months I believe its only going to get a lot worse during the next summer.


A dark long summer is a head of us, the question is whether we'd be able to survive it.

The Escape Plan

In the last few days I spent many hours searching for vacancies in the Gulf and Europe, I applied in any vacancy that had the slightest resemblance to my current career track. My main target now is to exit this country before it's eminent financial implosion, eminent is the only way to describe it. I've been even losing sleep over that, imaging what this country has to go through over the next few years makes me feel worried enough to be willing to accept positions that I'd have definitely rejected few months ago.

Most of the people I talked to in my line of business are feeling the same way and I'm sure most of them are spending their insomniac nights going through online vacancies. Survival instinct kicking in pushing every body to search for that lifeline that'd ensure his survival during the financial meltdown, and as a side effect hammering in the last nail in this countries coffin. With all the skilled workers running out even with the devalued EGP multinationals wouldn't be that interested in operating in egypt, especially with the political instability we've been going through lately. This country is becoming less and less attractive by the passing of every minute, and even though layoffs aren't even a possibility right now it's only a matter of time till they are.

During the darkest times after the MOIs dissaoearance act and the state of lawlessness and chaos this country fell into right after the revolution, I was provided with a generous offer by employer at the time to move into another country till things settle down. An offer I promptly rejected citing how I believe in egypt and how I feel I belong here, egypt needed me and I'd never leave it in such conditions I added. Looking back I realize how I felt that I belonged in this country high in national pride and full of positivity. It wasn't much of a surprise to learn later that they extended the same offer to each and every member in my team and they all individually rejected it. Even before that fresh out university I turned down several offers to work in the Gulf always saying that egypt isn't a hotel you leave as soon as you can. I had a duty towards this country and I'm not leaving till I fulfill it. Obviously that egypt I was talking about was nothing more than a figment of my imagination, an illusion I shared with a certain class of people, yet it never really existed.

With every decision the people make I realize how little I know about the locals, a completely different type of people who share little to nothing with me.

Third Reel of The Revolution

Cinema movies come in reels, usually 4 of them, with two projectors cinema houses switch between reels without the viewers even noticing it, usually the reels over lap and a queue is given to the projectionist to switch reels.


Usually the first two reels include most of the plot and the build up, while the last reel include the closure and most of the action, with the third reel stuck in between it offers nothing but a time filler usually including all the plot tie ins which serve nothing but make the plot more believable. In viewers terms, usually the third reel is when most people start feeling bored and sneak out for cigarettes, usually it has more dialog than action. Robert Rodriguez intentionally removed the third reel from his ground house master piece Planet Terror thus shortening the movie and increasing the actions scenes per dialog scenes ration.

Currently I feel like we are stuck in an incredibly long, director cut style third reel of this revolution, where all the plot tie ins happen, lots of dialog no action and instead of moving forward along the plot, time is spent explaining how things turned out to be the way they did...Most of the revolutionary -and even some of the ex regime's- forces sneaked out for that cigarette, Hamdeen has been on omra for over 15 days now, Elbaradei is jetting all over the globe, Shafeek is on omra as well in Dubai where Omar Suliman has spent the last month or two. With an incredibly hot summer around the corner and Ramadan coinciding with it I don't think we are going to get out of this third reel anytime soon.

Denial (Selective Cognition)

I think we are all living in denial, Over the years we trained ourselves not to see whats really going on around us applying what can only be described as selective cognition, over the years we trained ourselves not to see the poverty that surrounds us, the derelict state our country is in. Filtering out all that and only seeing things that costs us nothing to hate (such as the internet speed, availability of parking spots...), This entry is about all these things we choose not to see.

Some luxuries can't be bought by even the richest Egyptians, little luxuries such as going for a walk in the street and knowing that you wont get harassed either sexually or by a never ending stream of beggars / street vendors, even if neither existed the state of the pavement makes it impossible for anyone to enjoy such a walk (do you even remember the last time you went for a walk?). Driving isn't much better, with the state our streets are in, the traffic and the fact that you get extorted every time you park your car, either pay or come back to find an interesting brand new scratch across the hood of your car. Every time you stop you have to fend off street merchants and beggars knocking on your window (which is always rolled up these days) with that look of despair in their eyes. The poverty, the despair can have a toll on anybody's psychological state...filtering out such things is a defense strategy used to avoid feeling how helpless you are towards helping any of them.

The best things in life are free, such as being able to take a long walk and actually enjoy it, or perhaps being able to enjoy sunset by the nile, or even just sitting down in a clean calm place and enjoy the serenity which is a God given right, or even being able to attend a decent Friday prayers sermon without feeling like leaving half way through, unfortunately none of this is available for us here in Egypt, even the pavements have been taken over by thugs who would only rent you the spot you are standing in or harass you till you can't take it any longer.

its all about the lack of the basic governmental infrastructure 

Quality is such an illusive word here in Egypt, no one seems to care enough to do whatever he is doing well. If you are in Egypt you'd better not get sick, cause if you do, even if you had all the money of the world there is no way for you to find proper medical care. Same applies to suffering from car issues or anything that'd require the least possible amount of skills.

I think it all comes down the government not being there and I'm not talking about the regime i'm talking about the services offered and regulated by governmental entities. No one cares to work since no one is accountable to what he does, the country stopped offering these services long ago. Signalling people to find other providers to replace them even if you have to pay twice for the same service (taxes) , services as simple as the phone directory (remember 140 daleel), I wrote an entry earlier about compounds and how people are moving into them only cause they lost any faith they had towards the city they are living in.

Here is a dirty secret, you know channel 1 (Egyptian national TV), the one almost no one watches ? I think its operational costs are a lot more than any other private egyptian channel (most probably even these gulf run channels)

The reason that triggered me into writing this is how half the people living in my street decided to pave their part of the street by renting a loader and a paving crew, they have a point after all the street has been in such a bad street over the last 6 or 8 years, and it has progressively gotten worse over the last year, so they decided to do it themselves, the fun part is, after taking out all the asfalt from the street, and right before they started paving it, the paving crew left. Perhaps they haven't bribed the people in charge and hence they ordered them to stop, Life goes on.

The situation is just miserable

The situation is too miserable to talk about ....

Conspiracy Theory, SAW and the Egyptian Efficiency

These days several things are going on in Egypt, one disaster after the other striking us all where it hurts the most, our hearts. You know that the Egyptians are really hurt about a certain incidents when they don't make new jokes about it. After each of these disasters people start talking about conspiracies being planned and executed by one entity or another, I believe its the one thing that people from all sorts of political backgrounds have in common, each accusing a different entity of course; An entity that exceeds in its efficiency and preciseness anything we Egyptians can produce, planning and executing one event after another at a level only ARIIA from eagle eye can produce.

We all know how Egypt is, we Egyptians have a really good sense of humor, we are kind and generally peaceful what we aren't though is clever, efficient or good at planning/executing. One of our most famous movies (life or death) is about a pharmacist that handed out his customer poison instead of medicine and the entire movie is about trying to stopping the customer from consuming it; Cars that are assembled in Egypt even high end ones are known for these defects that serve as a constant reminder that they were made in Egypt, I mean there is a reason we don't have bunjee jumping or roller coasters here in Egypt. We Egyptians aren't good at planning/executing, we are just not precise by nature. The disastrous events we are going through these days are of really high quality, not a single loose end that can be used to track the conspirators. Perfect in planning and execution and produced as if they come out of an assembly line managed by Americans, manned by Japanese and designed by Germans. I don't think we Egyptians no matter how rich or smart anyone is can design and execute one of these events.

life or death

I believe the events that are unfolding these days are organic in nature, organic in the sense that they are a direct result of the Egyptian status, you know random values can come together to form really structured results, I'm convinced that whats going on these days is just a result of all the things that we've been through coming together and forming the perfect storm that we have to ride through, no one is good enough to start it or stop it, its on auto pilot and can only be stopped when the root causes behind it cease to exist. Our only way out is forward. In SAW the movie franchise Jigsaw the main antagonist tests people, putting them in games where they have to suffer through the unbearable in order to win their lives. I believe Egypt is in one of Jigsaw games, we are in one of his contraptions and we have to go through the unbearable or die, inaction would only result in death, our only way out is forward.

Grateful and Egyptian

A year has passed since the event that our generation is going to be remembered for, exactly one year since a bunch of people decided to turn the negative feelings they had towards the situation in Egypt to a positive act, an act that inspired the rest of Egypt to follow suite thus revolting against the stale negative situation Egypt has settled in. 18 days were all that took to recharge the Egyptians...everything tasted sweeter even the polluted air smelled better back then, each and every single person was inspired in his or her own way. I can't even count the number of people I know who started their own business or started producing art of some form, Even the most negative person ever started blogging/tweeting/posting notes about the situation which is on its own a positive act regardless to the fact that its motivated by negativity.

Arabic regained its status as the first language among Egyptians, I couldn't help but smile as more and more of my friends discovered what an alt+shift can do, and what these arabic letters printed on their keyboard actually did, slowly and over that last year, franco arab started taking a back seat to properly written arabic, a small token yet it stands for so much, language is identity and our identity was being gradually phased out as people just gave up on Arabic. In marketing terms, our brand value was being restored, Egypt became a buzz word again, and you could tell people felt different when they stated that they were egyptian, the tone the word was said in it became different; After all Egypt for a couple of months at least stopped being associated with pyramids and shaggy looking beggars trying to scam you out of any money they can squeeze out of you, instead and for a brief period of time it became associated with pride, political awareness and amazing people who can express themselves on new media..Egypt resurfaced from deep within the septic tank it was locked in.

I don't care about the current situation or if you classify it as good or bad; I trust my fellow Egyptians, now that they know they can think, create, and influence the world around them with their attitude, I know that there is no way to go back to where we've been. Edmund Burke said all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, and that's what the ex-regime did its best to do, convince us that nothing we can do will change reality keeping us hopeless and helpless making us easy to rule...this has changed. Not to mention how people now EVERYONE, is talking about egypt and politics, most don't know what they are talking about but are quickly learning...things has changed, and for the first time in my life I'm glad for the passport I have and the era I was born in.

كنا دوله محترمة حصلنا ايه؟

I'm quite depressed

I'm quite depressed from whats going on; I believe this is the biggest SCAF achievement so far.