Living in Egypt
is greatly the same as it is in any other town of the earth. People get up in
the early morning, go to school or work, have meals with their family unit,
spend time with their friends, and go to the superstore, much the similar as
your family does. Although present day Egyptians are generally
lumped together with ‘The Arabs’ due to their language and Islamic traditions,
this isn’t totally accurate. There is a really Bedouin Arab grouping inside
Egypt, who are still frequently nomadic tribal people living in isolated oases
and roaming through the country's huge desert regions. Lots of Bedouin Arabs
reside the Sinai Peninsula and all along the Red Sea
coast, crossways from Arabia.
The majority
Cairenes live in apartment house buildings. Only the rich can afford to live in
free-standing houses because room is not easy to find. Men and women generally
live at home with their parents until they get wedded. Traditionally, extended
families lived jointly, however, with the new situation in Cairo-
as houses were abandoned in good turn of apartments - the traditional family
has given way to the nuclear family. Apartments generally have one large room
in the face- the living room, where the family entertains guests. Guests who
aren’t relatives are usually not permitted back into the rest of the home.
Traditionally, women would stay in the back of the house and not come into the
living room if somebody who was not a close friend or family visited, although
this is fewer ordinary now.
City of Egypt- Cairo |
It is, though,
considered unsuitable for a woman and man who aren’t wedded or related to be unaccompanied
together. Egyptians dote on their kids, who as they grow up quickly, take on mature
duties. The younger ones begin by herding sheep and goats. When the boys reach
nine or ten, they start learning how to farm the land that will finally be
theirs. Young girls give to eat chickens, milk goats and water buffalo
(gamoosa), create the dung patties used for fuel and fetch water. At an early period,
they learn to bear loads on their heads; starting with frivolous items like as
bread loaves, they graduate to laundry and then to large clay water jars. Their
job gives them an elegance of carriage that remains with them all through their
lives.
In modern Egypt
Egyptian extensive families, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all feel tribe
obligations and these ties unite them in good times and bad. If an individual's
crops fail, all relatives give from their own supplies. If an animal is lethally
injured, the fellahin will kill it and each family within the clan will buy a piece,
thus sharing the meat and contributing to the price of replacing the animal.
The clan elders judge disagreements, even those between husbands and wives and
give opinions that variety from farming techniques to spiritual obligations.
Bread is a daily
food of mutually the commoner and the rich in current Egypt.
The best loaves were ground with sand. This is why the teeth of royals showed
serious scrape. The wheat was ground by rolling round sandstone on a load quern.
The loaves were then baked in tapering molds. Rich Egyptians sweetened their
bread with honey and stuffed it with fruit. A common meal for a peasant might
be boiled or roasted beef, assorted vegetables, fruit (generally figs and
grapes), a piece of bread, and beer. The wealthy ate on bronze, silver or gold
plates while the masses ate on clay dishes. People ate with the tips of their
fingers. Everyone was given a small bowl of water to clean their hands after
the meal.
The rich soil of
the Nile River
made growing crops trouble-free. Donkeys were used to help bear the bags of
seeds during planting period. The fields had to be irrigated during the hot
summer months. Besides crops the farmers raised geese, hens, ducks and
pelicans. Islam is the administrator religion, practiced by 90% of the
population and several national holidays are of Islamic derivation.
Christianity and Judaism are formally established. It is not up to anybody as
an Egypt
visitor to judge the country politics and religious values. Possibly it would
be fair to say that from a Middle Eastern point of view, life in modern Egypt
is quite open-minded; while from a western viewpoint there is still some
progress to be made in human and civil rights, liberty of the press,
opportunities for women, alternative lifestyle issues etc. Business dress is proper
and traditional. Dress well if you want to create a good feeling.
A happy family in Egypt |
Men should dress
in dark colored, lightweight, conservative business suits, at least to the
first meeting. Men should avoid wearing observable jewellery, particularly
around the face and neck. Women must be careful to cover themselves suitably.
Skirts and dresses should cover the knee and sleeves should cover up most of
the arm. More than 90 percent of Egypt
is barren desert. Life in current Egypt
is pretty crowded. Just three percent of the total geographic area is populated
by almost 80 million Egyptians of olden Egyptian, Arab, Bedouin and Nubian
ancestry. Not lots of foreigners choose to live in Egypt.
Along the Nile valley, present Egypt
still looks very much like its very old past, except for the roadways running
along the river and some electricity towers and lines scattered here and there.
In olden days,
the papyrus plant grew in abundance along the banks of the Nile.
Now it's almost died out and grown only for the manufacture of souvenirs for
the tourism industry. Marriages in Egypt
are rather dissimilar than in the West. Islam discourages dating, as single men
and women aren’t supposed to be alone jointly if they aren’t related. Among the
middle and upper classes, often the man and woman know each other from school
or university, where youthful people gather in groups like they do in the West.
In the lower classes, the chance for intermingling of the sexes is rarer and
sometimes families discuss a marriage for a bachelor son or daughter.
With the setting
up of the 2004 Egyptian cabinet and the 2005 presidential ballot vote, the administration
of Egypt began a fresh reform movement, following a stalled financial reform
program begun in 1991, but moribund since the mid-1990s. Since 2004, the
cabinet financial team has cut down and reduced tariffs and taxes, improved the
clearness of the national budget, revived stalled privatizations of community
enterprises and implemented economic legislation designed to foster personal
sector-driven financial growth and get better Egypt's
competitiveness. The Egyptian financial system experienced steady GDP growth
rates around 7% between 2005 and 2008, before plummeting below 5% during the worldwide
economic crisis.
The financial
system is still in a weak position by government interference, substantial
subsidies for food, housing and energy and bloated public division payrolls.
Limited energy subsidy reform began in 2007 but has stalled since the 2008
global financial disaster. Just about one-third of Egyptian labor is engaged straight
in farming and many others work in the processing or trading of farming
products. Nearly all of Egypt's
agricultural manufacture takes place in some 2.5 million hectares (6 million
acres) of productive soil in the Nile
Valley and Delta. Some desert lands
are being developed for agriculture, including the determined Toshka scheme in Upper
Egypt, but some other productive lands in the Nile
Valley and Delta are being lost to
urbanization and corrosion. Agriculture is mostly in confidential hands and has
been largely deregulated, with the exemption of cotton, sugar and rice manufacture.
Unity of Egyptians |
In Cairo,
official education is extremely significant. There are twelve years of official
education in Egypt
and municipal schools are free, though under funded. Many families who can
afford to send their kids to confidential school. Toward the end of high
school, kids take an examination similar to the SAT required of students
planning to go to college in the U.S.
The results of that examination decide which college every student will attend
and also which fields of study are open to that learner. Top students can
attend the American University
in Cairo, which teaches its courses
in English. Other universities in the Cairo
area include Cairo University,
with over 30,000 students, Ayn Shams
University, and al-Azhar
University, one of the oldest and
most high-status theological schools in the world.
Lots of kids don’t complete
school or go on to college and be taught a trade or apprenticeship in trade
instead. Egypt's
court system is alike to European (primarily French) lawful concepts and
methods. The courts have established increasing self-government and the
principles of due process and legal review have gained greater admiration since
the January 25 Revolution. Egypt’s
lawful code is resulting largely from the Napoleonic Code. Wedding and personal
status (family law) are principally based on the religious rule of the human
being concerned, which for most Egyptians is Islamic Law (Sharia).