On The Mini-Bus

Based on a true story!

Time: 11 P.M
Location: Typical Egyptian traffic-jammed street, with people queued in a zig zag row staring at me!!!


“OMG! How on earth am I going to get home at this hour?!” I mumbled to myself as I was waiting patientlessly for the mini-bus. Minutes passed like hours and finally the hand of aid came to pull me out of the crammed streets. I jumped on, was grabbed by the stuffed standing people, dangling from the windows and the door of the mini-bus, of course, not to my surprise! The driver whispered to me as I was squeezed in between the crowd, “Come here, sit next to me on the tableau missy!!” I was flattered to sit next to the driver, imagine that!
“What an honour!” I thought to myself sarcastically. “Me, sitting, oh that’s but a dream for every Egyptian mini-bus passenger!”
He drove like the wind, stopping for people in every bus stop, and people just kept jumping like bees in a bee hive trying to squeeze themselves in. “Isn’t this bus fully loaded or I am just hallucinating?!” I mean is there a limit for passengers, isn’t this driver going to say, “Enough!” ever?!!
There was technically no more space to fit in more heads or even hands. People were either suffocating or turning into smoked fish due to the fact that they were stuffed like tuna fish in a can.
An hour passed, and I was still sitting, laughing inside of sympathy for those helpless creatures that were waiting just like me to get home safely. Then I heard some creaking. A guy standing next to me couldn’t help himself from worrying, he leaned on the driver and said, “Excuse me! What is that sound?” the driver laughed and answered, “Don’t worry. If I was sure that it’s dangerous to drive this vehicle, I wouldn’t risk the passengers’ lives”.
“Yeah, right! As if you care!” I thought to myself, “I hope your engine is listening”. Finally I was approaching my home, and I was surprisingly relieved that I’m still breathing and didn’t pass out or anything due to lack of O2. The bus stopped, I tried to make my way out through and kept saying, “Excuse me, excuse me, I want to pass please!” I finally jumped off, sighed the relief of getting safely home, my home sweet home was waiting for me with bells of joy ringing!!

Heads Up: For those who haven’t had the pleasure and excitement of riding on a fabulous journey by the mini-bus before, should know that for a Girl to arrive home without either, having taken a shower of passengers’ sweat or pushed off the door, is a mission impossible but luckily accomplished!!!

عقدة الخواجه- عايش و مش عايش

When you live in your country that's not your own; when you feel not home but someone else is taking your place in a perfect job with perfect salary, and perfect benefits, what does this say about us Egyptians? Why do we settle for less?? Why would I accept a job as an assistant teacher "under" a foreign teacher who doesn't necessarily have a bachelor's degree- just 3ou2det el 7'awaga and the native accent- and she get to be the main teacher and I'm just her shadow, taking care of the kids in class like a nanny?!!! I'm sorry but my mum didn't spend thousands of pounds on my education just so I get to be blessed by sitting in the corner and making a lot less money than I deserve! Screw the system that led us into this phase of hanging between two threads, living in our country and treated as inferiors, living abroad and treated as inferiors as well :S :S ALASSSSS :(


The so-called revolution should've been made to target this rusty ideology and erase it from existence. Egyptians should've been smart enough to realise that the some of all evil, has been deep-rooted not just by the corrupt system of the Three Muskteers, on the contrary, we've been the root of all that's gone wrong and out of the ordinary all along. Take our behaviour toward each other after the revolution as a clear and clean example of our way of thinking; before the revolution people used to have fights in the traffic lights like a normal day routine, like your regular intake of caffeine during the early morning, and still to this day it is, but what changed is the "Attitude". Whenever I try to cross the street nowadays, people miraculously enough "Allow" me to pass "with all their pleasure"!!!





So why now??? Why did we have to wait all those years for some rat to get down off his throne to change our attitude towards each other???? Are we just part-time losers who get to practise a certain habit during a certain time, and when things start to get dark and ugly we quit like a smoker?!!! And don't let me speak of Ramadan cause then I'll never shut up, but I'm really sorry for the state of self-deceptive "schizophrenia" that we live in. What else has to happen in order for us to wake up and smell the burned chicken on the stove?!!! Do we need another foreign invasion, and this time for real, for us to stick together and defend what's left of our Egyptianhood???


The truth is, no one gets to spit out the ugly truth for those who refuse to see it hanging in the sky, just because we are "أصحاب الدماغ العاليه".