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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 July 1999 Issue No. 436 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 July 1999 Issue No. 436
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Special Interview Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters A tale of two women
By Mariz TadrosMona and Amna, who live in Birkat Al-Ghuzlan, one of Sayeda Zeinab's poorest slums, have both taken out loans from microcredit development organisations. Microcredit for income-generating projects has been presented by many development experts as the panacea to problems from gender inequality to poverty or unemployment. But for some women, it has simply meant overstretching their resources -- and entering the vicious circle of hand-to-mouth indebtedness.
Mona, 36, has been peddling clothes for the past 20 years, since she first started helping her mother as a teenager. She buys a galabiya for LE25 from Ataba or the Muski and sells it for LE40 to her clients. Mona sells her goods everywhere, and doesn't just stay in her own neighbourhood, like the other women peddlers, she says. She is an assertive and clever businesswoman: "I don't take any nonsense from anyone, you see. There was Badawi the tomato seller, he bought a galabiya for his wife. He paid the first instalment and then disappeared. I asked the vegetable sellers about him and they wouldn't give me his address, but I finally managed to get it. I went all the way to Giza and asked about his address until I found him. When he saw me, he was shaking. He told me to come in and offered me a soft drink. I raised my voice and told him 'I don't want a soft drink, I want my money'. Of course this was a major embarrassment for him -- in his own neighbourhood, which is full of fallahin, it would dishonour him if the other men knew that he tried to con a poor woman out of her due, so he gave me the money in full. And that was the end of it."
Mona got married 20 years ago. Although she did not complete her own education, she has managed to send all her children, girls and boys alike, to school, and refuses to let any of them work so that they can concentrate on their studies. Of her husband, Mona comments wryly: "He didn't let me finish my education because he is illiterate and didn't want me to be so much better educated than he is."
After she got married, she stayed home for a while, then started working for one of the many NGOs in Sayeda Zeinab. She approached the bank and asked for a loan, and members of the NGO agreed to act as her guarantors, so she did not have to present any collateral. "My mother always participated in a gam'iyya [rotating savings association] to get some capital but I thought the bank was more practical because it gave me almost immediate access to money. I have been taking loans out since 1994. I have never defaulted, not even once, so the people there trust me. Now I act as a guarantor for many women. I encourage them to take out loans so they can expand their projects."
Mona's husband is a driver working in a government office, but his strength is not what it used to be because of kidney failure.
photo: Sami Bushra
"At least my work gives me flexibility. I can manage my own time as I wish, I adjust my working hours to fit my household responsibilities. My husband earns about LE300 but after paying LE80 rent and other expenses, he ends up giving me between LE100 and 150. I bring in more than that, I keep the house going. The children's expenses are overwhelming and of course I pay for the water, electricity and other things." Mona says she brings in between LE10 to 15 a day. Even if she puts some aside for the business, she claims she contributes at least LE200-250 a month to the household.
Mona manages her own money; not a piastre goes into her husband's hands, she says. She points out that her husband treats her neither better nor worse since she became a bread-winner. "He is a good man, hard working and all," she concedes.
But he does not exactly appreciate her contribution. "He says 'it is not as if these are your own resources. You don't get this money from your family, it is money that God sent'." Mona thinks he is scared that, if he shows gratitude, she will become inordinately proud of herself and make unnecessary demands. He often reminds her that it is thanks to him that she can do all these things. She does not ask him to make an extra effort; if she does, she is worried he will demand why she thinks he lets her go out to trade.
The loan, therefore, has not changed Mona's life; nor has it redressed inequalities at home. Still, she is making a living, which is more than can be said of Amna, who regrets having taken out the loan which started her on a seemingly endless downward spiral.
Amna's loud voice and outspoken manner do not match her tiny frame. She is proud to be making -- or attempting to make -- a living. But Amna is very sick: she gets terrible coughing spells that have her bent double over her vegetable cart. On good days, she has a whole variety of vegetables to sell. On an average day she sells turnips, rocket, a few potatoes and lemons -- no lettuce. She goes to the market almost every day to buy her vegetables, but it is not always easy. She is considering taking one of the girls out of school to help her out. "I don't want to, really I don't. I want her to be educated, not like me. But what can I do? School is so expensive, and I don't know how much longer I will be able to go on, with my health going down the drain. At least she can stand with me, so that if I start coughing, she will be able to take over the selling. And these days, the fits have been increasing and I get so dizzy..." Amna probably has tuberculosis. Housing conditions in the graveyards where she lives do not help much either.
Generally she makes LE7 a day, but if she can sell lots of lettuce, that might raise her income to LE10. She puts some aside to be able to buy some more vegetables to sell the next day. A little goes toward the many instalments she has to pay, and the rest -- if there is any -- she spends on the children. Her husband, an elderly man, does not contribute much, but then again, she asks rhetorically, what can he do at his age?
"He is mean, you know: if one of my children takes 25 or 50 piastres from his galabiya pocket, he will rant and rave." Amna is his fifth wife, and she feels he won't help her out because some of the children are not his own flesh and blood. She, on the other hand, does not give him a piastre of the money she makes.
Under her breath, Amna confides that often, she cannot make ends meet at the end of the month and has to resort to "one or two good people who know about my situation and can spare a little". In reality, though, apart from high "charity seasons" like the feasts, she does not get any charitable contributions.
Amna has decided she will not take out another loan. No, definitely not, she says. What she needs is something for her cough, not a loan. Of course, the extra money helps her buy better quality vegetables, but then there are the days when she doesn't sell much. Then she starts worrying about not being able to pay back the loan plus interest. "Oh, I can't sleep at night. When the repayment date is due, I do anything to make sure I have the money, even if I have to borrow from someone else. I don't want to look bad in front of the others; that would be shameful. Sometimes I get this suffocating feeling: what if I can't repay the instalments? What if I don't make enough money? At those moments, when I get really sick, I just want to give it all up. Then I remember I have children who have to be educated and settled, and so I go on."
