The ordinary life of a resourceful woman of Cairo makes for an
illuminating and unexpectedly engaging study of women, poverty, and
Cairene life. Wikan (Ethnography/Univ. of Oslo) has spent 25 years
visiting and living in the poor quarters of Cairo with a woman
named Umm Ali and her husband and eight children, chronicling their
predicament-filled life. As members of the lower class, they know
that life is relentlessly difficult: Money is scarce, space is
cramped, violence to women is customary. Yet the family members'
common refrain of "Tomorrow, God willing" suggests a hope for the
future built on a link between God and their own initiative, an
"encouraging message . . . that by helping yourself, and only by
helping yourself, life will bear fruit." Umm Ali is proof of such
belief, constantly generating money for family necessities through
loans or savings clubs, preparing her children for marriage, and
enduring the self-destruction of a son and the beatings and lack of
support of her husband. As Umm Ali sees it (Wikan is smart and
caring enough to set the bulk of the book in her words), these
incidents are part of life, and life, while it is often painful, is
also often fraught with excitement and possibility. Wise, proud,
giving, and volatile, she makes the book a page-turner, one of the
few ethnographic studies to be fueled by the question, What happens
next? Thanks to Wigan's skill, readers are plunged into the dense
reality of a third-world society facing chronic poverty, yet
maintaining a strong sense of family, community, and self-respect.
By chronicling Umm Ali's family with compassion and leading readers
to feel the same, Wikan has gracefully accomplished the book's goal
- to begin to forge a better world. As Umm Ali would say, "Talking
together makes wise." (Kirkus Reviews)
"I, without earning a penny, have to be the provider!" Thus Umm Ali
sums up the nearly impossible challenge of her daily existence.
Living in a poor neighbourhood of Cairo, she has raised eight
children with almost no help from her husband or the Egyptian
government and through hardships from domestic violence to constant
quarrels over material possessions. Umm Ali's story is amazing not
only for what it reveals about her resourcefulness but for the
light it sheds on the resilience of Cairo's poor in the face of
disastrous poverty. Like countless other poor people in Cairo, she
has developed a personal buoyancy to cope with relentless economic
need. It stems from a belief in the ability of people to shape
their own destiny and helps explain why Cairo remains virtually
free of the social ills - violent street crime and homelessness -
that have eroded the lives of poor people in other major cities.
Unni Wikan first met Umm Ali and her family 25 years ago and has
returned almost every year. She draws on her firsthand experience
of their lives to create an intimate portrait of Cairo's back
streets and the people who live there. Wikan's approach to
ethnographic writing reads like a novel that presents the
experiences of Umm Ali's family and neighbours in their own words.
As Umm Ali recounts triumphs and defeats - from forming a savings
club with neighbours to the gradual drifting away and eventual
return of her husband - she unveils a deeply reflective attitude
and her unwavering belief that she can improve her situation.
Showing how Egyptian culture interprets poverty and family, this
book attests to the capacity of an individual's self-worth to
withstand incredible adversity. Unni Wikan is the author of "Behind
the Veil in Arabia: Women in Oman" and "Managing Turbulent Hearts:
A Balinese Formula for Living", both published by the University of
Chicago Press. She is fluent in Arabic and has conducted extensive
fieldwork in Egypt, Oman, Bali, Bhutan and New Guinea.
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