Don’t have Weddings.

Sometimes you just don’t have the juice. A lack of sunlight in the morning can be a real juice-sapper. In any case I struggled once again with what to write today, I guess I shouldn’t have been so quick to move on from talking about myself. I could have just let that story drag and drag and drag for weeks, giving you a daily play-by-play of literally everything that happened to me in the last 2 years. What a bloody bore that would have been. Nevermind all that then, I guess I will continue with my handbook on weathering the economic shit-storm that trust me, we have yet to feel.

Now, when I say don’t have Weddings, I don’t actually mean it. I just mean don’t have THOSE weddings. You know THOSE weddings…the ones where there are over 500 people and you spend a small fortune. Trust me folks, the fact that your seven hundredth cousin twice removed won’t be making the big day, is no big deal. The reason I really want us to tone these events down, is not just because they can become extremely expensive (although that is a big factor), it’s because the couple involved at the center of the whole thing gain little to no real-life advantages out of the damn thing. Don’t get me wrong, I had a wedding myself, and it was really nice, especially the fact that we had to change venues at the last minute, making the whole affair pretty spontaneous. I’m actually glad my wedding went very, very off-plan. I imagine the whole affair would have been extremely boring if literally everything went according to plan. This way it was filled with much more excitement, trepidation and ultimately happiness as it all worked out in the end. All that being said though, I’m sure you are all wondering how many people were at my wedding. It was 300 people, although if it were up to me it would have been much less. 300 though is considered a pretty small wedding in Egypt, and I would have personally been overwhelmed if it were any bigger than that.

What I originally wanted was a small wedding by the beach with maybe 100 people max, obviously that was not going to happen, because there is no stronger force in Egypt than the unrelenting locomotive that is the concept(!) of tradition. The reason why I say concept is because that is really what we believe in. We believe that we should follow tradition, but pay little to no regard as to what tradition actually means, or where it came from. Some traditions should be followed, some should be learnt from, but not repeated, and some should be forgotten. Tradition is nothing more than the supposed values of a previous era or generation. It has no real purpose in life, other than to show us what our ancestors or elders valued and what they found to be most important. Tradition does NOT dictate however, that you have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a 6 hour event, because you simply have to invite everyone and put them all in the nicest ballroom in all the universe with the best food and the open bar tucked away in a corner, for all the young people and the cool old ones.

Now this is not to say that I do not value the importance of seeing ones family and friends during important periods in one’s life. I think that is long lasting tradition that is extremely important and is something that holds communities together. But if you have ever been married in Egypt you also know that all the people that matter will be visiting you in your new home (something I will also talk about later) after or before your wedding, rendering the custom of inviting all the humans who have ever heard of you, more than slightly pointless. Now, more than ever it is time for us to grow up, and start being smarter with our money. My proposed plan for everyone out there planning a wedding or who will be in the future is this:

1. Take the budget you have planned for the whole affair, and take out 75% of it.
2. Use the remaining 25% on a classy dinner/event for 50-100 people maximum.
3. Give the remaining 75% to the couple, who will use that money to start their new life.
4. The honeymoon also comes out of that 75%, and the couple plan it using whatever amount the deem appropriate (If they are smart it will not be much, and they will honeymoon somewhere in Egypt because going abroad is now frankly, ludicrous).

There is nothing at all shameful about the above plan is there? Does it anger our ancestors immeasurably? Will our great grandparents be rolling in their tombs (we use tombs in Egypt, how cool is that!) because the entire gene pool was not in one place at the same time for 6 hours. I don’t think so. This way the couple get a good start to their new life with the money you would have frankly wasted on your now very expensive tradition.

Most young couples like myself who I talk to want a small wedding, but it is their parents who force the huge affair. Well I am happy to inform the young generation, that with a full blown collapse on Egypt’s economic horizon, hopefully weddings are about to get a whole lot smaller.

Be smart. Don’t have (huge) weddings.

More (after)tomorrow.

Don’t buy Cars

I woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain on the window above my bed. The sound had a trance-like effect which put me back to sleep for another 2 hours. It’s really very relaxing to feel nature trying to break into your house but failing at every attempt. In any case, in my lethargy I struggled to decide on a topic for the blog today, mostly because I was finally done talking about myself. From now on you can expect little to no chatter about myself and more of my general musings and thoughts on a variety of different things. I struggled today until I found my good friends over at PeaceCake had come out with another video for their Careem campaign. If you don’t know what Careem, it is a company similar to Uber, and In my opinion is much better. Their campaign is actually a very clever one and discusses a very important issue we have in Cairo, while also making a compelling case for using Careem. You can check out their video here:

Careem Campaign

The important issue the campaign addresses, and that I will be addressing now, is that of traffic. Cairo traffic is an absolute nightmare as I’m sure you all know. But what you might not have thought about it that the nightmare is actually just beginning. Thanks to our governments systematic incapability of doing anything right ever, we have been blessed with the deadly combination of having very expensive cars along with terrible roads, that pretty soon will not be able to accommodate us all. My only proposed solution to this is to ban auto sales for the next 5 years. No new cars for anyone. Want a car? Buy a used car. This proposed solution, along with a substantial increase in the amount of buses and bus lanes (as if) could potentially make life transiting Cairo’s streets alot easier. Unfortunately, due to the nature of capitalism, and the inherent corruption that is so rampant in our country, a measure like this or anything like it, will never happen. That’s why I want to ask for your help.

Don’t buy cars. And especially (and pay attention to this one) don’t buy your kid’s any cars either. Just FYI not buying cars is just the first on my list of the things you should NOT buy your kids, a list I will be expanding on in the next few days. My opinions on this were already well established before our government finally decided to step out of its denial/incompetence and regulate the economy properly, resulting in a dramatic drop in the EGP. Now this is especially more important, in order to weather this economic storm, we have to give up all (or most) of the luxuries that we have given ourselves, along with the traditions that our culture has created. This includes buying cars for you and your family. I want you to know that I am speaking as someone who was unfortunately given alot of things in life. Things that I didn’t really need to function as a happy, healthy human being, and yet tradition dictated that I must be given them. I will talk about these one by one in the coming days but the first of these was in fact a car. A car that I have every intention of selling very soon because at this point, I honesty prefer Careem. But also because I believe that we have to many cars on Cairo’s roads, and that in just 5 short years, this whole city will become a parking lot.

Don’t get me wrong though, the cars are not the only problem, it’s the amount of people as well. Cairo is grossly overpopulated and this has exacerbated the traffic problem. But we have not helped the traffic situation by compulsively buying cars for all the human beings our women happen to expel. It’s time we put a stop to all of that foolishness. Let your children buy their own god damn cars when they can afford them. And even then hopefully they will decide that it’s not worth their time, money and effort. In all likelihood though, with prices skyrocketing and the government still taxing cars for their own gain, they will never be able to afford cars and this problem will fix itself.

Another thing that is not helping the situation, is the fact that we have enabled all German cars to become our personal trophies. Those cars are too expensive as it is, and will now become even more obscene. If you must have your BMW, then for the love of all that is holy, do not keep upgrading to the newest model every year. It is a tragic consequence of capitalism, that companies are allowed to create more and more products without regard for the economic consequences. This addiction to constantly growing profits is both harmful to the psyche of our businessmen and the stability of the economy. It is a complete tragedy that our country has been run with the sole focus of increasing profits for a select few, instead of focusing on the needs of the many. But we are in possibly the worst kind of capitalist system. One that is rampant with corruption, incompetence, denial and little regard for economic stability.

On top of all that, imagine the financial ruin we would all be in if the city entered a phase of gridlock the likes of which we have never seen. In any case, we can all help by starting with a very small adjustment to our lives.

Don’t buy cars.

More tomorrow.