Session 1: 14/02/2021 

I came from Sudan to Egypt through the desert, and it was so dramatic. We passed the mountains, and it was so hard. It is not safe at all. My mum at that time was pregnant, but I did not know she was pregnant. I was 17 at that time. But you know, we left Sudan because life there was hard. My father is still in Sudan working. He has a small business. He makes hand-made vodka alcohol in the kitchen of our house in Khartoum. I have not seen him for almost two years, and last March it was really hard as he had an accident at work. I used to help him make alcohol. You make it with a large amount of water and petrol for heating. It is easy to make a fire with petrol, and then last March there was a big fire in the kitchen, right at the door. My dad needed to jump over the fire, and he got his whole body full of wounds. He is trying hard to come to Egypt to be with us. But he will do it in another way. He will not go through the desert. He is planning to go back to Eritrea first, and then fly to Egypt. He will say that he comes here for tourism to visit us, and just stay, he just took the flight from Sudan to Eritrea on the 22nd of March, he will stay in Eritrea for around 1 month, and then he will come to Egypt with us.  He can leave Eritrea because he is over 35 and has already done National Service.

It was hard, those guys in the desert with guns, those people that smuggle human beings. They sometimes stop you during the transportation and ask you for money, and if you do not have money they try to get something in another way. So if you are a female you might get raped. You know, they are big guys, big people but we were lucky. Before leaving Khartoum we had everything organized. We had a guy who brought us to the car that would take us to Egypt. He was all the time with us. There were a lot of people actually, Ethiopian, Somalian, different types of people. It was so bad. For a while, I was just imagining that I was gonna die now. We went through the desert in a car, and I had people sitting on my legs for two days. I didn’t feel my legs at all anymore. We came during summer and it was so hot, and we needed water, no food. We actually brought a lot of food with us but they stole everything. All our stuff was inside the cars, The driver moved the car from one place to another, and my little sister, who is super smart, realized that something was going on and she told my mother “mama, they are doing something there, they are taking something from our luggage,” and I went there, and they were taking food and an Ipad that we had inside our luggage. Just by luck, I saw that one of them had left their phone. I took it, and I started to scream at them telling them that we were here suffering and they were taking our food. We called the guy who was organizing everything. He was the big boss and we complained. But it did not stop. After that, we had another problem when we reached Aswan. One of the guys called my brother and asked him to come to a place to give him water. My mum realized quickly that that was weird and not safe, so she said “he will not go, I will go.” She went, and there was no water. The guy was sitting on the sand, and when he saw my mother, you know a big and powerful mother, he just told her “come here, just sit on the sand, ” What would have happened if my little brother had gone there? My mum was angry, then we called the main person, and we told him everything, khalas, they were scared. 

When we arrived in Aswan we were staying just in an empty space, a kind of garage without blankets or anything. We just spent five hours in Assuan, and after that we could go to the train station. We were supposed to take the train to Cairo but we missed it because my brother went to take water, and khalas, we thought, we will get caught now and we will suffer now. We were very scared. But we took another train. Thanks to God we went  to a nice garden and for the first time in four days we had good food because it was Eid al-Adha, but they stole my perfume there hahah. 

Thank God that we knew that once in Cairo everything would be fine. My 22 year-old-sister was already here. When she was 18 she came alone to Cairo through the desert, with the same guy that we were also going with, but she did not have as many problems as we had. Life in Cairo is also not easy. When we arrived the first thing we did was going to the UNHCR. Once you get there, you receive the worst treatment, even from the workers. They scream and yell at you, and you need to stand in a line for hours. There were no seats, no nothing. If you come to Egypt, you are really not going to get a good life. If I just told you the way we started living here, how much we were suffering, the tears would come.  

We just have started a procedure for a sponsorship emigration, resettled to Canada. We need five people living in Canada who will be signing a sponsorship document. They also need to give their bank accounts. They need to prove that they can maintain us economically. I think it will take us like one year and six months to go there. I have my aunts there, they need to be familiars, have a direct link with them, I think they do not accept friends. 

Session 2: 23/03/2022

Diana is a student at CAWU since september 2020, she is 19 years old, turning 20 in June, she is from Eritrea 

I was born in Eritrea, and at 3 years old I went with my mum to Kasala in Sudan, and from there we went by bus to Khartoum. It was legal and safe. It took around 10 hours. My mum tried her best to make it legal, because my father went from Eritrea to Sudan. He went 3 years earlier to Sudan and went illegally. He left because of his military service in Eritrea. There were a lot of things, pressures and stuff. The military was not paying him a lot, and they wanted him to stay longer. The place he went to was so bad. He was in Assad. Here it was so hot that you could even die here. We were living in Golnuch, a little village. Here everyone knows everyone. I hate that, it is good to stay for a while but for living there it is difficult, even when I go to Eritrea I used to love to go to Asmara, because there are shops and cafes and stuff. 

I was two months old when my dad left for Sudan. My mum never thought she would leave Eritrea. My mum is the kind of person who is simple. She tries to do the best with what she has. Even when we were in Sudan, we were the ones complaining but she wanted to go back to Eritrea, this is her only dream. I know that it is not easy for her because she has her family there, but even so, my dream is to go to another country  and be comfortable and then bring my family here. I want to have a life, but I would never go to Eritrea to live, well if it improves I would go because it is my country and I love it, but not now. 

The government is a dictatorship. They are super strict, there is not even internet there. It is just in specific spaces, even if you want to study you go to a place that has a computer and wifi, so not everyone has wifi in Eritrea. You know you have your things on your flash and laptop, you store it there and then you go to your house and then you study. 

My mum used to have a shop. She was trying her best to improve. You know my mum is a business woman. She likes selling and talking with people and everything. She used to have one of those small shops where they buy and sell everything. In Eritrea shopkeepers go on Fridays to a big market place and put their stands there. 

Q. Your mum did the military service? 

A: Women marry before the age of 18 because in that way they avoid to do the military service, actually, at the age of 22 you finish everything, and with 22 you go to Sawa, it is like a school. If you have good marks you go to university, but if you have bad marks you go to military service for a limited time but the government can extend it until as long as they want. 

I know a lot of Eritreans that complain about going to Sawa. It is super strict. There is a boss that can punish you so hard. Imagine, closing you in a dark cold room is the worst punishment that you can get, but they can also send you to a place that is full of stones and sticks and they make you walk with your elbows and your knees. I have heard those stories from Eritreans in Sudan. 

Between the age of 3 and 6 I was just at home, when I was 4 I used to complain, I saw my sister going to school and I also wanted to go. Whenever my parents bought her books and things for going to school I was like baba please, I want this, I want to go to school. I remember that day when my dad went to ask in my sister’s school if I could attend classes. I remember I was standing there while my dad was talking to the teacher, and when they said no, I just started to cry. 

Then I turned 6 and I went to the same primary school that my sister attended, so it was funny because I saw her at the playground. 

You know the business of alcohol was opened after 10 years. The first 10 years after marrying my mum my dad had a tuc tuc, and my mum used to sell food, enjarah, it is like bread. She used to make that in our house and people came and bought it. 

We were living in Khartoum. At that time the Sudanese were good. I used to have a friend called Nada. She was so rich, she was my older sister's age, they were friends. I used to go to her place. She has an uncle, my hair stair was as that of a boy. The uncle used to like me. He is an open-minded person and he was always buying me snacks and presents. 

It was an Eritrea primary school. It was sad because all my friends were leaving after a while, going to other countries, so I was not able to really make friends. 

I had my first phone when I was 16 years old. My uncle from America came to visit us in Sudan and he gave me this stupid s5 phone, it was so bad, I was not happy to be honest. You know I prefer to have a baby Nokia that works, instead of something that does not work. 

The teachers at the Hope of Eritrea primary school were hard. Teachers were punishing you physically, they hit you with a rule on your hands, and sometimes they made you hold the pen with two fingers, and they pressed your fingers so hard that it hurt a lot. I was in that school in Turf, but you know in the 3rd grade I became sick.  I used to faint whenever I got angry. When I could not breath well I fainted. It was at that time that we decided to go back to Eritrea. I was 8 years old, I went with my mum and my older sister.  My dad was working with the tuc tuc. And as I couldn’t figure out what my illness was, the people of the village told us to go to the priest. I had white spots on my face. We went to a priest who explained these white spots. It was so weird. The way he was talking, even my mum was surprised, he was just talking in a weird language that we could not understand. 

He gave me some products, like an incense that you burn. Then I had to put my face there and let the vapor come into my nose. I was supposed to do it for 7 days. I also had to wash myself with another product that he gave me. I put it in water and I washed,. The smell was so bad, so disgusting. I was in Eritrea for three months, and when I came back to Sudan I did these things for 7 days.

You know, after finishing the whole treatment, the lines were gone, but I got those white spots on my face. I had it in my eyes, it did not hurt at all, but in summer yes, if the sun comes to it, it hurts. I later took some medicine from France to make it go away. My aunt from France sent it to me, but it became even worse. It burnt so bad, and the spots became even bigger. I tried a lot of things, but do you know how it stopped? 

I went to Eritrea again. I went to a historical and sacred place, a particular mountain in Eritrea where the water of Jerusalem comes out. I went there, I stayed there for seven days with my mother and my grandmother, and I can tell you I was feeling the energy, I was feeling so attached to this place. 

The water comes from the middle of the mountain. A man was bringing the water to us and I washed, and it stopped, and since then I said that I will never use a medicine again, my God has done that. 

I was done, after one year I was supposed to continue studying but the school that we went before, Hope of Ertirea, was not good, there were a lot of fights with the Sudanese students (there was a sudanese school next to our school), it was super far even, so I could not continue there. And the medicines that I was taking, they did not allowed me to be super exposed to the sun, so I was not going again to school. 

I was two or three years without going to school. It was not one year after another but I missed school over different periods of time. I changed from one school to another one but they were in the second semester, so I couldn’t continue.

The last time that I didn’t go to school I was 12. So at the age of 13 I went to this new school, I entered 6th grade. They put me in a lower grade because I had skipped school. But you know, I was with people of my age, even older, as it was a refugee school, many traveled like me, they also skipped school years. 

My big sister continued at the Hope of Eritrean school. At the 8th grade she did the Sudanese curriculum exam general, but she failed two times. Even the second time she tried so hard. Most students do not pass, that sucks. You know from Zamalek, my brother has done the exam and he did not pass, only Zohra has passed it, Zohra is a student of CAWU. 

I was in this new school until I turned 17 at the second semester of that academic year I came here to Cairo. I already had the first-semester certificate, but I do not know if they asked for it in the new school, that was called St Joseph Ertirean Learning Center in Zamalek,  I don't even know if the learning centers that I had attended in Sudan such as Hope of Ertirea and Salam school, gave us a paper stating that I had completed grade 8. My mum organizes everything, but I think I have it. In St. Joseph’s in Zamalek they put me in grade 8 again. 

We decided to leave Sudan because there were these huge protests, a lot of pressure and repression from the government, as well as violent groups, I can remember that one day we were at school and they throw this gas that you cannot breath and that hurts in your eyes. And also prices started to get high and everything was getting so difficult. This is also because my dad left the tuc tuc business. There was no peace on the streets, it was not safe, so people were not going out, just staying at home. In the tuc tuc business my dad met some Filipino customers, and he knew that they were consuming alcohol, but you know alcohol is forbidden in Sudan so there is a large black market. So my dad saw a business opportunity and started a new business. He was the one that produced alcohol in our kitchen, but the customers did not even know that my dad was doing it. They just thought that my dad was the intermediator. And this business was working, so he decided he would stay in Sudan. But you know it is a risky business, and it is also not safe for us, you know my mum left the shop, we were all helping in that business. But we were sometimes scared, because it smells when you are making alcohol and the neighbors were suspicious. So we also left for this reason, but he stayed. Once, we were already in Cairo, the owner of the building came to where my dad was working. Thank God my father was not there, so just the families that were sharing the apartment with us opened the door and told him that he was not here. My dad is called Jamal, and so the owner could not enter without the consent of my dad. In Sudan we were sharing an apartment with other families as we could not handle to pay the entire apartment. Basically we were renting two rooms and the kitchen that we organized by ourselves. It was an open area and my dad made a kind of structure for protection from the rain. 

I was not having my own room in Sudan. I was sharing a room with my big sister Milen and my brother Ramon. In the other room my mum and my dad slept, and my other little sister Eline. This was in theory. This is one of the things that I hated the most in Sudan, the way we were living. Also a lot of people came from Eritrea to Sudan such as family friends and people from the community. They just came and stayed in our house for maybe  five months or more without paying rent and nothing. And you know in our culture we have this thing that when you have a guest he goes before you. If you just have one bed, you give this bed to your guest, so I gave them my bed and I was sleeping on the floor with a blanket for 5 months. We did not have a sofa. But we will not do that anymore, we have learnt from the experience. 

Even if somebody is in your house and if they are nice, polite, you can stand that, but if they argue between them, and take your clothes without asking, it becomes a nuisance. The last four years in Sudan were extremely hard, we moved a lot from house to house. You know I did not even have space to do my homework, so I never studied at home. I was not used to studying, I have never done that. History was always the subject that I struggled with the most. I was the best in maths and science. You know, I would love to have a science class here in Cairo, but it never came. 

When I came, my sister was already in Cairo. She said here you can get your UN card, you can get registered as a refugee. In Sudan, the UN does not help you at all, even less than here, imagine. We went to the Eritrean embassy in Sudan. My mum went there to ask for a residence permit, to register in Sudan. At the age of 18, my older sister came to Egypt, she had failed the 8 grade exam twice and at the age of 17 she decided to quit school. She spent one year taking courses on hairstyles and stuff.

You know when she was planning to leave she just told me, none else in our family knew. I felt for a while that I was responsible for this, I was her friend also so I needed to keep her secret. I helped her to prepare everything. You know we always used to run together once I finished school, but on the day that she escaped I did not go with her, I told my parents that I was having exams. This was an excuse because if I would have gone with her my mum would have asked me. She already had a friend here in Egypt. This friend connected her to the big boss that brought her through the desert to Egypt. She collected money but I do not know how. Maybe she asked her friends to give her money. She collected money for preparation, like buying water and food that would help her, and also she needed money once she would arrive in Cairo. She was also supposed to pay 500 dollars to the big man because you know when they arrive here in Asuan, there is this stockroom, this empty place where the families are kept, and then the big men come and you give them the money. If you give them the money you are safe and you can go. If not I don’t know what they would do, maybe they would kill you. 

We were just bringing the necessary things, a small bag maybe, almost nothing because you know you were already struggling in finding a spot where to sit in the Toyota. It was a Toyota that was open. 

My parents were worried because of my sister’s disappearance. My dad was so angry, and I was just crying. My father was suspecting me, he tried his best in a nice way to get information from me, but my mum did not suspect. I knew it, I felt guilty. 

My sister left with another friend of her age and they both disappeared at the same time, so my parents suspected that they left to another country but they really did not know where. The mother of this other friend suspected they were planning to go to Egypt, how did she know even? You know a lot of people go directly to Libya, and then they cross the sea by boat, but you know that was too dangerous. My parents were trying to find out. And then I told my parents that yes, I have heard sometime that my sister wanted to go to Egypt. 

Before leaving for Cairo she had already planned everything. She applied for the UNHCR sponsorship for going to Germany. My sister came to Egypt, she knew Arabic, but she suffered so much. She was alone and so many people tried to betray her. If you have money here they try to use you, and if you do not have money they treat you as if you were useless. When she arrived she searched for a flat with her best friend. The mum of this friend sent her clothes and money. My sister’s friend also had a rich boyfriend in another country. She was constantly saying to my sister ‘I am doing many things for you’, and my sister was tired from hearing that so she went to work as a cleaning woman. She didn’t like that, but she did, she had no other choice, and also because she did not have any connections, she didn’t know anyone. 

She called us once she arrived after going through the desert. My father was super mad, and my mother, she was so stressed, during that time that we did not hear anything about my sister. My mum was just crying. Even me, when I went to school I could just cry, I never cover my hair but those days I was wearing a scarf just to cover my face and lay on the table in class, I was just crying. My mum tried her best to fix the relationship between my dad and my sister. My father tried his best to concentrate on our education and make sure that we were okay, and when my sister left my dad felt betrayed, he felt guilty, it had hurt his honor. My father finally understood that my sister left not just for her own interest but also for helping us, getting out of Sudan and doing something, things were getting more difficult every time. And now my sister and my dad are best friends, my father always says that I have a man at home, I know. 

Once the relationship was better, my dad decided that we would go to Cairo to be with my sister. He would continue with his business in Sudan and send us money. After ten months my sister arrived here, we came straight away. My sister worked in Cairo as a cleaner for just two weeks, and then she left it because she didn’t like that. She found work in a coffee place. 

For us it took us 9 days in the desert, while for my sister it was just three days in the desert. To these days we must add the trip from Khartoum to the border with Egypt. This took my sister 11 days more. We were 11 days without knowing anything from her, but when she reached the border when they almost entered the desert, she called us and told us everything. We also went from Khartoum to the border of Egypt. We took a fancy car with black windows and we went to the border city (name?) and pretended that we were there for work. And then there is the Nile. We crossed the river by boat. They split the group into two as they didn’t want to create suspicion. After crossing the river we went to a house waiting for the other people in the group. Then we entered the car, the Toyota, and we went super fast crossing the border. We hid till we passed the border because even at night there were lights so they could have seen us. But you know, there were no security forces because it was another route. I really believe that they have a deal, that the big men organizing this illegal escape are giving money to the Sudanese police, they work together.

Usually it takes you three days to get through the desert, but for us it was 9 days, we were almost arriving at Aswan and suddenly, some people randomly came, I guess they were Egyptians, with knives. There were even children with knives, and they suspected that we were escaping illegally so they were like we will tell the police. I know that the organizers offered them money but they did not accept this. So we went back again and took another route to make sure that we were not encountering those people again. You know we used to sleep in the deserts, just in the desert with nothing. We were super thirsty. There wasn’t water. We were two days without water because, as I told you, they used to steal our water, so what we did was put it in our mouth and hold it there. You know it was especially hard for my mum. She was pregnant at that time and I was even surprised at that time, asking myself why my mum was not able to support that but later I understood everything. I was the one that was fine, whenever I saw someone drinking water I went there shouting, give us the water we have kids, you have to give us, our water has disappeared! But you know the water that they gave us was disgusting. It was water mixed with petrol, it tasted like petrol, but we hadn’t any other choice. We had to drink that to not die. I and Ramon were fine, but Emile and my mum were suffering so much. 

We sometimes stopped for four hours to sleep in the desert. It was on that day or night that they decided it, but I was not even sleeping, I couldn’t sleep. And the sun and the sand were horrible. The wind brought the sand to our eyes and it hurt our skin, it was so bad, and it was so hot. 

Session 3:16/04/2022

Once we arrived in Aswan we took the train to Cairo, and once we arrived in Cairo, my sister was waiting for us. She had a flat in the Faisal district, the flat was three rooms, one of the rooms was used by the landlord as a place to keep the things that he was not using so we could not use it. So me, Ramon, and my older sister were in one room, and my mother and my younger sister Elim stayed in another room. But you know, first, the house was good, the owner was staying in the UK. The person organizing everything was a Sudanese guy, so he could understand our situation and when we were asking him to delay payment for a month he was fine with that. One day he even reduced our quota, we were used to pay 3.025 EgP x month including utilities, but one month he reduced that to 2.500 EgP. But after one year, things started to get worse because the UK owner fired the Sudanese landlord, and after that, he employed an Egyptian landlord, with him we started to suffer so much. 

First of all, the owner from the UK called my sister and started to shout at her accusing us for not paying for electricity, he was screaming but you know my sister was patient with him, usually, she is not with those people that treat her in a bad way, but that guy was old so she tried her best to be nice. So finally we were able to pay for electricity. But you know, normally the maximum that you pay for electricity, including the use of the airconditioner is 200 EgP, but that guy asked us to pay 1000 EgP, that was crazy because we were not even having an airconditioner. It was so hot there, no air conditioning, no balcony, not even a window that could let some fresh air enter. We were mad, we were like, we are not going to pay, we are not paying. By that time the new Egyptian landlord was already here and he always came to ask us for the money, and we were like giving him excuses, for example, I always told him that mum was not at the house, our idea was to leave the house immediately but we could not. It was hard to find something, we did not even have money for buying furniture, we were also trying to find something cheap, close to the metro and the bus, we were thinking about everything and trying to find a good place, but the most important thing for us was finding peace. We wanted to move to Ard el- Lewa, because we were going to Zamalek to  St. Joseph school and it was much closer, but it was so difficult because you know in Ard el- Lewa there are certain parts that are not safe at all, so we needed to be carful. We tried hard but nothing, so we finally paid the 1000 EgP, but tensions continued and the next month he asked for 400 EgP, another month 500 EgP, it was still a lot. We arrived to the conclusion that those people were charging us extra money for keeping it themselves, they were trying to cheat us because we were not Egyptians. We just continued paying while searching for a new good flat, we had no other alternative, even if you asked an Egyptian for help, they would not help you. But the last thing was the worst, once we found a new place in Ard el-Lewa and we were leaving the place, he came to pick up the key, and it was the beginning of the month and he wanted us to pay the whole month and the elctricity for one week that we had consumed, he asked us 1.800 EgP. My sister said we have already paid a lot, and we are not going to pay you anything else. So we were screaming and doing other stuff. He even wanted to call the police, but I know how things work in Egypt. That guy would have gone to the police and given them money so the police would have come, this is the way they do things here. But we did not care. It was a huge fight. Our neighbor came, he was Egyptian and he said that asking almost 2000 EgP for electricity is insane, that is too much. So when the neighbor said that the landlord was ok, we accepted this. It was a huge fight, there was a lot of drama, we were crying and everything, I feel so bad to have faced this situation, we were all girls, they were abusing us. We were in Faisal for one year and then we moved to Ard el- Lewa on Valentine's day in 2021. 

After that big drama we went to Ard el-Lewa, this is were we live now. It is good but it was not furnished. It was cold that day. There was an Eritrean girl that gave us this small petro gas thing so at least we could cook something. She was helping us to be honest, at that time she was living in our flat, in a room. We tried to have good a relationship with our neighbors. They were even the ones that helped us to find this house, so we tried to maintain that. After three days of arriving in our new flat, we knocked at their house, presenting ourselves and also trying to receive some help, like we needed to go to the bathroom because we were like three days without even having a bathroom that was working or even to carry some new furniture. They were fine with that but you can notice when someone does not want you to help, so we did not ask them anymore. First, our house was completely empty, but you know my sister had been saving money to buy nice furniture. It was important for us to have a cozy home, so we had been saving for that for a long time. Even in Faisal, we were saving money for a future house. When we first arrived we bought a mattress, but a good one, and then we bought two beds, every month we would buy something, and whenever someone was sending us money, we were saving that for furniture and the house. It is important for us, we sometimes do not even care if we have something to eat. We see our house and we feel it is ours, this is mine, we own this shit. But you know here in Ard el-Lewa the neighbors judge you a lot. When they see that you are struggling with money and life, they look at you as if you are inferior, they underestimate you, they see you as useless. To be honest, I used to like our people when I was in Sudan, but now it has changed, I have seen that the lifestyle of Egyptians has affected them, they became like Egyptians, they just care about themselves, they just want to use people, they want you just if they can benefit from you to take something from you, they do not help you anymore. But it is even worse, they are jealous so when you have dreams and illusions they try to harm you and take them away from you, for example, our neighbors are jealous of our door that it is a good door, protected, that thieves could never enter. 

Edna was in this meeting and interfered: I had a friend whose family was living in a flat and paying 1800 EgP and the neighbors saw her house and that it was nice, and the neighbors went to talk with the landlord and offered them 2200 EgP. Just give it to us, they told the landlord, and the other family was expelled. This has happened to some of my friends, they are jealous.

Diana: They will always try to make you feel you are useless with words, for example, those who work as cleaners will treat the house where they clean as if it was theirs. They gave me that, this, I have that, this. They always try to be on top of you. My mum hates that, so she tries to stay away from it, she ignores it, but I, when someone tells me anything and I can notice the mood, I respond also indirectly. But my mum says “whenever you have the opportunity to defeat your enemy, the best thing is to ignore them.”

Q:How much do you pay now for your flat? 

A: Now we pay 1750 EgP/month. Just the day before yesterday they told us they raised the rent with 150 Egp. I just have my own room now because the Eritrean girl left. We have two rooms, Elim sleeps with my mum, Raymon on a mattress in my mum’s room and Mussy also with my mum. I have my own room for me alone. I am so lucky, but it has been a long time, I never had my own room, my own bed, girl, I deserve it. 

As we knew that we would stay for a long time in this flat, we tried to have a good relationship with the landlord, and you know the way you communicate with the landlord is so important. You need to show him that you are educated, committed and trustful. This landlord is Egyptian but we demonstrated to him a lot, we always pay immediately. My sister is the one who did that, and she was really worried because she knew that the landlord was dealing with other Eritrean families who were not having good behavior. They were always asking the landlord for help and he was like, I am not the UN. He was acting very innocent, and my sister did not want the landlord to associate us with similar behavior. So my sister tried to make us be respected, even if you have just a little thing, you need to thank God I have this and I will try to make the best to use it for reaching my goals. 

My point is that my sister was really good and really careful with the relationship. Thanks to her we now live in peace, but you know the Egyptian landlords also can be dummies whenever they see a beautiful young girl they are just saying haha. But you know my sister was smart, so every time the Egyptian guy was trying to go somewhere else she was able to change the conversation and bring it to a formal and professional way. 

Q: How did you finance yourself in Cairo? 

A: You know it was hard at the beginning because once we arrived here, my dad started to feel so lonely in Sudan and so worried about us that he started to be super insistent with my mum to leave Egypt and come back to Sudan. My mum refused that, she was like, now we have taken this decision and we will stand for that. It was hard because my mum had this big argument with my dad and they were like three months without talking to each other. Everytime my dad tried to call my mum and my mum simply did not pick up the phone. Finally in March 2020 my dad came to Egypt and by then we fixed the relationship. He came to Egypt because my little sister Mossana was supposed to be born. It was important to have the father there because without the presence of the father it is so difficult to get the papers for the child. My mum gave birth in the flat in Faisal and this is also another reason why we did not want to move flat at that time. We needed to make sure that we had something, a place where my mum could recover well. My dad was supposed to stay just for three months but he ended up staying with us for 9 months, because COVID-19 came, so he was forced to stay here in quarantine. But you know during those months when the relationship was so bad with my dad, we were struggling so much with money, and here is when the thing of the hotel happened. We didn’t want to ask my dad for help because he could have reproached us for that, and we did not want that. But then he came and everything was better, my mum gave birth to Mussi. Just my dad and my sister were able to go to the hospital. You know it was also lockdown and there was curfew from 6 pm to 10 am, so they even stayed one night at the hospital. During that time I was at home taking care of Raymon and Eline and preparing everything, I can remember I was the whole day in the kitchen preparing food and also washing clothes and preparing everything so that my mum just came and had everything and could feel comfortable. 

My dad spend the 9 months of quarantine with us, but it was so hard and we struggled so much with money. My dad was stressing so much. You know he is used to working and working always, and he was constantly saying things as I need to do something. There is no money coming in, we are just wasting it. And he was also not feeling comfortable when our aunts in the West were sending us money. This was a kind of hurting his honor as a man. He was like ‘I am the man here, I am the one supposed to do that.’ 

Our parents never told us that they were struggling with money but I could notice when Mussi was born. Everytime a child gets born you give the Egyptian staff that helped you at the hospital a gift, like money, like a tip. My dad did not give them and my sister told him baba you are supposed to give. He told her ‘no.’ I know that he did not give them because we did not have money. Or even my mum in the hospital, I can remember that after giving birth she was hungry but she did not get food. Sometimes I think that this was because we could not afford it. I did not know this at that time. Now I am the one managing the money and the budget, but when my dad was here he was the one doing it so I had no idea, but I could see some things. My dad tried to find a job here but it was impossible. As soon as borders were open, he returned to Sudan. I was happy when he left because I knew that he was suffering so much. He used to work all day. He liked to be busy working even without having time to eat sometimes. During these 9 months, my sister was trying to work, She has temporary jobs, mostly as a receptionist in companies for which she gets paid 4.000 EgP/month. 

I never had a best friend, my sister neither. She is the one that I trust most, you [Julia] are the second person that I am trusting in my life. My sister is my soulmate and I am hers, my sister is my special person. I gave her the push to stop doing those bad things that were making her feel bad. I told her to let it go, and finish, our God is here, and he will protect us. To be honest, my mum always prays, I am not a good believer, I do not deserve good things, but you know God will give you good things if you believe Him 100%. Without saying if I do that it will go bad, I will not be lucky, you need to believe Him 100%. I don’t know, but I  admire my mum. Whenever there is no money she always does not give a fuck about it, she does not stress, she is like God is here, we have not done anything bad in our life so He will help us, and He will always help us, I swear. 

Even those days, it was this week, we were struggling so much with money, my dad is in Eritrea now and he cannot send money to us, so we cannot even let him know because there is not even a network there, and it is expensive, like 50 dollars just to make a phone call. So we do not call him a lot. And we also do not want to ask anybody for money. God will tell them in their heart. The landlord was asking for the money because it is the beginning of the month, I was even worrying about the transportation for going to school. This is also why I am not paying for Lydias’ birthday party. I cannot afford it now. It was this exam week and I could not even study. I was stressed, and I was even thinking about starting to work straight away after exams. I even contacted Mandela [another CAWU-LC student] asking him about the call center where he works and I want to try to find a job there because that call center is really good and they are flexible with your schedule. Mandela could see that I was not in a good situation, he asked me about it and I just told him that I needed some money for going out and partying and stuff.

During this week the wifi was even not working, so I went to the guy and I asked him to fix it. The same day he fixed it. I was in bed, about going to sleep, but I was crying, and I was like I miss my sister, and I called her. I missed her so much, I called her, and I was like I could not hide it, I told her look Miley, my life is fucked up now, we were talking and talking, I tried to hide it but I could not and I finally told her that we had economcial problems and that I was going to start working next week, after exams, and she was like screaming at me, she was like no, do not, she was like when I was in Egypt I was working and I was paying a lot of things, but do I have something now? The money has gone finished, money does not last with you, so just concentrate on your education please, none will say that girl was working, but when you are educated they will appreciate you. She was like okay Diana does not work, and I decided not to work. 

Q: Is your sister working now in Germany?

A: No she is not. She is not allowed to do it yet until she has the papers fixed. Now she sustains herself with the money of the UNHCR. She left Egypt this December. I can remember she spent her birthday here, December 11 and then she left, two weeks before Christmas. Before leaving for Germany she bought a lot of decoration of our almighty God, as she knew that in Germany it was so expensive, and she also bought the same for us, it was a present. 

Q: Are you doing better with money now? 

A: Now it is getting better, my sister called my uncle in the UK, and my sister asked me to send her a picture of  the residence card of my mum, so I asked her why, and she told me ‘look I have told our uncle that you are struggling, please do not tell mum if she knows she will get mad.’ So my uncle sent us money, I think we will survive with this money for this month until summer, then I will work and I can sustain my family until my dad comes to Egypt. 

Q: How long were you in Egypt without school until you entered St. Joseph’s in Zamalek? 

A: It was not so long, around three months. My mum was the one contacting the schools, I know she contacted some in Faisal but all of them told her that they were full and had no space, so St Joseph’s was the only one. My mum was trying hard with Miley to find a good school for me. Raymon and Miley could get an education, I can remember that they were always going out and visiting schools. When I came to Cairo I was not speaking English at all, just Tigrinya and Arabic. My Arabic was much better then than it is now. I tried my best to improve my English. I first got motivated to learn English in Sudan when I realized that all my mates were having a good level of English because some of them came from Saudi Arabia and went to good schools. This also created in me a lot of insecurity, even when I entered CAWU-Learning Center I know that people have gone to international schools in Saudi Arabia that they are good at English, but I had never had the opportunity to access that type of education, so I still sometimes think, am I really good and capable? I really do not know how those exams have gone, I was trying my best to concentrate and learn before all the drama of the money in my family, I have studied a lot, I was even explaining my mother what I have learnt before the exam, translating it in Tigrinya, look mum do you know McDonald's? Blablabla and explaining to her how Mcdonald's work! 

Q: How were your marks at St. Joseph’s in Zamalek?

A: I was having good results, but you know, I was not satisfied with that because I felt that I was not learning. I was not enjoying it. I was also feeling stocked, like the school nor the teachers were motivating us and challenging us to improve, so I just felt indifferent. I felt that it was not adding anything. 

Q: Why did you decided to go to CAWU?

A: I finished the 8th grade in Zamalek. I did not even do the Sudanese exams because the previous generation that passed the exam paid a lot and the only thing that they got was a google pdf with the results, not a certificate, not a paper, not nothing. So that is why our Principal decided not to do the exams. We were really not preparing ourselves for anything. I was about to drop out of school, not continue studying because I could not find any good school, and if there is a good school it is so expensive, so I asked my uncle to pay for a make-up school. I did a lot of research about make up schools in Egypt, trying to find a good one in English. After grade 8, I wanted to do something, have a certificate and go to work, and I really wanted to work on something that I like and you know, make up is my dream. I couldn’t go to a call center because my English was fucked up, and I hate to go to cleaning houses, that is the last thing I would ever do. So I told my uncle and he was fine with that. This is my dream and I want to do it. I just want now to learn this, I want to work and at the same time, take English courses, I can do that, and you know makeup things, they pay good and I can even work in my home. There is a lot of money for work like that. And he was happy, he was encouraging me, he was also about to pay the money, I already called the make-up academy and everything, It was 1.000 dollars for the whole course. But before he sent me the money, I needed to ask my dad and my mum. I am very close to my father, much more than my sister because I am younger than her and you know daddy and stuff. So I told him, and he knows that I am serious about my future, I told him that I did not want to waste my time. I was 18 at that time, I am 18 now, I do not have anything, and you know that school is not everything in life. I just want to be a good makeup artist and start from now. After a long time he agreed because he always thought that I would graduate from University,  I told him, it is my dream even to go to university and graduate but what can I do? This is the situation, I have no alternative, there is no good school that I can go to. I told him that I would go to university and continue studying maybe if we were resettled to Canada, but by now I needed something. The bad thing that I did was to tell my uncle first and then my father, I didn’t want to bother my daddy, but he felt sad like it was important for him to know that I was feeling comfortable telling him anything, not being frightened, have this space of trust between us, so when I told my uncle first he felt so sad like he was not doing good his job as a dad. I felt so bad. But finally he understood, and I already called the makeup school and was almost going to go. But one day the St. Joseph’s school in Zamalek called my mum. There was a meeting for parents and they talked about CAWU, and then my mum told me this is a good opportunity, you can always do the make up course, but by doing this you are opening a lot of doors, you will not be limited. She also told me that they were not telling me what to do, that it is my decision, but she made me think about it. I feel even though I had this dream and excitement to go to the make up school, I had the feeling that I still need some things, that I am not a full person, I am not complete. At least I thought that CAWU would give me English, so I told my mum, look mum I will try one year, and if I feel that I am not getting anything back I will quit because paying 5000 EgP/year is a lot and I really want to make sure that it is worth it. I was in the church with my mum when we got this conversation. It was intense and I was almost about to cry because I did not know what to decide. I am so serious about my future. So then I thought, make-up school is always there. So I tried. She was happy with my decision. And once I decided I was so stressed because I knew that my English was not good and that everyone there would be better than me, also once there I saw this competition inside the class, and everyone doing so well, I felt myself dust. So I started to learn English and teach myself. I saw movies, everything. And it was so bad because I also had this friend from Saudia Arabia who also went to CAWU, and you know people in Saudia Arabia are well educated and know good English, and she was always treating me as inferior, and everytime I was explaining something she repeated it like, what she means is blabla as if I was not able to explain it myself. This affected so much my self-esteem but I have overcome this.