Education days

Education is always an important aspect of my life, it was in the past, still is and would be in the future. That idea played a vital role in making me what I am today. It always meant to me hard work - I really had to work hard to finish my study- I said work because I think education for  childrens is like a job they have to do.

             People in my country have a special opinion about education and well educated people always get respect and stand in a higher level than the rest. My family stressed the importance of education for me and my siblings.I was raised believing that to be a worthy person I had to get good education and if you did not get it I will turn in a loser that does not deserve respect or even to survive.

              I was stressed out since I started my first grade 20 years ago. I had to pass 5 years elementary learning and study hard to pass to middle school.Although elementary school  is the first step of education to any child.It was hard for me even in at that young age to enjoy it.It was similar to working HARD. 

I had many memories of me crying and fighting with my mother because she wanted me to study harder and not to fail in school. I passed that elementary school with many challenges and moved to middle school that lasted for another 3 years of hard work that took me to high school.

I was so nervous and so stressed out during Middle because I felt if I did could not get good grades in middle school. I would not get to the high school and switch over to a craft school which my mother did not like. She wanted me to get to high school because high school is the only kind of school that would allow me to get into college or University. Craft school was a lower education level that people looked down at on; unfortunately that is the education system in my country.

All the schools I went to were public schools.Teachers in those schools did not care about how much education and information the students got because of many reasons, for one the ministry of education did not give those teacher sufficient wages to survive, so most of them were involved in tutoring private classes to make ends meet. Schools became building without education while all private tutoring became the only venue for getting information from teachers.

It is a strange education system; for that my mother brought me private teachers which were not cheap and she paid them to help me get good grades. She did all that because she wanted me to go to college. I really appreciate what she did for me.

 I passed high school and got enough credit to put me in university studying Commerce.
Now I realize that it was not my personal problem rather it was my country devastated education system that stressed me out throughout my school years. No wonder with that much emphasis on education, my country still a third world country.  

Life changes

          On 1-25-2011 an Egyptian revolution started, protesters demanded the president to step down because of many chronic problems that included lack of freedom, bad economy, unemployment rate and inflation.

                                                          

Former President “Pharaoh”  

 

Starting of the revolution

 

                                                 

At that time I was living in Egypt and very happy about that revolution because I thought it is a new beginning will start soon and the old regime will be gone.

Unexpectedly the president stepped down and the military controlled the country until the people elected a new president. Before all this happened I took my decision to leave the country to anywhere else; it did not matter where I will go, as long as it would be away from this land.  Before the revolution started i did not care much about democracy because I just needed to finish my education which was all what interests me. When I was young my family took care of my needs, food, allowance, clothes, books and personal needs

because they wanted me to focus on my education and become a productive person that enjoy a good life. 

I agree that education is very important subject to all Arab countries, but I always had a feeling that in spite what my family are doing for me which was very hard for them; I know my country economy is bad and the same powers that control the economy will always stay and those are the only people who are comfortable with things as it is in my country. That means a minority group are controlling the whole system which is true too for all of the Arab countries.

So as I mentioned; my family wanted me to get good education for believing on me, the education was my chance to change my life and their life as well since they believe that

highly educated people can change the country to the best. When I was young I noticed the regime is rewarding security personal (police, arm forces and intelligence) with good salary and benefits; it was clear that police servicemen were above the law; police officers were very special in my country, because of that; I saw most of people were scared and afraid from them. For the president himself as a military chief who is on top of pyramid; when people are allowed to speak talk to him, they would not look to him directly, how could they stare at the pharaoh, they used to look at the ground while talking to him, I feel some times he wants people to worship him, but i can find an excuse for them because I know the president and the media surrounding him that creates that image of him. The media wanted everyone to be aware that he is the wise man who everyone should agree with anything he says or do, otherwise the police will take care of things in a country that lived under Marshall Laws for more than 60 year!!! Security is what protected the president and his entourage who looted my country BIG TIME. So I was mad about all that and I could not do much to my country nor my family to change their lives. I just needed to finish my education as soon as I can and leave out of  this country; not only for making more money but also to just change the place because every time I see all this things happen every day it hurt my heart very bad , I did not believe the revolution will ever happened in Egypt, but it already started, hundreds of civilian were killed by police officers and snipers. I took 18 days to for the military president to step down, but the protesters managed to eliminate the police after 3 days only, it was a powerful revolution, I think God gave this power to the protesters to hold while being killed. No one believed before that people can make a revolution because of the power and brutality of the police as I mentioned before.

At that time I was set to travel to USA and I was ready to go, I did not believe that country was bad and we all need to leave, it is a beautiful country with a long history and worthy tradition that can be turned into the best place for everyone to live in, but it was too late for me, we all had great dreams for her after the revolution, Should I stay ? No I just wanted to take care of my responsibility to myself to feel free and forget about the all bad and ugly things that happened before. 

                                  

                   Banner says “Kill more of us, we will not accept your ruling anymore”

An image of a Khaled Saeed who was tortured by police and sparked the revolution

                                                       Cairo Airport

                                        

                                                       My new homeland

I needed to stay away from all and live by myself; I always have feeling of the big responsibility I have for my family. After 6 month of the revolution; I moved to USA. I do not know why but when I saw NEW YORK for the first time I was not surprised, maybe because I just came to USA to live and not to tour and enjoy then leave after few days.

After I landed in NY; I went to VIRGINIA because I know someone over there. I stayed over there 2 weeks looking for any job, but I could not find any.

Latter one of my friends called me about a job in BRIDGEPORT CT, so I moved here and started to work. In the beginning it was hard because too many things are new and different between Egypt and USA, even my room in my country was bigger than the house I stayed in now, the food, people, work and everything is different, in Egypt I used to live with my family, here in US I do the single person life which means I do my food; wash my clothes; pay my house rent, but now I got used to that life style which is working, have some fun and try to study to build a carrier.

             

           &

It is kind of hard to work and study at the beginning but I am doing it because I love Education. the best thing that makes me happy now is that I’m responsible for myself and it does not matter if I have money or not if I can live whatever I choose for myself.