Finally he has found a tourist who wants to ride at his horse around the pyramids. It will deliver the first money this week, he knows his mom will be pleased. Habibi likes it when his mom is proud of him than he feels like he has really done a good thing. When he has walked for about a quarter with the tourist they are back in front of the pyramid and where he ought to get paid. The tourist, gets of the horse and walks away. Habibi follows him and says that he hasn’t got his money yet but the tourist doesn’t react. The tourist disappears between all the other tourists and he knows he won´t get his money anymore.. He feels really disappointed, in himself but he also thought he could trust the people. They have just walked for fifteen minutes in the hot sun, the sweat dripped from his head and he didn’t got the bit of money he thought he would get, it makes him really upset. He wants to cry, stamp and scream but he knows it won’t help. So he takes a deep breath and starts looking for another tourist who wants a ride, this time he will let him pay first.
In the evening Habibi walks the long road home, feeling quite happy. After the tourist who didn’t pay he got three kind tourists who did pay him and he knows he will have a dinner tonight. When he comes home he sees his mum, crying. His father comes to him and says his youngest sister has just died of malnutrition. Habibi feels really sad, he walks to his bed, a few blankets on the ground, and lays down. It is my fault Shirana has died, my fault, my fault.. He starts thinking, crying and suddenly he falls asleep.
When he wakes up the next morning he knows one thing. He doesn’t belong here. He is sure that he brings bad luck, everything goes wrong because of him, his sister died, his mum is sad, and they sometimes have no food for days. If he doesn’t go more bad things will happen to his family, he is sure that he doesn’t want that. He wants the best for his family, and if the best is without him, he will go. This week he will gather as much money as possible, than he will walk away with his two horses. His family will have one horse left, that one will be for his brother so he can go to the pyramids every morning and earn money for his family. That’s it. That’s a good plan, he thinks. The next week Habibi has a lot of tourists and earns enough money for his family.
Tomorrow I’m sure I will leave but now I need to sleep and get rid of this headache, he thinks.. Suddenly there’s a long dark tunnel, with a little, shiny, white light at the end. He wants to get closer, to see what it is, but he can’t get close enough.. he continues trying and after a long time he has almost reached the light. In the mean time he feels his spirit getting out of his body and sees it lying in the bed beneath him. He sees his face.. it is lying there with a peaceful smile, with his body between his little brothers and sisters. It feels good to get separated from his body and leave the troubles behind, he just has given everything he had, now it’s enough. His eyes take one more look and then he flies into the tunnel towards the light…
Rationale
Five years ago I went to Egypt with my family during our summer holiday. When we visited the capital of Egypt, Cairo, I was struck by the poverty in which millions of inhabitants of Cairo have to live in every single day. This enormous poverty took away a lot of the fun and pleasure I intended to have during my holiday. Especially the city of the death is a very big quarter of Cairo where you find a lot of slums and millions of very poor people. One day we visited the three pyramids which are just outside of Cairo. When visiting these pyramids we saw the children like Habibi trying to earn their money with horse rides. Of course there were also a lot of children and adults that had to earn their living selling small things and begging for money. Also when we visited Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, or the temple of queen Hatsjeput there were always a lot of very poor people who had to earn their living by begging for money from the tourists. Wherever people are very poor animals usually neither have a good life. In Egypt for instance a lot of people don’t have a truck. Whenever they have to move heavy loads like stones from a brickyard they use the poor horses for transportation. This combined with the fact that the horses hardly get any decent food leads to the horrible situation of walking carcasses pulling heavy loads. I wrote this story because I think I should inform people about the horrible conditions for humans and animals around there. These people and animals live a life like Habibi every single day. If Habibi wants to run away, what do these people think of every single day? That was my one of my questions when I started writing this story. Another reason was to try to let people feel like they’re Habibi for a little while.. so they know what life’s like when you live in Egypt. I did this by adding many of his feelings, for example ‘He feels the warmth on his skin already and when he opens his eyes he sees the sun coming up’ and ‘It is my fault Shirana has died, my fault, my fault.. He starts thinking, crying and suddenly he falls asleep’. I chose the word ‘tunnel’ because I thought this kind of tunnel (the tunnel of which is thought that people travel through when they die) was quite an original idea. Second I think it’s good to write about something that I’ve seen with my own eyes because than I can express things better. When I was in Egypt I also saw the bond between the children, people and the horses; the conditions are horrible, but they keep working hard together. This was also something I wanted to show to the people who read my story. And third I wrote this because I needed to do it for English, and I really liked doing it.
