“Remember that feeling you had when you entered AUC and everyone had left?”

“Yes. That was the worst.”

“I guarantee you it’s about to happen again. We’re due for a mass exodus. Return of the brain drain. Just watch, you’ll say H called it.”

I’m at an entrepreneurship ecosystem fitar with my friends and we’re discussing the future of startups in Egypt. Two of my friends have their own companies and have started making serious moves to shift their operations outside of Egypt, so they can start earning money in hard currency. I’m sitting next to them hearing about the lack of investment options, the inability to keep up with salary increases and the lack of talent in the country.

“Do you really think you’ll go?” I ask one of them, trying to keep my tone neutral. I can’t imagine that what H says is about to come true. I don’t want to face another round of moves. I don’t want to be left alone, again.

“Yes. If the business model works in Dubai I’m gone. I’m testing it out now, and if it’s successful I’ll move by September.”  

“Wow…” I utter looking at my other friend and waiting for her to interject.

“It’s just much more civilized there. Business is more regimented and faster. If I want to make a decision I have more options, everything is sleek and runs like a well-oiled machine. There are opportunities and potential for growth.”

She has just come back from a two-month sojourn in Abu Dhabi, trying to set her company up there. After years of visiting the Gulf and not being impressed she has finally been converted.

“It’s not just business, the lifestyle there is more comfortable. The Emirates has all of the amenities you need, it’s clean and diverse. It’s like you’re in Europe, but in the Middle East. El nas mokhaha mefatah and no one bugs you in the street.”

“Yes, but there’s no culture. It’s all just malls and fancy restaurants.”

“Ma for culture baa we can come to Egypt for the holidays, haha. Honestly, the Emirates has evolved a lot, they have a burgeoning art scene and everyone who is anyone has given a concert there. Trust me, you’d love it.”

I stare at them both not believing we’re actually having this conversation, but also feeling like it was always coming on some level. As far back as I can remember Egyptians of means have always had contingency plans for how they would leave the country. Whether it’s applying for the Canadian citizenship, buying a house in Greece or Spain, or sending their kids to study abroad, whoever could afford it has always had an alternative plan for his or her future. 

“It’s either Dubai or the U.K, for me,” another friend of mine explains to me regarding his post-marriage plans over tea one day. “We’re definitely not staying here. I personally prefer the U.K in terms of the kinds of opportunities that exist there, but I’m also hardcore looking in Dubai. I just took new headshots for my Linkedin account and have started applying to all of the openings I come across. Worst case the company I’m at has a branch in Dubai and I’ll try to get them to relocate me there.”

“I’m leaving for all of the reasons. All the fucking reasons, any reason you can think of.  As soon as I get any kind of opportunity, I’m bouncing. I’ve started applying to Masters programs and am looking for work opportunities all over. I’m not limiting myself to a specific country, whoever will take me we khalas,” another friend proclaims passionately in our group chat.  

As if H had prophesized it, I suddenly find myself having this conversation with more and more of my friends. Ones I had never anticipated and ones who have long been vocal about their desire to leave.

“I just paid 4000LE for candles in Ikea, this country is down in the dumps khalas.”

“I’m doing the work of three people at work and I get paid the same as a McDonald’s employee. I honestly see no future here.”

“I can’t afford to send my kids to the kinds of schools that we went to. The only logical option is to move.

Even though a part of me feels betrayed, the bigger part of me, the one that had been in their shoes, totally understands where they’re coming from. I had always seen myself as having a big career in either publishing or content creation, and the truth of the matter is that neither industry is very big in Egypt. If I had pursued my ambitions, I likely would have hit a ceiling soon enough and had to relocate to keep up with the competitive and global nature of these jobs. But who will stay to build if we all leave? Don’t we have some kind of ethical or social responsibility to Egypt?

“I owe this country nothing. What has it ever done for me? My parents, yes for sure, they’ve always fought hard to give me every opportunity, but Egypt has done its very best to get in my way at any given chance.”

“Anything we build the system will find a way of knocking down. They don’t want us to succeed without involving them somehow, so there’s always a cap as to how far we can go.”

I had always imagined that when I built a life for myself it would be in Egypt. I imagined that my friends, wherever they currently were, would come back so we could be together and build together. Now it’s seeming more and more unlikely that either of those will be the case. For me as a writer, Egypt is the kind of place that’s filled with content, history and interesting cultural contradictions that inspire on a daily basis, so being here is a no-brainer. Egypt is hard to script, hard to predict, hard to grasp, so it makes for a fascinating test subject. But Egypt itself doesn’t appreciate its value. Egyptians do not respect other Egyptians, 3o2det el khawaga is a real thing, making me think that maybe the kind of appreciation I am looking for cannot be found here after all. So where does that leave me? Do I keep pursuing the impact I care about, or look for the one that encourages me?

 “If you really think about it,it’s kind of like a time of war. You know that something is looming and looming and you’re just living in fear.”

‘I don’t see a world in which I can work where I’m exerting more and more effort every day but the value of what I do becomes nothing.”

“I was sitting with my colleagues last month and by the end of the meeting my entire net worth had decreased by more than 15%. And this is just the beginning.”

After multiple conversations on this subject I begin to notice that it’s not just about the currency devaluation and the increasing lack of basic goods in the market, it is a much more deeply rooted issue, wherein a whole rising generation feels like its opportunities here—at home— are limited or non-existent. Wherein people who have studied hard and worked harder don’t feel challenged because the competition is limited (as privileged as that sounds).

“I’ve always had this itch to leave because there’s better chances abroad. Here there’s so much bureaucracy, you’ll definitely be met with red tape somewhere. I’m not naïve, I know that the chances of making it fel 3’orba are much harder, but at least there’s a process in place. I don’t have to get wasta hena w wasta hena w wasta hena just to get an operating license.”

“I have this innate desire to want to achieve so much. Hena you’re not working with the best of the best anymore because the best of the best have left. So, who are you learning from? You become complacent because you are the top talent. But what does that do for your growth?”

Personally, I struggle a lot with the idea of what to do with my future. With this question of where to build my future. Do I go after the opportunity, the money, and maybe just become another cog in the wheel? Or do I try and pave a way for myself amid the chaos? Do I go where I am not needed (but maybe wanted) or do I stay and help weather the storm? Does it ultimately matter where you are, or is it all a myth?

“Ehna maandenash exit plan. Hateghraa, haneghraa maaha,” my mom proclaims over fitar a few days later.

I am trying to get the elder generation’s point of view on this idea of exodus and whether or not it applies to them.

“To be honest, a lot of people from our generation left when we were younger to make a better living in Dubai or Saudi. But unlike you guys, we grew up in kheir Masr. At the time, it was possible to make it here and live comfortably. I’m not gonna lie, the chances of you guys living in the same way you grew up is slim. You’re gonna have more of an uphill battle, so I understand why you’re looking at other options.”

 “It sounds like there’s a lot of anger and fear coming from your generation. We didn’t have this obsession with looking outside, Egypt is our home. There’s no guarantee anywhere, so you might as well be with your family and friends”, my dad adds.

My dad’s words get at me and I feel like I want to argue back. I understand where he’s coming from, but I also see how different our outlook is on Egypt’s future, how somehow there is a generational difference in how we view the world. Our generation does not see borders as much as our parents do. We grew up traveling the world, hearing what’s happening in different countries constantly, being exposed to cultures from all over, many of us feel it is our right to work from anywhere, nationalism having less of an effect on us than our predecessors. Roots being less implanted.

For most of my friends who have kids the answer is similar to that of my parents and straightforward. “Egypt is home. This is where our family, our friends, our network, our support system is.The idea of uprooting all of that just for a chance at a better income does not seem worth it. “For us one of the biggest issues would be the momentum,” my friend’s husband comments at a sehour where I have cornered everyone I know to get some insight on their upcoming plan— to verify H’s hypothesis. “The kind of momentum it takes to leave is really hard to describe. It’s much tougher than people give it credit. I’ve done it a lot and I just don’t think it’s worth it at the moment”. “Ideally, you would have regl hena w regl hena,” another friend interjects. “The opportunity to leave – should things get really bad— but also the option to stay, all things going well. El bani2adam global, mesh local ya gama3a.” “The best of both worlds”, I think but make a face. This idea of living in two worlds seems like a very bad one to me. It would be exhausting, not to have the security and pleasure of really belonging to one place, whatever that place may be, and always having to go back and forth. I look at my friend F who really does live that way and get an empathetic smile in return. “Honestly, the best case scenario is to live here, but have a job where you earn in a different currency,” M comments. “Da the Egyptian Dream”, my friend H laughs. “Warini hate3melha ezay di.” “Esaraha lau el dollar wessel le 50 ana mashi,” my friend S speaks up silencing us all.

“What keeps you here? Why did you decide to come back?” I ask one of my friends who moved back to Egypt from Berlin and San Fransisco a while later, to try and get a better understanding of the contrarian perspective.

“Honestly? My family. If they weren’t here, I’d leave tomorrow. But there are some amazing perks, too, like great weather and proximity to beaches.” 

“Ana lessa 3amel u-turn 3ala Masr w mesh 3aref ana le3ebtaha ghalat wla eh?” another friend who has just moved back from Amsterdam chimes in with his story. He has just launched a startup that works in real estate in Egypt, seeing that the market was primed for his product, the exact opposite of what H and my other friend are trying to do. He sees opportunity in Egypt.

“Ana lau kont mowazaf kont mesheit men zaman,” S clarifies. “I think leaving or staying has to do with the nature of your job and the future of what you do.”

The more I talk to my friends about this topic, the more opinions and points of view I hear, the more I realize what a personal decision, this idea of exodus is. There is some panic, some fear, but there is also a lot of groundedness as well. Some measly ray of hope. Yes, there is panic, but it isn’t blinding. Yes, there is fear, but there is also stability.

“What was the moment that did it for you?” I ask my friend D— who has been on the verge of exodus since forever but is finally taking the shot— a couple of days later.

“The first devaluation when it went from 15-18. I didn’t save in foreign currency, and I really felt the hit. I remember, we were sitting in a meeting at the time and talking about hiring other people for the company and their salaries would have been more than mine (she was assistant VP at the time).”

“And you have no qualms about leaving?”

“Honestly? No.Look at Mo Salah. Look at Mohamed El Baradei. Look at Ahmed Zewail. You can’t tell me that to adequately represent your country, to bring pride and impact to Egypt you need to physically be here. You can be a good ambassador for Egypt from anywhere. Look at the impact Mo Salah has left on Egypt’s reputation globally. Don’t tell me that to create change and push the needle you need to be living here and working here.”

Fair point, I think and say out loud.

I guess it depends whether you make your decisions on an individualistic level or as part of a collective, I think to myself a while later. Then again, I’m not sure that there are any unselfish decisions. It’s kind of like that thing on the airplane where if the pressure rises in the cabin you have to put your mask on first before helping the person next to you. To succeed, in any capacity, to leave an impact, in any capacity, you have to be your best self— regardless of where that self is. And I guess for many people, in the past few months especially, that best self is looking Emirati, German, or even Saudi.

Whether or not an exodus is about to happen remains to be seen. Maybe when the dollar hits 50 EGP, as my friend S said. Maybe, never. Whatever the case, I’m here for it.

Sure-footedly yours,

Girl With One Earring