“I am incapable of anything” Muhammad Khalifa Abdel-Wahed says with sorrow. “Incapable of looking after myself, my wife and my children.”
Muhammad is close to 40 years old. An illness about a decade ago, in his final year of college, left him disabled.
Muhammad lives with his wife and three children near Cairo in Ayyat, one of Egypt’s poorest areas. Their home consists of a bathroom and another room they use as a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. They do not have a refrigerator, but they really don’t need one anyway, because there is rarely any food to store. They eat meat about once every two months.
“When I cook chicken,” his wife said, ”I noticed my children don’t eat all their share and they keep it for the next days. Then I discovered that they save it because they are afraid they won’t be eating chicken again soon!”
Muhammad and his family live on his government pension of 100 Egyptian pounds a month – three pounds a day, or about 50 cents. This must pay for food, Muhammad’s medicine and treatment, the children’s education costs – everything.
His family received a large box of food from Islamic Relief, bringing relief from the struggle to find food for a month.
“I know you care for the needy people and their sufferings,” Muhammad said, “and I hope you keep doing this … We would be very helpless without you.”
Despite his family’s difficulties, Muhammad has hope for a better life.
“Tomorrow is in God’s hand,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have our own hopes for the future. I wish to have a house like normal people; a room for me and my wife, and a room for the kids, with a kitchen and bathroom. I wish I have a stable income … sometimes I feel that I am having a far-fetched dream and that what I am asking for is too much … but then I wonder … aren’t these the hopes and dreams of any man?”
