“El Ghorba was an indirect reason that led to my divorce,” says Amr Alaaeldin, a 35-year-old Egyptian engineer based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ‘El Ghorba’, which loosely translates to ‘estrangement’, is a term used to describe living in a country other than one’s own. More than five million Egyptians work in the Arabian Gulf — with Saudi Arabia accounting for the majority of Egyptian immigrants. Between the 1960s and 1970s, as Egypt’s population increased and its economic situation worsened, many Egyptians began relocating to the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); the latter consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. With a rising demand for labor in the GCC, Egyptians sought better job opportunities and improved living standards. Unfortunately though, many who emigrated without their families found themselves facing strained familial and romantic ties. In September, Egyptian anthropologist Farah Hallaba launched “Being Borrowed”, a collaborative creative project that addresses Egyptian migration to the Gulf. Stemming from her belief that this experience is “underrepresented and understudied”, the multi-output collective attempts to tackle temporality, family dynamics, belongingness and more, through personal narratives. Broken relationships and grappling…
Between Divorce and Hardship: Stories From Egyptian Men Working in the Gulf
December 25, 2022
