Once a sanctuary for divorced or widowed women, where men are still not allowed, the village has now become an endless cycle of government negligence they can’t escape.
There is a town in southern Egypt, thousands of kilometres from Cairo, that is exclusively for divorced and widowed women. Men, married women and single mothers are barred from entry, not allowed to live in this remote town.
To see how this informal microcosm works, you would need to take a train from the heart of Cairo to Aswan, which is 1,202 km away in southern Egypt, and then another bus to get you to Edfu, another 67 km away.
The further you get from Cairo, the harder the journey becomes. It’s tricky to hitch a ride from Edfu to Wadi Al Saaydeh, from where, if you’re lucky, you might find a pickup truck willing to take you on the unpaved roads that eventually lead to Samaha, where low-lying brick houses fan out around the partly-tarred roads that cut through the sparse landscape.
Married life is considered central to stability, especially in Upper Egypt, where marriage is sanctified. Therein there are some who arguably worship the role of women as wives and caretakers, their roles being to preserve sacred family relations, reflecting a society that firmly enforces inherited traditions and norms.
The divorced and widowed women of Samaha village usually get up very early in the morning, bearing their poleaxes over their shoulders. They farm and harvest throughout the day, and in the evening, sit in front of their houses watching over their children. Such is the meticulously structured lives of these women.
It does not come easy for those women, particularly considering some of the pressures the gender bias in Egypt places them under. For example, the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture enabled these female-only households to have lands they could depend on to earn a living. To have full ownership of the land, they must have resided there for at least 15 years.