Shahd Alhamdan

Saudi Gazette

CAIRO — A woman made a home delivery order at a restaurant. When the doorbell rang, she opened the door to find a delivery girl standing with her order. Shocked and surprised, the woman asked the delivery woman, “You?! You brought the order by yourself?’’



Not a common scene in Egypt, but Walaa Adel took up the low-paying male job of becoming the first delivery girl for a traditional restaurant to change the perception about women's capabilities to work in difficult circumstances.



Adel, obsessed with motorcycles, is also known as Walaa Tayara (speedy).”



She believes that her difficult childhood was one of the factors that provided her the opportunity to work at a young age.



After the divorce of her parents, Adel who lives with her siblings and mother, quit school at the age of 12 and started working at her family restaurant in Aljayara district in Old Cairo.



She helped her uncle in cleaning and cooking, and observed her mother working at the koshary restaurant.



Adel had always been passionate about motorcycles; as a girl she nagged her uncle in to teaching her how to ride the two-wheeler.



Despite her mother's disapproval, Adel learned how to ride the motorcycle, and shortly met with an accident as well.



After which her mother forbid her to mount the motorcycle again, but Adel was relentless, she went behind their backs and learned to ride the motorcycle all by herself.



At the restaurant the delivery orders were increasing, and so was the demand for delivery boys. Most boys who applied for the job asked for high salaries, which the restaurant was unable to provide.



An opportunist, Adel suggested, to her mother's horror, that she would deliver the orders to the customers.



After much persuasion Adel's mother gave in to her daughter's suggestion, and soon Walaa Tayara was whizzing down districts to deliver customers' orders.



Seeing her daughter carry out the delivery job with efficiency, Adel's mother's opinion toward women working in such jobs also changed.



She said: “She should work since the job she is doing is not wrong. She is simply delivering orders to customers.”



Like Adel, other women in her society have also shunned society's ignorance, and are taking up jobs that they enjoy.



Hani Henry, a psychology professor at the American University in Cairo, said: “A huge sector of the Egyptian society still believes in gender role and gender socialization. It will take some time for these beliefs to change.” On numerous occasions, Adel is subject to verbal harassment and name calling, but she doesn't let them bother her.



“Sometimes I hear indecent words and accusations. I don’t stick these words in my head because I know that I am right,” Adel said.



And right she is, for her bold and courageous attitude won her an admirer.



“My fiancée proposed to me because he perceives me as a courageous woman while I am driving a motorcycle. He lives in a nearby neighborhood and I met him while I was repairing my motorcycle,” said Adel, who will get married next year.



She dreams of opening her own restaurant with only female working staff.