The growing success of blogging worldwide is undeniable as thousands of new blogs are created every day. A blog, a personal online journal, very often also serves as an individual online forum for expressing points of views and launching discussions about particular issues. This useful tool offers anyone the possibility to directly reach a virtual global readership. Blogging can also bring unexpected fame to its unknown author. This happened to Ghada Abdel Aal in Egypt.
Ghada lives in Mahalla, a small town about two hours away from Cairo. Her story started when she began writing a blog about the prospective suitors she met at her family home. This tradition, she calls “gawwaz el-salonat” (living room marriage), is still very popular. A stranger is invited to visit a prospective bride at her parents’ home and she has to decide during that brief encounter whether she is interested in marrying him.
Abdel Aal, a 30-year-old pharmacist, is one out of 15 million girls pressured by their family on a daily basis to get married. When her family found a suitor she disliked, she decided to speak the truth, in a daring yet hilariously funny way. The prospective bridegroom was a decent young man but he had one problem: He was obsessed with football. Ghada recalls that in the middle of their first meeting, he switched on the television to follow a match:
“He found out I supported the rival club and that was that. I was off his list. It was very strange. Who does that?” Her family did not see it her way and were convinced that switching teams was not a problem. But for Ghada, that was the crux of the matter: How could a man’s love for a woman be affected by a football team?
Other suitors followed, including an amnesiac who forgot to mention that his first wife and children lived abroad.
In the past five years, some 30 potential grooms have been introduced to her. Each encounter gave way to a series of comic sketches written online in a feisty tone. The growing success of her irresistible, witty blog attracted the attention of one of Egypt’s biggest publishers, Dar Al-Shorouq. Abdel Aal admits that she never expected anyone would be interested in her blog: “A blog is freely available on the net and I never imagined that a young woman in her 20s could receive such an offer from a major publishing house in Egypt. I did not know anyone and the only connections I had were with my readers on the blog. I thought publishing a book would need a lot of connections.”
In reality, there is a high readership of blogs among journalists who are always on the look-out for new stories. Abdel Aal’s audacious writing was an editor’s dream. The blog has now been published as a book “Ayza Atgawwiz” (I Want to Get Married) which is now in its third printing: “I think it has been popular because I am discussing a big problem, a national issue which affects every family in Egypt.”
Besides the pressure on girls to get married before they reach the age of 30, Ghada Abdel Aal puts blame also on the soaring unemployment rate and the lack of cheap flats. An increasing number of young people cannot afford to get married. Many young couples remain engaged for years before they are able to save enough money to marry.
Although men were mostly targeted, they have read the book and participated in many discussions. “I Want to Get Married” appealed especially to Egypt’s numerous single men and women. “I think it did change men’s attitudes toward marriage,” says Abdel Aal.
Since the publication of her book, Ghada Abdel Aal has given numerous interviews for television, radio and a host of local and international newspapers. She was even invited to speak about her book in Kuwait. This unexpected success has not changed her life. She still keeps her regular job working in a local hospital. She has taken care of her father and brother since the death of her mother. During her free time in the evenings, she surfs the Internet and admits that she has not yet found another topic to write about. Despite its success in Arabic, the book has still not been translated into English — “There have been some offers but nothing is final yet,” she says.
Ghada Abdel Aal at 30 expects the matchmakers will stop meddling in her life but she is still dreaming of “being happy and successful, just like everyone.” She is currently working on a sitcom based on her best-seller and has yet to see her wish of being a bride fulfilled. The publication of “I Want to Get Married” did not bring her many marriage proposals: “Only one or two but I think it is mainly because of my age. I am now 30 years old and in my home town, that is a difficult age,” concludes Ghada Abdel Aal.
Her blog echoed the frustrations and problems faced by Egyptian youth and its bold yet humorous content was very well-received. However, the excessive use of blogs, e-mails and mobile phone messages are proof that the world is communicating in a more informal manner. Words on screens are replacing the warmth and liveliness of a face-to-face conversation. Televisions, computers and mobile phones have invaded our lives; we have never been so well connected yet the reality is also that people have never been so divided and lonely. For a growing number of young men and women in Egypt, getting married seems to have become an impossible dream.
