A child of Cairo's streets, with a child of her own

Amira Osman Dakhly, 13, who is carrying her daugher Randa, is one of thousands of street children in Cairo, Egypt.

Amira has a baby girl and is expecting. She is 13, with no permanent place to stay, one of thousands of street children in Egypt, whose laws make a hard life harder for a single mother like her.

By Jeffrey Fleishman
LA Times
February 17, 2009

Reporting from Cairo — She has a baby in her arms and another growing inside. She says she knows about love, says she found it on the streets, where boys fight with razors and a one-armed glue-huffer whispers the pretty things a girl yearns to hear before she curls and sleeps in the abandoned buildings that clutter Cairo's heart.

Amira Osman Dakhly left the streets a few days ago, rushing past the new houses on the hill to the homeless shelter, the one with yellow walls and toddlers in the courtyard. She'll stay, maybe until next month, or maybe until tonight. That's the thing about Amira, she changes direction as quick as a starling in a winter sky.

But for now, the 13-year-old with the snug white blouse and gap-tooth smile will sit and talk, cracking her knuckles and squinting her eyes, narrow and thin, like shutter slats.

One of her love stories began after she quit first grade. Her mother left home to marry a rich man, and her father, a taxi driver with a drug habit, took up with women. Amira's four sisters were divvied among family. She chose the city's streets and alleys, wandering between broken cars and rubbish bins, pretending to be as glittery as moonlight. That's how she felt in her new dress, the one she stole from a store a few nights before she met Ahmed, a 24-year-old waiter in a coffee shop.

"I love him," says Amira, holding Randa, the 18-month-old daughter she had with Ahmed. "I had an affair with him four years ago. I love him because he protected me. When anybody bothered me, he'd fight for me, and when it got cold he took me into his house. I still love him. I saw him last Friday."

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