Cairo, Egypt – When Ahmed Ginah first left his village in Egypt’s northern delta for the Tanzanian capital in 2017, it was with little greater than a dream. 4 years later, he named his firm after that dream.
“Once I first got here to Tanzania at 28, nobody imagined why I’d head south,” Ginah, who’s lightheartedly referred to as the “Mayor of Egyptians in Dar-es-Salaam”, advised Al Jazeera, saying that within the minds of a lot of his family and friends again house, nations in sub-Saharan Africa are tainted by stereotypes of famine, poverty and illness.
However when Ginah arrived, what he discovered have been alternatives – and an opportunity to construct one thing new.
“In 2021, I established my firm, Dream [Trading],” he stated, in recognition of his “dream” to be a hit. He set it up with financial savings of $3,000, tapping right into a rising market importing and exporting aluminium family items. Because the years progressed, he expanded into the metal enterprise.
However past work, the 36-year-old can also be considerably of a benevolent godfather determine for different North African migrants making the journey southward.
Ginah has a normal day by day routine. Each morning, his driver, Hamed, drops him off on the family items warehouses hooked up to Dream Buying and selling. Some time later, he drives him to Metropolis Mall, the most well-liked purchasing centre in Dar es Salam’s Kariakoo neighbourhood.
Ginah is an everyday on the Somali cafe there, the place he sits till about midday, assembly different Egyptians and Tanzanians, typically over a breakfast of mandazi – deep-fried dough fritters dusted with powdered sugar – or a chipsi mayai, a preferred avenue meals omelette with French fries, tomato sauce and greens.
Usually, Egyptians who transfer to Tanzania have already got a relative or pal residing there. For many who don’t, Ginah helps them discover a place to remain, typically providing them a job at Dream and serving to cowl their lease in the event that they’re an worker. He additionally introduces them to the work system in Tanzania, and provides them a lay of the land about cities the place they’ll doubtlessly work.
“Nevertheless, a very powerful factor I present,” stated Ginah, “is a trusted, assured translator.” In city centres in Tanzania, individuals converse English. However many village residents solely converse Swahili. This might result in misunderstandings and expose newcomers to “fraud or scams”, Ginah stated, so he lends a serving to hand.
However Ginah is set to assist solely those that need to assist themselves.
“I assist those that come to work, not those that lie on their laurels and delegate the work to the translator or others,” he stated. “In such circumstances, I counsel the individual that this nation has loads to supply, nevertheless it doesn’t give to the lazy or dependent.”
Ginah has gained loads in eight years. As we speak, his firm distributes merchandise all through Africa, and he has helped dozens of younger males from his house village relocate and set up themselves in Tanzania, the place an estimated 70,000 Arabs stay – together with 1,200 Egyptians, based on figures offered by Egypt’s ambassador to the nation, Sherif Ismail, in 2023.
South-south migration
Whereas Europe fortifies its borders towards North African migrants, bold younger Egyptians in a struggling financial system are on the lookout for options to emigrating to the West, based on Ayman Zohry, a demographer and skilled on migration research on the American College in Cairo.
This south-bound migration has accelerated considerably lately.
Official statistics present the variety of Egyptians in non-Arab African nations elevated from 46,000 in 2017 to 54,000 by 2021.
This pattern stands in stark distinction to the perilous journeys many Egyptians nonetheless make throughout the Mediterranean. In 2023, Egyptians represented greater than 7 p.c of all arrivals in Italy alongside the Central Mediterranean route, making them the fifth commonest nationality, based on a report by the Combined Migration Centre.
The European Union lately responded with a brand new 7.4 billion euro ($8.7bn) settlement with Egypt, partly geared toward boosting border controls to cut back irregular migration to Europe.
Zohry defined that Egypt’s youth migration traits are present process a notable transformation.
“Whereas conventional locations have been the Gulf and Europe, there’s a new pattern in direction of the south, particularly some African nations,” Zohry advised Al Jazeera.
“Financial migration” sees younger individuals looking for funding alternatives in rising and promising markets. “This pattern has grown in tandem with the growth of the Egyptian authorities’s diplomatic and business relations with a number of African nations.”
Nevertheless, Zohry stated, migration to Africa is usually round or short-term. “Which means the migrant returns to Egypt after a brief interval, or strikes between a number of nations based on accessible alternatives.”
The back-and-forth circulation is obvious each Friday evening in Dar-es-Salaam, as an aeroplane takes off from Julius Nyerere airport, heading to Cairo.
Throughout excessive seasons like Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr, complete households fill the departure gates, as Egyptians take their earnings house to go to household, contribute to constructing a brand new house, put together a member of the family for marriage, or assist their dad and mom fulfil a dream of performing the Hajj pilgrimage.
‘Open to Egyptian expertise’
Throughout the African continent, diaspora communities of Arabs and North Africans are rising.
South Africa accounts for the best proportion of Egyptian residents in Africa, accounting for 85 p.c, adopted by Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal.
Ginah recounts a narrative from the late Nineteen Nineties which has since turn out to be an city legend amongst youth looking for greener pastures in Africa.
“A younger man went to South Africa on trip to go to a pal. Bizarrely, he was arrested in Cape City for a visa irregularity,” stated Ginah. “When he was launched, he was broke. All he had have been some aluminium utensils, so he bought them to make sufficient cash to purchase a ticket house.”
That’s when the phrase acquired out, he says, and other people found the massive demand for Egyptian aluminium family items. Younger individuals realised they might generate income – and that’s how the house equipment and residential items commerce between Egypt and different African nations picked up. Since then, Egyptian enterprise pursuits throughout the continent have diversified to incorporate manufacturing, agricultural processing, and mining.
Though North Africans have lengthy travelled south, the pattern surged following the 2011 mass uprisings in Egypt and the following political, financial and social change, Ginah says.
“There was a brand new wave of emigration inside Africa – each [to] South Africa and different nations in sub-Saharan Africa – because the Gulf and Libya have been enormously affected by the political turmoil.”
Regionally, migrants have additionally discovered a extra pleasant working atmosphere, many say.
The federal government of Tanzania has made strides to assist entrepreneurship and overseas funding. In keeping with Lloyds Financial institution nation profile, overseas buyers can profit from many fiscal and non-fiscal incentives.
“Tanzania has pure assets and vital funding alternatives,” stated Makame Iddi Makame, the commissioner normal and chief of workers on the Tanzanian embassy in Cairo.
He stated the nation established the Tanzania Funding Centre to handle funding affairs. This contains decreasing customs duties to five p.c in precedence sectors and 0 p.c in main sectors; offering tax exemption on mining, agricultural, and industrial inputs; facilitating the issuance of residence, work and enterprise permits, and the repatriation of capital positive factors overseas; and deferring taxes and VAT for loss-making initiatives for as much as 5 years.
The nation’s political stability additionally supplies a excessive diploma of funding safety, as there’s low inflation (4.2 p.c) and secure change charges, he added.
“Given the restricted alternatives inside Egypt, some African nations could seem much less aggressive however are extra open to Egyptian expertise in sectors like development, agriculture, training, and knowledge expertise,” based on migration skilled Zohry.
But, regardless of the potential alternatives and usually extra welcoming ambiance, migration to African nations continues to be restricted, in contrast with the Gulf and Europe, he added, as a consequence of a stigmatised psychological picture many North Africans have about the remainder of the continent.
Nevertheless, there are indicators the continent could turn out to be a gradual various for some youth looking for alternatives past conventional borders.
Enterprise alternatives, shared friendships
Some 550km (340 miles) southeast of Dar-es-Salaam is Mayan village.
There, Mohamed el-Shafie, 34, one other Egyptian, constructed two cashew-processing factories within the Mtwara area in 2018, tapping right into a strategic crop that accounts for 10-15 p.c of Tanzania’s overseas change earnings.
“Cashew gross sales are constructed purely on belief,” el-Shafei advised Al Jazeera. “The cashew rising and harvesting operation is meticulous and requires delicate dealing with by farm staff to provide a pure cashew nut. That is adopted by the ‘processing’ stage to arrange it for export in good situation.”
Tanzania is one in every of Africa’s main producers and exporters of cashew nuts, rating among the many high three on the continent and eighth globally.
El-Shafei’s firm has clients throughout the Arab world and Turkiye, and employs some 400 Egyptian, Chinese language and Tanzanian staff, moreover the seasonal labourers employed throughout the cashew harvest season in October.
His foray into the cashew business was unintended, stated el-Shafei, who studied Chinese language as an undergraduate at Cairo College, earlier than transferring to Beijing to proceed his training.
“On the time, I had lots of Vietnamese mates who labored within the cashew business. That was after I realized that Tanzania had a promising enterprise alternative and that Chinese language gear specialised in cashew crop processing was a spot that I may fill,” he stated.
With slightly assist from his mates, he related with cashew farmers in Tanzania in late 2017, and with a small capital funding of 200,000 Egyptian kilos (about $11,000 again then), el-Shafei arrange store and imported two cashew processing machines from China to start out the enterprise. In 2023-2024, Elshafei Funding Restricted had made 13 export shipments with a complete worth of roughly $719,700.
El-Shafei determined to relocate his small household to Dar-es-Salaam so his younger youngsters wouldn’t be removed from him. As we speak, all of them stay amid the Arab and Egyptian neighborhood, in addition to Tanzanians of Yemeni, Omani, and Iranian origin who moved there throughout the Arab rule earlier than the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution.
Egyptians in Tanzania should not remoted from the native inhabitants, el-Shafei says.
“We share celebrations and holidays such because the July 7 Saba Saba Day, which marks the founding of the Tanganyika African Nationwide Union (TANU) in 1954, a big step in direction of independence and nation-building. We additionally have a good time Swahili Language Day and Eid al-Adha by means of communal meals held in cashew farm villages,” he says.
For Ginah, residing in Dar-es-Salaam along with his spouse and youngsters, Egyptians are a part of the material of their new neighborhood.
“We keep good relationships with Tanzanians, and we share friendships,” he stated, together with assembly at work, mosques and social golf equipment.
However amid the successes, there are additionally tough moments in residing removed from house, he stated.
“The ache of alienation hits hardest when somebody dies. We [Egyptian immigrants] know one another properly, whether or not in East or West African nations, so it’s very tough. We instantly band collectively to make preparations for the physique to be repatriated, and we assist the household financially and emotionally, whether or not they stay in Tanzania or return house to Egypt.”
However when there’s household by your aspect, “the sensation of alienation disappears,” Ginah stated. And due to expertise, “we are able to see household and mates every day on cell phone calls.”
Ginah feels Tanzania is the nation the place he was destined to make his residing.
“It has actually turn out to be a second house for me, the place my youngsters are rising up,” he stated. “When will I return to my homeland, I don’t know.”
This piece was printed in collaboration with Egab.