Fringe Benefits

Moving among the tables in the Ibis cafe in Cairo's new Nile Hilton Hotel, pretty Afaf Abou Ali, 22, daughter of a well-to-do Alexandria family and owner of a B.A. degree from Alexandria University, went about her waitress job with more spirit than the job usually gets elsewhere in the world. After all, jobs for long-sheltered Egyptian women have until lately been few and far between, and her $150 a month at the Hilton was three times what she could earn in government work. Besides, there were unexpected fringe benefits: one day a guest who made a point of always sitting at one of Afaf's tables said: "Would you like to come to Kuwait and work?" She did not get the proposal at first until he made it clear--"as a wife." Dr. Yehia Omar Khalid introduced himself, the pair took the next i train to Alexandria to meet Afaf's parents, and last week they were married.

In the six months since the Nile Hilton opened, five of its 32 waitresses (who must be presentable and well educated to get Hilton jobs) have left to be married, making the Hilton such a popular employer that a large percentage of girls are among the 40,000 people who have applied there for jobs. A Cairo transit firm hired 25 lady conductors, responding to President Gamal Abdel Nasser's program for the economic emancipation of Egyptian women. Within six months most of the girl conductors had married either drivers or passengers. Today only three are left on the job. Though Cairo's Moslem women have not been kept in purdah in modern times, the new chance for Arabs coming from stricter regions to meet respectable women casually is apparently an overpowering experience.

One marriage contractor in Cairo, seeing his business opportunities changing, was professionally all for it. Said he: "Like any merchandise, when it is exhibited properly, it finds a buyer. When girls sit back in their homes, nobody sees them."

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