Word: galabiya
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...habit Egyptians cannot kick is the galabiya, the loose, ankle-length cotton garment that looks like a nightshirt and acts as an air conditioner of sorts in Egypt's sweltering heat. Fellah (peasant) and townsman alike have worn the flowing gown since the days of the pharaohs, and no amount of cajoling by Nasser's Ministry of Culture and National Guidance has been able to convince Egyptians that they should switch to that restricting jacket-shirt-and-pants that those strange, perspiring foreigners seem to prefer...
...Nasser is a tenacious leader, and once again his government went on the attack against the galabiya. State-operated cooperative stores put on sale 420,000 officially approved cotton suits consisting of trousers and jacket, retailing from $1.50 to $3, half the price of the average galabiya. To make the new attire more enticing, the suits come in grey or blue, or gaudy, striped red. In support of the anti-galabiya campaign, the state-controlled TV, press and radio have started a Madison Avenue-style campaign, with songs and commercials extolling the virtue of jackets and pants: they...
...burning. It wasn't only the peril of dodging Egyptian fire; once, miles from the front, a bullet whizzed by, and then as he flattened himself, an other. Out from the brush, rifle in hand, came a woman. "I thought he was an Egyptian," she said. Among the galabiya-wearing Yemeni, only Egyptians are known to wear pants, and "your trousered correspondent" became an obvious target. De Carvalho emerged after 23 days in Yemen with a vivid story (TIME, March 8), establishing that the battle for Yemen was not going as Cairo said it was. Last week De Carvalho...
...bent nails and half-shoelaces are traded with solemnity and diligence. The red flowerpot of the tarboosh has all but vanished from Cairenes' heads, and Nasser has even made considerable progress in his campaign to get his city folk to switch to European clothes from the nightshirt-like galabiya. Most astonishing is the fact that a visitor seldom sees a barefoot man, woman or child. Even urchins from the Cairo slums wear shoes-and socks. Today Cairo walks well-dressed, well-shod and bareheaded, with its shoulders back...
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