Baheya Ali Soliman was 32 years old when her world was split in two.
In Beni Suef, Upper Egypt, her husband suffered a stroke that left him deaf and with atrophied muscles. Overnight, she began driving the family’s mototaxi and became the sole breadwinner. When that was not enough, she joined the construction workforce, but harassment from a coworker pushed her to make a drastic decision: she shaved her head, dressed as a man, and was thus able to work in peace during the day, while continuing to drive her mototaxi at night.
The debts gave her no respite. She sold a kidney for about 800 dollars to stay afloat, and when the mototaxi license expired and the bills began piling up again, she asked doctors whether she could sell part of her liver. Her body no longer had the strength for that. Baheya only wanted a life without debt and food on her children’s table. In Egypt, they already call her Wonder Woman.