Egypt recorded a government debt equivalent to 92.30 percent of the country’s
Gross Domestic Product in 2016.

Title: Joe and the Green Apparition

Joe stood barefoot in the hot dust of Cairo, his eyes lifted to the horizon where the shimmering light played tricks on the mind. But this time, it wasn’t just the heat.

“She appeared here,” Joe said to the gathered crowd of believers, skeptics, and hungry families. “In Zeitoun. The Virgin. In light. In peace. In love. In warning.”

A hush fell over the people. The apparition of the Virgin Mary that appeared above the church in Zeitoun in the late 1960s had never been forgotten—she had come without words, only light. Muslims and Christians alike had witnessed it. The state had investigated. It was real. It was hope.

Joe pointed toward the Nile, then beyond it, toward the red desert stretching like a wound across the land.

“She was not just a sign for faith,” he continued. “She was pointing the way to life. She came to stop what was coming—food riots, wars over water, suffering. She came to say: turn the desert green.”

The crowd murmured. Egypt had suffered food shortages, wheat price shocks, and droughts. But now Joe was speaking of something new.

“I don’t need to multiply loaves or fish,” he said. “I’ve got machines. And science. And desalination.”

He held up a blueprint—simple but powerful. A solar-powered desalination plant, feeding a vast network of underground drip irrigation systems.

“This,” Joe said, “will turn saltwater into sweet. It will turn famine into feast. This is the Virgin’s message—make the desert bloom.”

The children clapped. The old imam nodded slowly. A Coptic nun made the sign of the cross.

Joe smiled and lifted his hand to the sun.

“Paradise is not far. It is here. It is green. It is ours to grow.”

And in the distance, someone swore they saw light above the old dome of Zeitoun once again—soft, blue-white, and silent. Like a mother watching her children finally understand.

No more riots. Just gardens.

No more hunger. Just the miracle of desalinated dreams.