By Jonathan Wright and Alaa Shahine
PALM HILLS, Egypt (Reuters) - The four-wheel-drives outsidethe terracotta villas include a Lexus and a Porsche, and underthe shade of the palms and the bright red poinciana trees menin liveried overalls are buffing them to a shine.
Across the road, concealed behind a wall and down a pathlittered with rubble, Sabri Ali and his fellow gardeners areliving five to a small room, earning 18 Egyptian pounds (1.7pounds) a day for seven hours work tending lawns and pruningtrees.
Three sleep on bunks, two share a mat on the floor. In theevening they watch a small black-and-white television set.
The gated community of Palm Hills, about 15 km (10 miles)west of Cairo, is one of dozens that have sprung up in thedesert around the Egyptian capital to house upper middle-classEgyptians who can no longer take Cairo's noise and pollution.
Many of them have alluring English names -- Hyde Park,Beverley Hills, Utopia and Evergreen, for example -- anddevelopers advertise them mainly in English, turning theirbacks on the language of the country and its people.
Some have features harking back to a monarchical age, suchas the name Royal Towers and lamp posts carrying the insigniaof the Egyptian royal family, deposed more than half a centuryago.
But even in these places, built as refuges from urban chaoson land uninhabited 20 years ago, the reality of 21st-centuryEgypt and all its social inequalities is impossible to escape.
Liberalisation and economic growth, running at around 7percent a year for the past two years, have swollen the ranksof the wealthy, but over the same time the United Nations saysthe proportion of people living in absolute poverty has alsogrown.
OUTPACED BY INFLATION
Hard data on income distribution in Egypt is difficult tocome by but recent sharp increases in food prices have hurt thepoor because food takes up a high proportion of their income.
Hardship is the lot not only of unskilled manual workers ina country where constantly high unemployment keeps wages low.Ahmed el-Naggar, a senior economist at Al Ahram Centre forPolitical and Strategic Studies, said his studies show thatsome 95 percent of public-sector employees live in poverty.
"The salary of a general manager in 2008 is less than hisreal salary in 1978," he told Reuters. "This is because thewage system in Egypt benefits the employer. Wages increase atrates that are much slower than the rise in prices."
Ramadan Ragab, who carries wood for the workers buildingnearby Safwa City, another guarded, gated community, says heearns 25 Egyptian pounds (2.36 pounds) a day and spends 10pounds a day on food.
His recent wage increase of five pounds a day would hardlycompensate him for the price increases of the past year, whichhas seen overall urban inflation hit 19.7 percent and prices ofbasic foodstuffs rise by between 25 and 51 percent.
Ali and the gardeners have received just a three-pound riseto 18 pounds and the only accessible grocery without transportis an on-site store with high prices.
Most of the workers came from distant provinces, especiallyfrom the impoverished south. They said they sent much of theirearnings home and visit their families every few months.
But they also said contact with the luxury lifestyle of thepeople they serve has not made them envious or resentful.
"That's the way God has divided (wealth) out," said Ali."Fairness is something for God to decide."
Osama Awad, 26, who works as an unskilled surveyor'sassistant in Palm Hills, said he preferred to ignore the gapbetween the rich and the poor. "If I thought about that, Iwould wear myself out," he told Reuters.
GOLF AND TENNIS
Sherif el Sayad, whose extended family moved two years agoto a large villa in the Katameya Heights community on theeastern side of Cairo, said he had no reservations about livingin a compound with security guards at the gate.
"This is the normal way of life. You cannot put all peopletogether. If you want to pay more for the safety of your childand for relaxation, it's your right," he told Reuters.
"If you have the money, you can buy an expensive car andyou can buy security for your family."
Katameya Heights has one of Egypt's best golf courses andalso describes itself as a tennis resort. Villas similar to theSayads' sell for about 4.5 million Egyptian pounds -- a sum itwould take a Palm Hills gardener 1,000 years to earn.
Hisham Serag, a finance officer with a U.N. agency, movedto the Beverley Hills area near Palm Hills two years agobecause his children had no space to play near their apartmentin a crowded downtown neighbourhood.
After the U.N. agency moved out of town, he drives fiveminutes to work and goes into the city only once or twice amonth.
He loves the area and comfort, but says he has notforgotten how many Egyptians are poor. The United Nations saysabout one in five of them live in absolute poverty, on under $1a day.
"Of course it's really sad. You can see the huge differencebetween a small category living in compounds with villa, cars,a nice life, private schools, and the majority of thepopulation are living under the poverty line," he said.
"But what to do? ... I would just like to make my childrenas comfortable as I can."
($1 = 5.35 Egyptian pounds)
(Writing by Jonathan Wright, editing by Richard Meares)
