Sisa, the memory of a sweet dream
The story of the power of a loving mother – Sisa – who dressed, lived and worked as a man in order to protect and give a future to her daughter. She received the Motherhood Award 2015 in Egypt.
Rêve de Sisa is the combination of strong character and sweetness which is achieved by combining a blend of jasmine and sandalwood with cotton candy and toffee. The sweet and spicy tonka beans accentuate the powdery character of vanilla which reflects the exotic Egypt and its dunes, as well as the powder of the bricks Sisa used to build. Vanilla and soft musk also make us think about the maternal milk or even Cleopatra and her milk-baths.
The inspiration for this sweet floral fragrance is the story of the recently awarded, Sisa Abu Daooh. In 2015, at the age of 65, she received the Motherhood Award from the hands of Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
It was a life she began in the 1970s when her husband passed away and she was six months pregnant with their first child. By Egyptian tradition, she had to choose between getting married again or living off the charity of relatives and friends. The suitors weren’t for her because she was still in love, but neither was a working life: laboring jobs were closed to women, and she lacked the education for an office job. So Sisa chose the only possible option she found: to take on a male identity. She shaved her hair, wore the men’s traditional costume “jellabiya” and worked making bricks and harvesting wheat. After many years, when her strength began to fade, she took to shoe-shining near Luxor’s Station. It was necessary for her to adopt the men’s customs like sitting as a man, smoking or shaking hands, as well as letting go her femininity. She recognizes that it was hard but she would do anything for her daughter. Some people at work or in the neighborhood noticed that she was a woman, and finally the story travelled into the hands of some Egyptian journalists who discovered Sisa’s incredible story and brought it to light. Soon after, the government of Luxor offered her a kiosk near the bus station, where candies, soda and cigarettes were sold; in addition to a sum of around six thousand euros. Nevertheless, she assured that not working was not an option for her because she wants to help her daughter: “her husband cannot work through illness, and she has two children to feed”. This strong and brave mother will never stop showing her true love for her family.
