We’ve only been in Egypt a little over a week, yet it feels like we’ve been here forever. Time moves differently in Siwa, especially during the oppressive heat of summer that muddles the mind and forces you to move in slow motion. What is it about heat and how it saps the strength?
My days in France seem alien and distant, a strange dream of incomprehensible productivity. I’m told this stupor shifts, as the seasons change, that soon summer will pass, people will return, the weather will cool and everyone becomes lively once more. Either way it doesn’t seem to matter to me right now. All that matters is the immediate task at hand, even if the task is staring into the distance.
Our sun-scorched days blend into one and before we know it the day is over with another slipping seamlessly into its place. They seem to merge and flow into one constant experience of the now. Is there a world out there, outside of the sand and sun? It doesn’t feel like it and I’m glad, content to sway gently in the now, like the palm leaves in the breeze nodding their drooping branches at passers-by.
I’m convinced the palms are watching us. As much part of the Siwa family as any human and curious about who ventures into their home. I feel like approval from the palm trees is just as important as approval from the tribal sheiks when integrating into the community. The palms are the centre of life here and they know it.
The sun beats down on the baked clay houses, as dust is whipped up by the little puffs of breeze, helped by the relentless passage of cheerful tuk-tuks beep-beeping their chorus. Dust is everywhere and there is no escaping that. We are in the desert after all. Dogs pant in scant shade, and scrawny kittens poke their heads up from the rubbish bins to look at us as we pass. A plastic bag tumbles past, “look, an Egyptian tumbleweed!” Eli jokes.
Our day begins early when the sun is still low and the air still holds on to the ever so slightly cooler temperatures of the night. I can leave the windows open only a little while longer before having to shut the house up to keep the heat out. This monitoring of the windows and airflow has woven its way into my day, a survival mechanism necessary when you are surrounded by clay ruins that absorb and radiate heat like an oven.
Almost every morning I wake up feeling funny, off, like my body is unsettled. I blame the a/c. My body doesn’t like this fake cool air when it knows it’s warm outside. It is infinitely better to have it on though, sleeping in this heat is impossible without it, but still my body rebels. It takes me a few minutes to come back to myself, aided by a glass of water with lemon and salt. That seems to always do the trick and brings me as back into my body as the heat will allow. Maybe at night my consciousness is going far and that’s why I feel odd returning to my body and the drink helps ground me? Or perhaps it’s dehydration. Or the a/c. It doesn’t really matter why.
Mum and I usually go to buy fresh flatbread from one of the many bakers in the village, along with anything else we might need. Usually, mangoes because we eat so many of them. It’s mango season at the moment and the mangoes are to die for, so big and juicy, sweet and delicious. I don’t think we will ever tire of them. In fact, just thinking about them is making my mouth water. Then we breakfast on fruit, bread, cheese and olives washed down with cool water and lemon juice, before preparing to go out.
Mornings are meant for action because by 1pm it’s far too hot to be outside. Then, like all sensible people, we retreat to the shade (and a/c) of the house to wait out the day and do some work or nap. Sometimes we pop along to a restaurant or café to do some work there for a change of scene but even then, after a couple of hours you can feel heatstroke lapping at your temples.
We all have little bits and bobs to get on with. Arabic lessons, research, writing, meetings, admin, sketching and it feels nice to be quietly working in a communal and convivial way. A taster of what life could be like if we actually lived here.
Later in the day we think about heading out again and watch as the day slips easily into night. Like the rise and fall of the dunes that surround us, the days come in and out and we move through them in a sort of daze, as if we are sleepwalking through strange lands, having wondrous dreams.
The house we are staying in belongs to an English woman called Camilla, who has lived in Siwa for over 15 years. She has her home and a little farm somewhere to the west of here in the palm grove and this house that she rents out to families who are traveling and homeschooling their kids (or worldschooling).
Although we’ve been homeschooling for years, I have never heard of worldschooling before but apparently there are hubs all over the world where traveling families can stay and experience the local culture with the assistance of local families. It’s a wonderful opportunity for children to meet and socialise with others from all over the world and for those living in remote places to have a broader spectrum of influences and learning opportunities. Here in Egypt, there is a hub in Siwa, Luxor and Marsa Alam – probably Dahab too – offering plenty of options and diverse landscapes to explore.
Everyone we meet knows and loves Camilla.
“Where you stay?” they ask.
“El’beit Camilla fi Shali,” I respond (Camilla’s house in Shali)
“Oh, I know Camilla. She is good friend of mine!” they all explain, smiling broadly.
Her children were born here and speak both Arabic and Amazigh, which is quite extraordinary. She built both her farmhouse and this house herself using natural materials, and from what I can gather is generally a badass mama, loyal and respectful member of the community, healer and all-round loving and lovable woman. We haven’t met yet but I feel like I know her and that we are kindred spirits. She has a local Siwi man called Adel who works with her, managing her properties and also as a tour guide for guests. He is a beautiful soul and rapidly I’m discovering that we too are kindred spirits. I’m grateful for the threads of life that have brought us all together.
On this particular morning, I woke up just after 4am and got up to go for a pee, feeling my way to the door.
“Hello,” came Eli’s whisper in the darkness.
“You’re awake already?”
“I’ve been awake all night. I slept maybe an hour.”
“Oh no. It must have been that coffee you drank.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Not the best idea, huh.”
While I was having a healing treatment, Eli ordered an iced mocha and by the time I came out he was a Duracell bunny on speed. He must have got out days of repressed conversation in the space of a couple of hours. No wonder he couldn’t’ sleep.
After peeing, I stumbled back to bed but I could hear Eli sighing and knew sleep would evade me now.
“Shall we go and climb the mountain to watch the sunrise?” I asked quietly.
“Ok!” he replied quickly. Anything was better than tossing and turning some more.
We crept out of the house so as not to wake up Vovo and Grandpa sleeping in their cave of a room downstairs. Outside a dog was barking incessantly.
“That dog has been barking all night non-stop,” Eli whispered.
“Really? I wonder why.”
We opened the thick wooden front door of the patio that acts as the entrance to the walled property, and out onto the dimly lit sandy street. Around the corner a small, white dog stood to attention, alert with his barking.
“What are you making all this noise for my lovely?” I asked him, and he stopped and looked at me with a guilty expression, before slowly moving over to the side of the road and laying down next to the wall with his head on his paws. He didn’t bark again.
“Right, let’s find a different way up because last time I climbed up an old wall to get on to the first rock ledge and that was a little tricky. I reckon, if we go round this way,” I motioned towards a road that went out of Shali along the southern side of the skeletal town, “we should be able to find a way up that’s easier.”
We followed the road out of the old city and in the dim light of the streetlamps we skirted the base of the mountain looking for an easy way up. It didn’t take us long to find a pathway up the lower sandbank that conveniently led to some stairs carved into the mountain. Perfect. From there it was easy to follow the faint tracks of others and pick our way up.
We had plenty of time to wait until dawn, which was still almost two hours away, and settled down on an outcrop that caught the breeze to talk the time away. A small ginger cat eyed us suspiciously unused to people disturbing his peace at this hour. I poured some water into a hole in the rock for the cat and regretted not bringing a snack to share.
Sitting there with Eli we discussed religions, their similarities, their differences, their merits and their problems. We talked about his coming right of passage, this time as he approaches his thirteenth birthday and all the changes that are occurring for him. There was something about the stillness of sitting on that mountain, witnessing the gradual shift to day, with my son, that will always stay with me and make my heart smile.
As the sun crested the horizon, we welcomed the new day and all that is in our highest interest into our experience. We sat like sentinels on the mountain, a still witness to the dawn of a day full of possibilities for the curious mind. The cockerels agreed with us but were a little noisier in their homage than we were.
Every day is a new opportunity to experience the world completely afresh. Even something you think you are familiar with or do on automatic can actually be experienced in a completely new way. The possibilities are endless, if you have the courage to break away from the comfort of the familiar or the confines of what other people think.
After breakfast Adel showed up with Hadija, his gorgeous toddler daughter, to take us to the olive grove to help them with the harvest. We like to help out and connect with local people and their ways, especially to help Adel’s family as he has been so good to us. His young nephews were scaling the trees, perched on thin branches like birds in the heights, shaking down the olives that we then collected. I would like to have tried climbing the trees too and looked up longingly but held back uncertain if it would be unseemly.
It was cooler in the grove than the town and it felt so good to be working together on a practical task. Adel made a fire and some lemongrass tea calling us over for a break. We gathered on the rug and shared a cup of lemon juice with dates freshly picked from the overflowing trees nearby, before moving on to the tea. It’s the season for date harvesting too. Dates and olives, the backbone of Siwa. Both trees, very different in personality but both the elders of the land who you need to approach for true acceptance as a Siwi. At least, that’s what the trees tell me.
“It is nice to see a family traveling with the different generations. I have never seen it here. We have had mothers with their children or a family, parents with children, but never with the grandparents. It is good.”
“We’re a team,” I say, stretching out my hands to touch each Crook on their leg or shoulder.
“This is good,” said Adel, smiling.
After hot work the best place to go is the springs and Adel knows all the best off-the-beaten-track ones. These waters are so exceptionally pure and mineral rich that my skin and hair come away feeling silky and soft. No wonder Siwis look so healthy and vibrant. I also noticed that none of them need glasses. I have only seen one person here wear glasses so far and I can’t help but wonder why that is.
Hadija practiced jumping into the pool, as her proud daddy caught her and we all cheered. There is no doubt of the loving bond they share and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to share time with his family.
“When Hadija marries, you are going to be the one doing the ‘missing the daughter’ day of the wedding Adel!” joked Michelle (a reference to the Siwi wedding rituals that last a week)
“Oh, probably but that is too far away to think about. My philosophy of life is that I have this day. I don’t want to be wasting my day worrying about what happened before, it is gone, I cannot do anything about it. And I don’t want to waste my time worrying about the future because that is an illusion, it is not real yet. I live my day as if it is the only one I have.” We all nod in agreement.
“That’s very wise,” said my dad.
“I tell you that if I have the choice to do something special now or do something that is for my future, then I prefer to do the something special now because you do not know what tomorrow will bring.”
“That’s very good. I would probably do the thing for the future,” Graham replied honestly.
“Not me. The day is too precious.”
Later he took us into his beloved desert, “my first love”, he called it, to swim in a mineral lake deep in the dunes and to watch the sunset. The freedom, beauty and joy of the desert is intoxicating for all of us.
“Group hug!” I call out, and the family come eagerly into my embrace, closing the circle with Adel included.
“Thank you for sharing your home and heart with us,” I say to him.
“Afwan,” he says, with his hand on his heart. You’re welcome in Arabic.
Out in the desert something shifts within me. Maybe it’s all the sand, a hark back to my island life, or maybe its deeper. Since coming here I’ve wondered whether I have some other life connection with the desert because its ways feel so familiar. I even love the crackle of sand in my mouth and have no problem with sand up my crack either. Even my spirit guide is a desert dweller.
We stood on weirdly shaped protruding rocks as we watched the sun sail for the horizon. Massive and burning red, it brushed the sky with its ember rays – and then, poof, just like that, was gone.
“Thank you for this beautiful day,” I said, and my heart smiled.
“Afwan,” the sun seemed to say back.
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