A Nubian village by boat and camel
Back to school
22 November 2006
One of the things that tour groups are trying to encourage tourists to do, is get out and away from the temples and to look at local life a little more closely. To this end visits are organised to the local Nubian village - and you can arrive by camel.
Following our visit to Kitchener's Island we continued on our way up and around the granite boulders of the 1st cataract. There are nine of these cataracts along the course of the Nile preventing early expeditions from finding its source.
After thirty minutes or so we spotted camels to our right in the desert. In French the word chameau actually means a camel with two humps and the correct word for a one humped brute with bad breath is: dromadaire.
I have ridden a camel before but this was all new to Jean-Jacques. He had been warned to hang on for take off and landing as the back end goes up first and comes down last offering plenty of chances to take a head dive over the top.
Some of the camels were placed in a chain but mine was allowed to run free and seemed to be determined that it wanted to head the caravan. I had the guide rope to myself and am not certain just what was preventing The great smell of Brut from galloping off across the horizon. My attendant trotted alongside urging us on, coal black and smiling all the time as his people seem to do.
Behind me, JJ was having fun with his as it insisted on trying to walk on the edge of the sand dunes slipping and lurching as it did so. JJ thought that if you pulled on the guide rope as you would a horse that the camel would move over.
Reality proved that the camel's neck bent a wee bit to the left but the feet stayed on course. His dromadaire had the opportunity of leaning a few new names in French.
Once in the village we were taken into the local school and sat down on the benches, whereupon one of the teachers took us through the arabic numbers beating out the words with her cane on the blackboard.
Having run through the list twice she called people up and asked them questions (JJ and I both escaped that one). Thankfully one of our group: Hantar was Algerian and offered hints.
Arab dealt, with our teacher then took us through the same numerals in Nubian. The numeral that will probably stick with us was 2. That was pronounced pretty much like the French Oh oui. The numeral 3 sounded like toskey but ended up being pronounced by us as whiskey.
Mina then explained a little about the arabic alphabet and went through the group's names writing them on the board.
It is good luck to have crocodiles in the house
The test afterwards was more a counting game for us as we raced to work out who was sat in which order and thus whose name related to which position on the board.
JJ and I were easy as we were the last two on the board. Check the photo and work out whose is first.
School over and done with we walked up through the back streets and into one of the houses. Above the doorway was a mummified crocodile and further live baby specimens were kept in a tank.
Small crocodiles are considered to bring good luck to the house. Large ones have the good luck to find TV diners watching the TV.
The roof of the courtyard was flimsy and served to offer shade rather than anything else for by and large, it never rains here. Many of the buildings were coloured blue and yellow. Blue for the river and yellow for the sand.
Up on the balcony you could see that satellite dishes are springing up here and there in the village, so although the Nubians wish to remain slightly apart from their Egyptian neighbours, aspects of modern life are creeping in.
The portable phone seemed to be everywhere and Mina was never off his. Whether on a bus, boat or donkey the phone was in use. Perhaps one of the reasons the trips all ran so smoothly.
What was evident was the poverty of the people and their hospitality. The lady of the house made us all mint tea and we were allowed to wander about and look at the rooms. Mina explained that just under half of Egypt's population live below the poverty line.
We returned to our boat in Aswan where JJ and I had a few minutes to get ready to head back to Philae for the Son et Lumière. Two of the others were coming with us: Sonia and Sylvain and we were all crowded into the back of a taxi along with an english speaking guide who was going to get us to our shuttle boat.
I have taken a taxi in Cairo and this ride was on a par. The use of the word hurtle would be an apt description of our method of traversing the city. Calèches and pedestrians whizzed past as we made good use of all sides of the road. As we hit G Force 3 I thought we might suddenly go weightless having left the atmosphere.
Arriving at the harbour we located our shuttle boat to the island and the four of us had VIP treatment there and back. Our captain made certain that he found us after the show and we were the first away.
Another ten minutes with Abdul el-Cabby and we were back on our boat.
We were going to have an early night because the morning brought our drive across the desert to Abu Simbel. The adventure continued.
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