Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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photo: Khaled El-Fiqi A heart of gold Can the laid-back pleasures offered by the low-cost tourist resort of Dahab withstand the pressures of over-development? Fatemah Farag ponders the challenges that face South Sinai's diamond in the rough and discovers that the definition of development is of the essence

Last month, I once again delighted in Dahab, a resort town which comprises a short stretch of beach on the Red Sea about 90km northeast of Sharm Al-Sheikh, and offers royal blue waters, coral reefs, easy access to mountains and desert excursions, not to mention an atmosphere of relaxation that can only be provided by the understated and simple.

These are attributes which Al-Ahram Weekly documented in last week's Travel Supplement. It was difficult this time around, however, to ignore the challenges the town faces.

Dahab used to be a Bedouin village, comprising little more than a few straw huts on the beach. Old-timers claim that the water was so clear, you could stand anywhere on the beach and see mighty Gold Coral shining through the water. The Gold Coral has not survived the pressure of human activity, and in the place of the Bedouin village stands a small town, built by modern-day prospectors over the past 15 years. The main selling point of this new town, however, remains simplicity. It offers moderately priced services to tourists who cannot afford to spend more, or to those who simply want a break from the overly built-up and artificial environments of five-star tourism. The Sinai Divers Guide describes Dahab as "a key stop on the traveller's trail, akin to Goa in India or Koh Samui in Thailand."

But for all the promise and good will, the net result of human activity has created a quandary that threatens the best this town has to offer. On the one hand, if it is to retain its current character without being provided with much needed infrastructure, such as sewage and fresh water, and planning, such as strict building and environment-protection codes, environmental degradation threatens to kill off what remains of its physical attributes. On the other hand, if ideas of turning Dahab into a five star resort à la Sharm Al-Sheikh go through, what could have been a unique spot on an arguably over-built Red Sea coast catering basically to the rich will be lost forever.

Poor Dahab. While proponents of both these paradigms of development argue their points of view, investors complain they are losing money while everyone complains that the local government is incapable of taking desperately needed decisions on life-or-death issues such as licensing and infrastructure. While those of us from outside the city blindly enjoy our vacations, some of those who came and threw their lot in with Dahab's are opting to leave as frustrations intensify.

FACES OF DAHAB: When Egypt reclaimed the Sinai in the early '80s, Dahab was virgin territory that offered promise of a better future; accordingly, it drew prospectors from all walks of life. There are the disenfranchised youths of the "old territories," small- to medium-size investors who have been pushed out by big money virtually everywhere else and those who have had enough of modern life and are looking to "tune out."

"Everything you see here today was built up by us. People who came in the early days worked hard. We sweated, stayed up nights and tightened our belts to build up this town. Now we are being told our efforts were no good and we are afraid to lose all of this," explains Ihab Farid, who came from Sharqiya to settle in Dahab in 1988 and is now the owner of EMBAH Travel, a Dahab-based agency that specialises in desert tours.

Ihab's is a recurrent story -- the decision to strike out alone and leave the "valley," the enchantment with the beauty and promise of Dahab, the search for fulfillment, and the sense of frustration at the obstacles that seem to clutter the way.

"I was tired of the pollution and the suit and tie," remembers Murad Mikhail, a German-Egyptian who worked as a tour operator and came to Dahab in 1989, where he currently runs his own contracting business. "In my line of work, however, it has been very frustrating to deal with the sluggish bureaucracy. For some houses I was building a while back, I had to wait five years to get a building license. I am being pushed to violate the law or face ruin. I had paid for the land and needed to get to the point where I would get the return on my investment. What kind of incentive is that?"

Today, it seems most conversation in this seemingly care-free resort ends up with a discussion of the difficulties that seem to have become a facet of everyday life in Dahab.

And what about Ayman Ali, front office manager at the Helnan hotel, who came to Dahab eight years ago? "I thought these new territories were the future. I have a great job but I still cannot get an apartment to get married. It seems some problems have just followed us from the valley and the problem of housing is one faced by most younger men like me. For some reason, government housing never comes to us, but goes to people who obviously have no need for it and who, instead, rent it to us at exorbitant prices."

Even worse off are the young men who can be seen hustling tourists on the main drag. "There are no options for someone like me," explains Fathi, whose name has been changed upon his request. "I could get no work in my home town. I came here and have been working for seven years but have nothing to show for it. There is no labour office and no protection of any kind for the likes of us. We work for little money and sleep on the beach. We are harassed at the checkpoints coming in and going out and we get picked up by the local police and detained for what seems to be no reason at all. Then they complain we are the drug pushers and the ones who give Dahab a bad name. If we do, maybe that is because we are being pushed to do it."

Sad stories may be the lot of the less advantaged, in the valley and outside it. But what about the entrepreneurial class? Ahmed Fahmi, owner of the Mister Dahab Motel, invested in Dahab 10 years ago. "I was a soldier in the 1973 War, which eventually liberated this land from occupation. I borrowed money from the bank to set up my project and now I am not making enough money to pay back my debts. Like many other people here, I make tourism, but no money."

And there are those who can't even get that far. Nabil Shawkat taught at Cairo University's Faculty of Political Science and Economics before working for 16 years in Europe. He brought his life savings and came back to Egypt to invest in his country. He chose Dahab and bought a piece of land. For three years now he has been unable to obtain proper papers to legalise his ownership. After years of harassment in the corridors of the City Council, he still cannot obtain a licence to build either. "I don't think I can risk any more money here. It is all too irregular and precarious," comments Shawkat dejectedly. "It really is a shame."

These people merely represent some of the many faces of Dahab. The choices made for the future could make or break their lives.

THE CHALLENGES: For a resort that lives off the beauty of land and sea, environmental preservation would seem a paramount consideration. Dahab is already showing signs of degradation, however, a result of rapid growth combined with inadequate facilities and services.

Walk down any street and look for a trash can to throw away a wrapper or plastic bag. You will find none -- an open invitation for people to simply throw their rubbish on the streets. Garbage collection is erratic, and even when collected the waste is dumped in a valley three kilometres out of town. The wind invariably carries plastic bags and other trash back into town where it either joins the dumps of garbage left to smoulder in the sun, or winds up in the sea.

In the latter scenario, garbage sinks to the coral reefs and causes abrasion to delicate coral heads, exposing the living organisms to disease and eventually death. When you know that coral dies very quickly yet takes many years to grow back, the process is all the more tragic.

Inhabitants have been calling for a recycling plant and indicate that the even smaller town of Nuweiba now has a machine for recycling plastic. "It seems that money for projects such as these are ear-marked for the more high-profile resorts like Sharm Al-Sheikh, while in Dahab, even civic initiatives of this sort are not encouraged by the City Council," claimed a Dahab investor who came to his conclusions after being party to several meetings with both City Council and governorate officials.

A grass-roots approach to the problem was tried a few years ago when Fantasea, a Dahab diving centre, undertook a major clean-up effort including divers as well as on-land tourists and locals. The City Council was to provide trucks to remove the garbage, which was to be buried in the desert. "When the tourists started getting involved and taking a few pictures, the security people got upset and there was a skirmish. Then two of the three trucks provided by the Council did not work and the piled-up garbage remained on the beach for days," recounts an eye witness.

Undaunted, however, Fantasea is trying to organise a similar event in the near future -- if the City Council grants permission, that is.

Another chronic problem is the health hazard posed by inadequate sewage facilities. On a bad day, the pervasive foul smell in the air can only mean one thing -- seepage, which can be detected not only on back streets but on the beach itself. For years, the inhabitants of Dahab have been promised a new sewage system but to date it is still unclear to them how long it will take to get one in place. "One of the problems in setting up a new system was the fact that urban growth has been haphazard and we [government officials] did not have the proper information to design a new system," explained a City Council official to the Weekly on condition of anonymity. The official added that a map had recently been prepared which indicated the sewage problem would be solved in the near future. At the Council, one official quipped: "Well, you know the government -- our day takes a year. So, people should not expect everything to happen overnight."

This kind of logic offers little comfort to those who have to live with the problem. Although sewage is not dumped directly into the sea, many residents fear that sewage could permeate the porous rock upon which Dahab rests and seep into the sea.

Further, unclean water -- and in this respect well water is also a culprit -- results in disease. At a prominent diving centre in town, employees show me a letter they received recently from a German diver. He describes in great detail the illness he contracted from the water in Dahab. "Now there is someone who is not going to recommend Dahab to his friends and neighbours. He is also someone who is not bound to come back," says an employee resignedly.

Another serious concern for those involved in the tourism industry is the degradation of the reefs. In this case, the diving industry itself is taking its toll -- divers and snorkelers are notorious for ignoring basic warnings not to touch or stand on the coral while dive boats are reported to flush their sewage into the water as a matter of routine and use anchors where they shouldn't.

Further, many dive centres take out large groups of people, whom even the most qualified dive master is unable to control. "This means reef degradation and, in a place like the entrance of the Canyon [a popular dive site north of Dahab] called the Gold Fish Bowl, there are hardly any fish left," laments Hazem Soliman, a dive master at Fantasea Dive Centre.

Fantasea markets diving in Dahab abroad through a London office and extensive European contacts. They fear that if measures are not taken to protect the reefs, they will have nothing left to sell. "We are already hearing complaints from divers, as many of the people we receive here have access to other sites in the Caribbean or Thailand. We are already searching for sites beyond Dahab to deal with this problem," adds Soliman.

Diving experts argue that in both Dahab and Nuweiba officials need to close down some reefs or at least restrict access; a common request is that the authorities undertake a full survey of the state of the coral reefs.

Next on most people's agenda is the need for a new attitude when it comes to security. The Dahab police station commands a prime site on the beach, reminding everyone of its presence. Before the Weekly hit town in the last week of June, anti-riot police decked out in full armour had allegedly lined the beach; their aim was to enforce a court order to close down one of the camps. According to local businessmen, tourists were scared out of their wits and the result was a major loss of business. "The time has come for the government to realise that Dahab is no longer a war zone, it is a tourist destination. People want freedom -- to swim and go out in the desert. So much security presence takes away the allure," explained a prominent businessman from the area who preferred anonymity.

There is also the issue of the routine security raids: workers are picked up randomly, detained for a couple of days and then usually returned to their jobs without a clear explanation for the reason of detention. In many cases, such measures can freeze the activities of a shop or restaurant, forcing temporary closure; another byproduct of this routine measure is to scare off tourists.

"When people see this happening, they think there must be something wrong with your place. I understand the police have to regulate and monitor things, but couldn't they be a bit more careful about the way they go about it?" asked the owner of a restaurant, who also requested anonymity.

At the bazaar, the day after my arrival, most shops were closed in the middle of the day. The next day, people explained that there had been a police raid on licensing. "We have been trying to get a licence for years. The same authority that won't give me a licence routinely raids and fines me. So I have to close down. I lose a day's work but the real problem is the feeling it creates around town. It's like a police zone," complained one of the shop-owners.

People's frustration at the way in which security plays its role is exacerbated by the fact that the legal situation in general is rather dubious.

Take the ongoing problem of land ownership and licensing. In 1988, Law 48 gave land to Bedouins at very cheap rates. In turn, they sold the land to investors at market rates, making large profits; but those who bought at inflated prices have found it very difficult to obtain legal papers to prove their ownership. Hence, cases such as that of Soliman, who has bought three different houses, and each time loses his right to the property because of legal twists and turns. Helnan's Ayman is now struggling with the deed to a flat which he has obtained via proxy papers. Shawkat, mentioned above, is another case in point. Then there is Abdel-Rahman Battikh, who is getting just a bit fed up.

We were staying at the same hotel, and every evening we would meet up. He would be on his way back from yet another visit to the City Council -- a good-natured plump man with kindly eyes, he would wipe the sweat from his brow and nod, indicating that his day had once again been a failure.

"Whenever I go there, either the head of the City Council is not there or else the engineer responsible for my papers is not there. Can you believe the engineer was actually joking about this with me today?" He sips some lemonade as if to wash away the bitterness of his travails. He is trying to finish the paperwork for a house he has been trying to build for the past two years. He wants to build a house because he wants to set up business in Dahab.

"I spent 24 years in Saudi Arabia and when I came back I had my life savings and I started looking for something to do -- not just for me but for my country. I am a specialist in pest control and Dahab has similar weather to Saudi Arabia and also has a termite problem. So, I thought it would be useful if I came and set up a pest control business, especially with all the restaurants and hotels." He may, however, never see his project get off the ground at this rate. "By law, the authorities should give you signed receipts to indicate when they receive papers from you because there are legal deadlines which require them to answer your requests within a certain duration. This never happens, so you are left in limbo. Further, they never give you specific requests in writing. So they would tell me, for instance, 'this column in your design needs to be changed.' I change it and then they tell me, 'no, that is not the kind of change we meant.' You can never prove anything."

On the day I went off to meet the people in charge at the City Council (unsuccessfully, as it turned out), Battikh met me in the morning and offered me words of encouragement. He smiled at me sadly and said: "You cannot believe what torture..." In a moment of contemplation, he added: "They do not seem to realise that we come on long bus rides from Cairo. This is our time and money they are pushing around from day to day. They do not appreciate people's effort."

THE SOLUTIONS: Some people believe these problems can be solved easily, by opting for the five-star blueprint. "What this town needs is to be re-arranged. We should move the low-income tourist types to the back and get big hotels to take over the beach -- we would be better than Sharm," says Ayman Ali, the front office manager for Helnan. Five-star establishments would feel this way. Dahab lacks an airport, so they get little charter business, and due to the type of tourism Dahab is designed to attract, at least for now, they have been forced to lower their prices drastically. According to a comparative study undertaken by Helnan, all prestigious resorts average around 50 per cent occupancy at about LE30 per night. "We realised months ago we could not maintain our rates, so we all lowered drastically -- over 50 per cent," explains Ali, adding: "For tourists coming in to Sharm Al-Sheikh by plane it's just easier to stay in Sharm if they're going to be paying the same rate."

Dahab, he argues, needs more services: an airport, a cinema, more night life. "Now to get big business to pay, you have to give an incentive. At this rate we just about cover costs, so you cannot expect us to do much," he says.

It is rumoured that this is the scenario the government would actually prefer. But for those who have lived in the town, such a move would be a grave mistake.

"Dahab should be preserved and developed. It was not made by the government, it was made through personal initiative and so to develop Dahab you need to give the people who built it a say. Why not promote the idea of eco-lodges? We seem to forget that tourists who like nature will be willing to pay ten times more than those looking for a hotel the likes of which they can find in many other places in the world," argues EMBAH's Farid. "I am a specialist in my job, I am educated, I can say what needs to be done," he adds emphatically.

People like Farid point to examples of low- to middle-income tourism thriving in the south of Spain, for example, and wonder why Dahab cannot emulate such success stories when it has so much potential.

Further north in Nuweiba are echoes of the same arguments. "Why all this belittling of the low-income tourist?" wonders Fathi, a Bedouin who owns the Juna Camp, a two-kilometre stretch of unspoiled beach dotted with a few straw huts. "These are the tourists that come several times a year. So each time they only spend a little money, but then they make up for that in quantity. Further, desert safari trips are very expensive. Everywhere in the world there are big hotels but only here in Sinai do we have this type of nature. Spoil that by building it all up and what do you have to make you special?"

Murad Mikhail argues: "We should keep the existing establishments and stipulate that future licensing goes to small establishments or private housing on the provision of very strictly controlled building specifications. Very specific building guidelines need to be drafted and implemented in places like Dahab. The guidelines we have are very general, drafted by engineers who graduated from the city and know very little about our environment or the new technology that has developed in the world that can help protect such an environment."

Then there were the comments made by Ashraf El-Dorri, the manager of Sertaki, a Dahab hotel. A sullen older man, he suddenly broke into a conversation to note with disgust: "This is not at all like Milan." El-Dorri, who worked in Italy for 12 years, argues that controlled licensing is key. "Some kind of assessment of this town's needs is imperative. Only then can a decision be made regarding licensing. What is happening now is that everything is ad hoc and uncontrolled so you get a glut in services the quality of which are for the most part uncontrolled."

There were five diving centres five years ago; there are approximately 40 today. Where once Dahab had too few taxis, it now has too many...

"What is the problem in drawing up a proper plan for Dahab?" El-Dorri asks me accusingly. "Then they tell us we are in the year 2000!"

It is a vicious circle in search of action that will break it. It is well worth the effort; as Mikhail put it, "many of the problems you see here in Dahab are arguably common problems of development elsewhere. But here in Dahab we have a special chance to be extra good -- we still have a head start if we can just take action now."

 

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