Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Bahariya or bust!

By Cassandra Vivian

Twelve people climbed into our Peugeot station wagon for my first true desert trip. There were also six cackling chickens on the roof and a gun in the glove compartment; I knew it was there because when we hit a bump the door flew open and there it was, aimed at my right eye.

The journey to Bahariya Oasis started sensibly enough with five of us. With the driver and our Bahariya contact that made seven, a likely enough number for a six-hour car ride. However, the driver arrived with a friend, so we were eight. Then our Bahariya contact arrived with his wife, three children and six live chickens. We had each been limited to one small suitcase, but he was also lugging clothes for the family, sweets for the children and canned goods for friends. His bundles did not fit on the roof, so we stuffed them in the back seat with him and the lot.

It was 1978 and we were babes in the desert, totally unaware of what was needed on such an expedition. We had no food to sustain us for any length of time, few hats against heat stroke and perhaps a single bottle of water amongst us. We were at the mercy of our driver, our hosts and the desert for the next ten days.

The newly constructed desert road that, for better or worse, was going to facilitate communications with the oases of the Western Desert was deserted on this June morning. Not a car in sight. Then suddenly the driver kept looking apprehensively in the rear-view mirror and coming towards us was a sight worthy of Kafka. It was a Cairo taxi with a 3-metre pile of goods on its roof. As it tore up the road at high speed, it swayed and swaggered and shuffled, nearly colliding with us as it waddled by. Someone was obviously returning from a work mission in the Gulf loaded with goodies, just like our family in the back seat.

The grandmother at Bir Mattar

We were to be the guests of the entire village of Mandisha. For us, everything was a new experience. We slept with our host family in one of the whitewashed adobe houses, which itself was an adventure. We mingled with the community and saw their daily lives up close.

Each meal was in a different home, we sat on the floor around a tabliyyah, a low wooden table, tasted oasis olives for the first time and, using luscious oasis bread, dipped into the dishes to scoop up our tasty feast. It was far better than a cruise on the Nile with white-gloved waiters.

The men of the family always joined us, but the women never came to the table. They cooked the meals and waited in the wings to tend to our wishes. The women in our group had a chance to meet them. The men did not. One evening we were served sensational chicken soup. The tureen was in the centre of the tray. Each of us was provided with a spoon. We all looked at each other, hesitated briefly, then dipped in, again and again, and again, oasis-style. Our host had squeezed fresh lemon juice in the chicken broth and it was piping hot. Delicious.

It was June and the weather was hot. I walked to the gardens to sit under mango and lemon trees. I walked to the dunes and rolled down their slip side, again and again. I walked to the springs to plunge into the highly satisfying waters. I walked to the capital village of Bawiti, over five kilometres away. I walked and walked and never complained.

On the third day, when it was suggested we go to Bir Mattar I was ready. But when it was suggested we walk three kilometres from Mandisha in 90-degree heat, I was not so ready. I had had enough walking and pretending I enjoyed it. My host, ever the desert gentleman, said "no problem," I could ride the family donkey!

My friends started out. I mounted the donkey and put my newly purchased tarha scarf on my head. This lovely woman's scarf with red fringe is not so readily available in the oasis today. Bahariya has ready-made clothes for shoppers to buy off the rack on the main street of Bawiti. They are brought to the oasis down that ribbon of black asphalt that has changed the desert in the last decades. Back in 1978, women never walked the streets, except at midnight to go to the hot springs to bathe. They made their wonderful clothes from cloth brought from Kerdassa, near the pyramids of Giza, usually by camel caravan.

The donkey with a mind of its own photos: Cassandra Vivian

The donkey and I were getting along just fine. He kept a steady trot, not too fast, not too slow. He was a sturdy fellow and had the long black stripe down his back that legend maintains was given to his breed because one of his ancestors carried the Virgin Mary on the flight into Egypt. Once we were at the spring, I immortalised him with a photo.

About 100 metres from Bir (spring) Mattar, I decided to have a cigarette. I stopped the donkey, but then, this friendly donkey that I had grown so fond of, stopped me from carrying out the intention. In one graceful movement he collapsed under me, rolled over, dumped me in the sand, jumped up, and trotted away.

My host was beside himself. He came running up to me yelling at he top of his voice for his sons to catch that bad donkey that had disgraced him. But when he got close enough, he found me laughing. That donkey had had enough of carrying me. It was hot for him, too.

I walked the rest of the way to the spring. It was not too far. The water is cool at this well and I jumped it with great relish. It was at Bir Mattar that I met the watermelon lady, a grand figure in her Bahariya dress with its delicate gold, orange and red cross-stitch embroidery. She also had one of the biggest nose rings I had ever seen. I had not seen many, but this one was huge. She was full of life and had dozens of questions for us. Nor was she afraid to approach the men in our group. She mingled with all of us. We asked questions and she was happy to answer. When I asked her how she pierced

her nose, she dug under her dress into the many layers of clothing and, from some hidden treasure chest, produced a gleaming steel needle.

I wanted to take her photo. She agreed provided I would let her

pierce my nose. I was tempted. She kept coming toward me with her needle. I kept pulling away laughing. She charged. I backed up. She charged again. I jumped into the spring. The men in our group kept encouraging her and I finally told one of them that if he bought me a diamond to insert in the hole in my nose, I would pierce it. He did not, and I did not.

It is unlikely that any foreigners have been to Mandisha in quite a

while. I felt like that great 19th century explorer Giovanni Belzoni. He came to Bahariya in May of 1819 and was the first of the European explorers to do so. He thought he was in Siwa, and that the triumphal arch at Qasr was the Temple of the Oracle. He kept taking notes, and every night, they would disappear. He looked everywhere for them but could not find them. Then he discovered that his servant was selling them as magical texts to ward off the evil eye!

As good guests should, we had brought tea and sugar and a great honey-saturated, nut-filled kunafa (shredded wheat) from Cairo. We also had a few bon-bons for the children. We had not been as foolish as that great German explorer Gerhard Rohlfs who announced his arrival in Farafra Oasis in 1873 by shooting off guns and exploding fireworks and scaring everyone out of their wits. We were welcomed, and honoured. So honoured, that on our last day the village poet came into the garden where we were eating breakfast and spoke of our adventures in Bahariya. I wish I could have understood what he said. It is unlikely that it was ever written. But it is possible that it has survived in oral tradition. I have been into the desert many times in the intervening years but have never thought to ask whether they knew a story of an American woman draped in a tarha who was dumped by a donkey in the sand.

 

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Hidden lives, hidden finds 27 Jan. - 2 Feb. 2000

 

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