18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 October 2001 Issue No.556 |
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Body heat
If you suffer from rheumatism, you may like to swap your costly clinic in Cairo for the hot caress of the desert. Ahmed Samy tries the sand cures of the Western desert
The Western desert is one of the most arid regions on earth. Some of the highest temperatures in the world have been recorded there. Perhaps surprisingly then, the dry wastes of the Sahara are being promoted for their health-giving properties. For the great desert has an ingredient deemed essential in this day of alternative medicine and natural cures: it has an abundance of hot sand.
The heath centre at Siwa is no spa such as those promoted at Safaga and Aswan, with their modern facilities, the latest in technical know-how, and health programmes carefully monitored by professionals. Siwa is a resort entirely au naturel. But the results have been impressive.
People with rheumatic pains say their unpleasant symptoms have eased after just a week of treatment in a sand bath at Siwa. One with skin diseases would say, "I can hardly believe how quickly my discomfort was relieved. Doctors have been plying me with prescriptions for years, to no avail. This was like magic."
And for those who simply want to escape the trials of daily life with its grinding work schedule, difficult living conditions, traffic, noise and air pollution, there are few better tonics than a visit to Siwa followed by immersion up to the neck in warm sand for helping the cares of the day soak away.
Until some 30 years ago, Siwa was a restricted area bordering Libya. Few people went there. It was untouched by modern development. When restrictions on travel were lifted in the 1980s, Siwans opened their oasis to tourists, started simple restaurants, built a few modest hotels with craft outlets, and arranged tours to the desert, the date palm groves, and some of the oasis' 1,000 hot water springs.
In 1997, new concepts in desert ecology led to planning by the Environmental Sustainable Tourism Programme, and Environmental Quality International (EQI). The aim was to design properties in line with tradition; and considerable progress has already been made. And for the de luxe tourist, Siwa has tourist facilities of a world-class standard.
But many visitors find it far more appealing to travel through those parts of the oasis still untouched by "development" (ecological or not); to visit hot-water springs that have not been lined with tiles; to eat at restaurants that cater for Siwan residents; and to experiment with the cures used by ordinary people, rather than queue at a marbled clinic with leather chairs and crystal chandeliers.
The best season for a traditional sand cure in Siwa is summer, June
In Siwa oasis, a guest settles into the sun-warmed embrace of the desert, letting the cares of the day soak into the sand (top). After a restoring "sand bath," attendants scrape the sand away, help their guest sit up, towel him down and ease him into one of the shady tents dotted about (rest of series, main)
photos: Ayman Ibrahim
until August, with the peak months of July and August the best. Depending on your ailment, a sand cure can take anything from three to nine days, with some severe ailments taking as long as a month to treat. No professional doctor checks your condition or estimates how long he thinks the treatment will take. You go in blind and hope for the best. But impressive results have been recorded for those with rheumatism and skin diseases within three to nine days.
"There are four steps to the daily cure," argues Mohamed, who has one of the largest cure centres at Siwa. "The first is to get buried (best place is near the mountain); the second is to stay in a tent; the third is to rest in a room; and the last is to take a shower and have dinner before sleeping."
He explained that the patient is buried nude from 2pm. "A long shallow hole is dug in the early morning to allow the sun's rays to heat the sand, and after the patient has lain himself down, he is covered to the neck with hot dry sand from the surface of the desert. His head is protected from the sun's rays by a blanket supported on two wooden sticks. The burial lasts for about 20 minutes during which time an attendant walks over the sand on top of the patient as a form of massage. When the sand becomes damp with sweat, it is replaced by fresh hot sand."
Afterwards, the patient is wrapped in a towel and remains in a well-sealed tent pitched close to the burial area for an hour or two. He is given well- salted meat or chicken soup to replace salts sweated out during the treatment. While in the tent, the body returns to its normal temperature and condition. Afterwards the patient takes a shower, has dinner, and sleeps.
"I felt a difference after my first day," said a middle-aged patient suffering from rheumatism, "and I noticed further improvement day by day."
"The nicest thing about this sand treatment is that you're being cured in the open air, in isolation, not in some hospital with reception desks and nurses and visitors," said a youth suffering from a skin allergy that defied conventional treatment.
The people of Siwa have been particularly prone to rheumatism because the salty soil, known as karshif in Arabic and ererig in Siwan, is used to build the traditional mud-brick houses found throughout the oasis. The salt comes in huge chunks, like salt licks, and is used to strengthen walls. But it causes the walls to retain damp, which results in rheumatic pains.
Small wonder, then, that the Siwans should, at an early stage, have developed, and perfected, their simple rheumatism remedy. Similar experiments have been carried out in the Mediterranean town of Marsa Matrouh, in Upper Egypt, and in Libya, but none has proved as successful as the sand cures of Siwa.
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