Plain talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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Francis R Gardner might not have written books about Egypt, but he published so many articles about it that he deserves to be included among lovers of the country. His articles are topical, dealing with his own visits to the country. He is a great enthusiast for Sinai -- which he visits three years after the Israeli withdrawal - and of Aswan, and in his articles he takes us on a cultural tour of these two sites. He takes us on a relaxing holiday, as it were, in Aswan, Egypt's southernmost town, where we unwind with him in the sleepy village atmosphere, explore the cataracts and palm covered islands and enjoy a lively performance of folk dance and music. Gardner also takes us on a visit to the Aqaba coast. He explores the coast by jeep and camel with the Bedouins, and dives in the coral reefs. Like his article about Aswan it is illustrated by beautiful photographs.

But Gardner's articles are not just descriptive accounts of places he loves. He goes deeper into his subject, giving the history of the two places and, in the case of Aqaba, attempts to foresee what planners can do to exploit its rare beauty.

He calls Aswan the gateway to Africa, the perfect refuge for any tourist exhausted by the pharaonic manuments of Luxor. He then goes on to describe the beauty of the town, its perennial warmth tempered by breezes that waft off the felluca-dotted Nile, its tree lined corniche, verdant islands and exotic markets. Aswan both soothes and entertains, something that helped it become a popular resort of writers, artists and administrators in the 1920's. One didn't just weekend here, one wintered in Aswan.

As Egypt's southernmost town, over five hundred miles from Cairo, Aswan has long enjoyed the atmosphere of a sleepy village. To set out for Aswan from Cairo at night is an adventure in itself. At eight o'clock precisely the train eases sedately from Ramses railway station, clatters across the Nile and then turns due south into the Egyptian countryside.

By noon the following day, says Gardner, the lethargic pulse of Upper Egypt had worked its spell on the driver and the train has slowed into a gentle trundle. Sitting blinking in the open doorway of the carriage, he writes, "we were vaguely aware of fields of green sugar-cane floating past in a succession of blurred glimpses. In the villages beside the track boys loped along behind water buffaloes, tall women commuted between wells and houses, bearing clay water pans on their heads, balanced at an impossible angle, while old men lounged in the shade of courtyard acacias."

"That night we descended on Aswan's Kasr El Thaqafa, The Palace of Culture, where an expertly choreographed troupe performed The Nubian Dance Festival. The songs were all sung in Nubian, the language of Egypt's far south and the Sudan's far north. While Nubian borrows some of its vocabulary from Arabic the phonetics are a world apart, high pitched and employing much tongue-clicking in the back of the throat. The drums resembled wooden sieves rather than the stone Arab tables of Cairo, the beat was rhythmic and close to the heart beat.

"It occurred to us that overnight we had passed from the Middle East into Africa. Elitist Alexandrines consider that they live in an outpost of Europe whereas Cairo is African, but in truth while geographically all Egypt belongs to Africa the real yet invisible boundary between the two spheres of influence lies somewhere between Luxor and Aswan. Gustave Flaubert, in his travels in 1850, described Aswan's hills as a negro landscape and while comparing the dance of an Asian girl to that of Kucuck Hanem, he wrote: 'This is no longer Egypt; it is negro, African, savage - as wild as the other was formal."

Gardner then goes on to describe how he breakfasted, attired in shirt sleeves in the lazy heat of December, then took the train once more through the pink rocks of the desert to view the High Dam. While bringing untold improvements to Egypt's energy system, harnessing the force of the river Nile to a hydroelectric grid, the construction of the High Dam put an end to the Nile's annual flood. The supply of rich sediment that used to be carried down stream and distributed over the riverside crops had been cut off forever.

To Gardner the Aqaba coast is awe inspiring. The beauty of the Gulf of Aqaba lies not only in the arid magnificence of the black mountains which jostle right up to the beach but in the off shore coral reefs, the finest in the Red Sea. The potential for tourism which Gardner notes along the 150 mile coastline did not go unnoticed by the Ministry of Tourism. The Government had sought to attract visitors to the three centres of Sharm El Sheikh, Dahab and Nuweiba. Air Sinai had begun to operate a regular service to Sharm El Sheikh in the south while an air conditioned bus covered the 300 mile journey from Cairo thrice weekly. There were diving centres strung out along the coast, together with facilities for sailing and fishing, while the Naama Bay, he notes, had an open door discotheque. If only he could see it now!

All this activity, Garner noted, has so far affected the local Bedouin peripherally. As the longest standing inhabitants of Sinai, their origins in the area go back five hundred years to when their nomadic ancestors emigrated from the Arabian peninsula.

Garner worried what would become of this area, asking whether it would develop into one long chain of hotels.