Tribes triumphant
Owing to the conjunction of an educational-environ mental NGO and a pioneering eco-tourism company -- respectively, the Wadi Environmental Science Centre and Fustat Wadi Al-Gemal -- the Eastern Desert wildlife protectorate of Wadi Al-Gemal, near Marsa Alam off the Red Sea coast, was witness to what is probably the greatest ethnic and cultural mix of tribal Egyptians to have occurred anywhere in the country. Competing against each other in a range of activities -- high and long jump, tug-of-war, besides a camel race -- representatives of the country's tribes also presented their performances and cuisine -- not to mention arts, crafts, costumes, poetry and sheer good cheer -- to attendees of the second annual Characters of Egypt Festival (29-31 October).
People came from the Siwa and Farafra oases, from Aswan and the Sinai Peninsula. And hosted by the protectorate's indigenous inhabitants from the Ababda and the Bashariya tribes, whose own sword-and-shield dance punctuated the action, they demonstrated the affinities that presence in Egypt has created between Arabian, Sudanic and Berber traditions. But perhaps the most remarkable of all was other, multinational tribes of desert lovers and wanderers who travelled astonishing distances to be in the presence of this occasion for "revealing the cultural diversity that distinguishes between the numerous tribes inhabiting the deserts of Egypt as well as forging previously non-existent bridges between them," as the festival brochure puts it.
The festival was held under the auspices of the Red Sea governorate, the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs and the Egyptian Tourism Authority.
photos Youssef Rakha
Recommend
Comment
Printer-friendly
