1-Characters of Egypt

What an event! Bringing all those people together was such an ingenious idea. The Characters of Egypt, an event, or rather a festival, which was organised by the Fustat Wadi El Gemal and the Wadi Educational Science Centre, brought together tribes from 11 destinations from all over Egypt to meet each other in one place.

I can bet anything that most Egyptians I know who live in Cairo don’t even know that half of these people exist. I am, for one, was guilty of such horrible crime, and I’m sure I continue to be guilty of not know most others, but I am determined to know more about these wonderful people.

It was rather amusing to see all these people, talk to them and hear stories about them. The first impressive story I heard was told by Lynn, the chairman of WESC, about last year’s event. Just as a background, most of these tribes are desert tribes, which have been completely forgotten over the centuries, with the exception of some, which have been exposed to tourism. She told us about the first encounters last year, and how different things were. All tribes were there in their authentic costumes, and when the North Sinai Bedouins arrived, they were in normal modern clothes and had their Ray Bans on. They were taken aback by the sight of others in their tribal attire.

When they saw this, they went back to their tents and came out with their authentic clothes. This showed the difference in cultures, and mentalities, that were affected by decades of exposure to modernity.

The North Sinai Bedouins have been exposed to the “modern” cultures through wars, as well as tourism. They have seen city people prejudging them, giving them hard time about their culture. Therefore, they started to get ashamed of their own cultures, but, when they saw others still proud of who they were, they went back and emerged as proud Bedouins once more.

Another example, involving the North Sinai Bedouins, was the difference in resources between the different tribes in Egypt. The Beshary tribes of South Egypt, who live mainly around Shelatin and Berenice, cook their food in ashes in the ground. When they saw the North Sinai tribesmen cooking their food on portable stoves, they were amazed by what they saw. The North Sinai guys did not believe that there are still people in the world who haven’t seen such things. This year, when the North Sinai guys came back to the Festival, they brought tens of these portable stoves as a gift to the Besharies. The interesting thing was that the Besharies adapted these to their own needs, and used them in a way that suited them best.

With this simple example, I understood better what the event was about, and I was keen to get on with it. The event was not just about understanding cultures from within my own country, but also try and better understand the needs of these different peoples, and maybe help them. Not necessarily helping them monetarily, but help could be in the form of raising awareness of their existence and making their lives become part of Egypt, and not just have their existence be in a parallel universe to ours. Exactly what I wanted when I started thinking about my book a few months ago. Lucky or what!

So, which tribes were there? The tribes came from 11 different places: Siwa, Matrouh, Farafra, Aswan, Al-Arish, Sharm El-Sheikh, Mount Sinai, Dahab, Nuweibaa, Red Sea Mountain Range, and Marsa Alam.

A worry of mine about such an event was that their cultures could be dissolved. But, I believe that when you bring such people together, they tend to be proud of who they are, and they try and preserve whatever is left of their unique customs and cultures.

The tastes, the colours, the smells, the sounds, the scenes, … Everything was just adding to my learning experience about these wonderful people.

As I planned, I did get to know a lot of people and exchanged contacts, and over the next few years, I will try to visit all of them, and many more, in my quest of understanding the cultures and needs of these different characters of Egypt.