Friday, February 10, 2012

Dahab II: More Days in Paradise

February 1-4

Dahab—I am sitting right next to wooden trays stacked high that contain rounds of flat dough the size of a tortilla. A young man in flip-flops with a cigarette in his mouth, his pants rolled to his knees and flour dust covering him head to toe, is transferring the dough into a flaming oven about four feet from me. Barely a minute later the dough puffs up into perfect pillows, and he transfers them to the table nearby. Someone gathers stacks of them into plastic bags and hands them to customers who will eat them that day. Meanwhile a runner takes the empty trays across the street and returns later with more full trays. It's about 7:30 a.m. and I don't notice that my sleeve nearest the stacks of dough is now covered with flour.
 
This place is called YumYum and I've been eating here since discovering it two days ago in the district where the Egyptians live and eat, behind the long row of tourist shops and restaurants on the beach. (Don't get me wrong about the beach places: The food there is wonderful and at criminal (low) prices. I often tip more than the meals cost.)

But at YumYum I get more than food. Besides fresh bread, falafel, shashouka, cheese and tomatoes, and tray after tray of all kinds of salads, YumYum offers that up-close look at Egyptian life I can't seem to get enough of. While I sit and stuff myself at a street-side table (about a foot away from a stinky, idling diesel truck that has stopped so the driver could pick up lunch), I notice how everyone greets each other (and me) with such good cheer over the roar of the propane tanks.

There is much discussion and sadness today over the riots Wednesday night following a football game in Port Said between a local team and a popular Cairo club. After the game, the victorious Port Said fans came down to the pitch and mobbed the Cairo players and their fans, and when the fans tried to escape, they found the exits blocked. More than 70 people were crushed to death; as many as 1,000 are injured. Relatives in Cairo waited at the train station for news of their loved ones, and as the bodies started arriving, the angry crowds grew. Many believed the Port Said mob was provoked by Mubarak henchmen in retaliation for the Cairo club's support in anti-Mubarak demonstrations last January.

The government cancelled a game in Cairo scheduled for two days later, and more mobs set fire to the stadium. While at first the Cairo protests were directed at Port Said, soon demonstrators joined forces to protest the lack of security by the military and the police that led to so many deaths, and to call once more for the quick transfer from military to civilian rule.Tensions are still running high in Cairo and violent clashes are continuing. I'm giving the city a wide berth.



But it's peaceful here in the South Sinai where the sun is brilliant and the weather is warm. I join a British couple I've met for two days at an Egyptian protectorate called Ras Abu Galum, a rugged coastline of steep cliffs, lagoons and coves adjacent to a Bedouin village reachable only by camel or boat. The reefs are untouched and I borrow my British friend Richard's wet suit (though I don't really need it here) and spend the afternoons making the acquaintance of more splendidly colorful fish. In the mornings I try to read his copy of Marx's "Capital".


It's just the three of us enjoying the hospitality of Abby—short for Abraham—who cooks octopus caught that day (delicious) and a whole assortment of his own dishes, including a kind of roasted nuts and molasses jam that you spread on bread. He serves these meals on low tables on the beach, or if we need a break from the sun, under a straw umbrella he's built for the purpose. 




Abby is one of those Egyptian characters you meet everywhere. He's well educated, speaks perfect English, and is living alone in a straw hut at the edge of a camp of Bedouin not known for their placidity. He was married to an English woman once, had two children, and after seven years moved at her request to England, where—according to him—she tried to make him over into a "perfect Englishman." Hence the straw hut on the beach. He stays connected with his daughters via Skype.

I have my cell phone with me and get a call from my Egyptian Friend back home wondering if I'm OK. I haven't heard anything yet about the two American women kidnapped that day by Bedouins at St. Catherine Monastery, just over the mountain, where I'll be tomorrow. It's a balmy star-filled night and I'm enjoying myself
with Abby, Richard, and Sally around a small fire, talking about the CIA plot on 9/11 to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (Abby thinks that Masons are behind everything and that the CIA is all Masons. Some of the stuff he says is so cracked I can't tell if I'm hearing his Egyptian humor or the ravings of a kook.)

It's not until I get back to Dahab that I learn that the two women not only weren't frightened of their Bedouin captors, they enjoyed their company, were treated very hospitably with tea and dates, and were even spared their smoke when one woman asked her captor to douse his cigarette. He politely complied.

Besides good manners and hospitality the Bedouin in the Sinai have a reputation for lawlessness, but they have some complaints of their own—including unfair treatment by the government and limitations on their way of life. These men were attempting to get attention for the plight of some family members who were imprisoned. I don't know if they succeeded in getting their relatives released, but after an hour or two they DID release the two women, who continued on their holiday with no complaints—and some stories to tell.

- Posted from my iPad

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