The Birthday of the Prophet
The sun was setting by the time we approached Asswan. The broad band of the Nile streched before us once more. Feluccas with white triangular sails were cruising on the river. I the middle was the beautifully illuminated Elephantine Island.
On the camping ground, there was the usual bustle. Washing lines dangled everywhere densly draped with clothes which gave the place a fleamarket-feel. I immediately felt at home. Soon we were greeted by our old Cairo acquaintances: a big long-haired Alsatian jumped happily around us. It belonged to a couple from Osnabrück who travelled Africa in a big white Magirus camper van. As soon as we had said hi, the woman asked whether we had noticed the excitement on the streets. We sure had,we had passed several parades with people waving colourful flags and riders on beautifully adorned Arab horses. People had been praying in the fields. What was going on?
“You mean you don’t know? Today is the Birthday of the Prophet!”
Several days previously, we had noticed the richly decorated stalls selling pink “Mawlid An-Nabi” sweets. Al-Mawlid An-Nabi means “the Birthday of the Prophet”. This was what it had been about.
It was a perfect excuse for eating out. Budget limitations nonwithstanding, I could not face another night of camp-cuisine. Most of our mates plunged for the first place offering Western-style Mac Donald’s tourist fare with an Engish menu. That did not tickle my fancy and Udo agreed, so we split. We had a delicious falaffel at a roadside stall for all of five piastres followed by a very tasty Gibta (liver) sandwich which cost 10 piastres, a fraction of what they paid for a hamburger in the fast food joint.
Afterwards we retreated to a café for tea and a shisha. The longer I was in Egypt, the more I liked the smooth smoke and sweet taste of the water pipe and the better I got at smoking it. At first it required a little practice. On occasion I could not raise a single puff of smoke – always a great source of hilarity for the blokes.
A group of young guys sitting around a small table, circling the mouthpiece of their pipe among them, waved us over. We started to chat. The youngest was called “Baby” because he didn’t smoke and drank a lot of milk. Not a sign of masculinity in Egypt although it alledgedly makes you strong. He was a nice guy, so it’s a shame that I never got to know his real name. The others were called Mahmoud, Achmed and two Sharifs. Before long they got up and asked if we wanted to come along.
“Where to?”
“To a celebration!”
“A celebration?”
“Today is Mohamed’s birthday.” By this they meant the Prophet. We followed them through the winding alleyways of the Soukh to a mosque on a hill. Fairylights twinkled and throngs of people milled around but the full extend of the festivities was not apparent until we got closer. The place in front of the mosque was covered in a sea of lights. Stalls and tents pressed up against each other. There were performances, fairground attractions and prayer tents. Colourful banners fluttered everywhere. The Islamic version of “Christmas” was celebrated in style.
We were glad to have the five boys look after us so we would not get lost in the crowds. There were no tourists to be seen anywhere. Everybody smiled at us. Our guides dragged us to a circle of people surrounding a ritual martial dance. Two men, changing over frequently,faced each other holding sticks. Each blow was carried out and blocked with minute precision as the two opponents turned and circled each other at ever greater speed.
We would have liked to linger, but our friends dragged us on. Many of the tents sounded with monotonous chanting as men were swaying in a religious trance. As we stepped into one of these, a man collapsed twitching to the floor. He was dragged away by first-aiders. The men continued to dance, eyes closed. Nobody took any notice.
Sadly, our friends had to get back to town. On the way, Achmed tried to get me to talk incessantly. Was I happy? Wasn’t it a wonderful day? He even started to count to ten to provoke a reaction, but I merely rolled my eyes. I wasn’t grumpy, just tired. My face was hot. I might have caught a dose of the flu or too much sun.
Our mates waved their good-byes then we were on our own. To find the camping ground we simply had to get to the Nile and follow the road, so we couldn’t really get lost. We turned around and walked back through the Soukh to the mosque.
An area of the fair was cordoned off, it seemed to be a religious zone with many prayer tents. I missed our guides who could have explained and wanted to keep a low profile, but Udo stepped into one of the tents so I followed. Once inside I noticed that there were no women, they were waiting in a separate compartment at the back. I lowered my eyes and tried to look manly but the looks coming my way indicated that this didn’t work. If there had been any rocks around we might have been stoned to death, two infidels and one of them female. We beat a hasty retreat .
(Barging in on a prayer meeting is an extremely stupid thing to do!)
Back at the campside there was bad news. The site is a hub for travellers from all over East Africa and the latest talk was about renewed unrest in southern Sudan. The conflict centred around the proposed Jonglei Channel which threatened to cut off nomads from part of their grazing and the power struggle between the Islamic north and Christian south of the country. Now we learned that the border to the south had been closed, as might have been expected. But that wasn’t all. “The border to the north is going to be closed in a few days,” they said: “The last permitted convoy is leaving on Tuesday. Try to get on it!”
This was impossible. There were several reasons why we shouldn’t even try. We had already formed a convoy and nobody was remotely ready with their preparations. Plus we had no idea that travel across the desert into the Sudan was permitted in the first place. Reinhold reckoned that border closures are enforced as soon as they are talked about and there would be no official access into the Sudan as of now anyway. To ask for permits would be to ask for trouble. To hurry preparations for a desert crossing would be to guarantee trouble. We needed more time.
Tags: Cairo to Capetown, Tag Index
Denni