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Fishing in Sahara
From Egypt's Western Desert
While the article "Nature Calling - Cosmos Falling... in?" took us deep into the desert, or maybe rather far out in cosmos (what's the difference anyway in being a tiny grain here or there?) - this will "just" take us Fishing in Sahara.
First - just sit back in front of your computer - put the fishing rod and net down beside you on the floor for a while, and I will tell you about how I meet my "Desert Teacher".
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Formation in the White Desert close to Farafra Oasis (about 7 meters high)
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Media View
When I was head of charter operations to Egypt, part of the work was to prepare for and take media around. My philosophy is always to show something "extra", something competing media did not get (- along with the "must see" places of course).
For the right media, a sudden tour on the Nile - banking on an island where one of the best chiefs are preparing a grilled lamb, give a far better story than a more standard Nile Cruise. After the journalists have been eating accompanied with a good wine to the music of reed flutes, white sails appears out of the dark night and dock by the island. Onboard on the traditional Nile sailboat, accompanied only by the amazing starry night and magical sounds from the Nile bank - the tour goes back to the hotel.
Not an easy adventure to forget even for the most blase journalist - and good turnout for any tour operators marketing department...
Into the Desert
This time it was a television team who should come to make a 45 minutes travel program from Egypt. The "must be's" was prepared, they should meet Director of the Pyramids area, Zahi Hawass in Cairo and visit the major monuments in Luxor. The producer had brought along his friend Morten Harket for the tour - so the team consisted of the program host, sound as cameraman, in total four persons. I refused to tell them what we should do the first days.
My arrival team was inside the airport in Luxor, and I awaited them outside with a big 4WD desert machine. Had used two days only to negotiate that we could rent the car, which could have space for the film team and my team. Well my team was less, as I only had two drivers with me - we should drive through the night.
All luggages were on the top of the desert machine, only the camera joined us inside (have yet to meet a cameraman or woman leaving the betacam too far away). We crossed the Nile, and after a dinner - our journey into the desert started. Not too comfortable for a long journey, but some bottles of the good Egyptian Stella beer helped. The morning came and we were in the first oasis Kharga. But we did not stop, we should to the next oasis - Dakhla.
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Camels by the well.
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After filming in the medieval old city of Dakhla, crafts and people in the oasis and a dive in the ancient Roman hot spring - we should meet the Chairman of the Oasis.
The Chairman
The film team had enough material, and nobody was too keen on meeting an official person - that's not the reason we where here. If you been around the globe as media representative, you soon find out that official persons are those you film to get your permissions - and cut it all away on the clip board after. Well, we had to meet this Chairman - after all it was me who had asked for it.
In the end he came to the hotel, entered and said: "Hello, I'm Mohammed Rafaat Abdelmomen, Chairman of Dakhla". He did not have to say it, we all knew the second he entered the room.
When one thinks "Desert" one normally think "Sand". When one thinks "People in the Desert", one normally thinks "travelling Bedouins". The "concept images" we have stored is not always the whole truth, so here are some facts:
Dakhla is not an Disney oasis with a water source and some few palms around - the around 400 square kilometres large oasis has an agricultural area of 22000 feddan (an feddan is 1.038 acres) and export olives, dates, onions and fruits to the Nile Valley. For most people of the Western Desert, farming are the main activity.
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Mohamed and his desert garden in Farafra.
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Mohamed Rafaat Abdelmomen is not a farmer, but he has his PhD in "Bio fertilization under conditions of the New Valley, and its effect on clean yield". So he is together with the Governor of the New Valley, making sure the farming in the desert Oasis is staying clean.
He is neither a desert Bedouin, still one of the most famous desert travellers of today - Lama - says he must have been born on the hood of a four-wheel jeep in a sand dune.
The film team did not need the presentation, they knew they had a "scoop".
We took the desert machine over to a new hotel under construction - the last project of it's kind by the late renowned architect Hassan Fathy. On top of the hotel under construction he stood and told about the importance of ecology for this planets future. Far into the desert, a film team and a pop star was the audience - listening with growing respect to the future of what up to then just had been a large desert hole on a long forgotten map.
They where prepared to meet history in the Oasis of Dakhla, not a maker of history.
When the sun had set in the west, we all sat under date palms and ate fresh grilled fish from the large lake of the oasis. I still wonder who was the fish and who were the bait when we went Fishing in Sahara...
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Text & photo, Arnvid Aakre
www.egyptmyway.com
First Published November 2000
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