SIWA

hey! i wrote this travel story about siwa.. i wanna share!


Siwa Gives a Lesson In Fear

You can never find what you're looking for while searching. Only when your mind flouts, and you travel away, you capture it. It can take a blink of an eye, or eternity.

Siwa taught me this. I wouldn’t need to clarify what the place is if it got the same media attention as the pyramids, or the Eifel Tower . Still, it was a destination worth it all.

It took me 11 hours riding a public bus to get there from Cairo . Unlike the pyramids, Siwa doesn’t attract many tourists; or at least, many conventional tourists; those speaking an Arabic word like "ezayak" to say hello and automatically then, consider themselves living the "Egyptian experience". No, no. Siwa is different; not many manage to get there; but whom does, Siwa makes sure to give them the reward they deserve.

Siwa is an isolated oasis that have been settled since the 10th millennium BC, at least. In 2007 , the world’s oldest human footprint was discovered there that was about 3 million years old.

How significant are we in the face of time?

This is precisely why I take photos: to immortalize it, this life, as I come to know it , and let it be.

When I first laid eye on Siwa, it reminded me of a scene from an old movie I watched. It was a beautiful afternoon; tiny mud houses stood beside each other, donkey carts eagerly made their way to cross from one street to the other, and men sipped their Bedouin dark tea while having shisha (hookah). Those donkey carts were taxis since there were no car taxis. Women didn’t occupy much of the public space; when I looked around attempting to spot some, I saw two women carrying bread as they held their children's hand.

Let me just say that Siwa isn’t the typical recommended place for tourists. Globalization hasn’t yet left its fingerprints on Siwa's features ; unlike Cairo where one can see KFC in the middle of the dessert beside the pyramids. There are only local restaurants that turned out to serve the best "fatir" ever. It's similar to a pie , just one thousand times better. When I asked the waiter where it’s originally from , he proudly announced : men hena (from here). My skeptic Egyptian friend, Ahmed, said that it’s originally from Turkey , but here, Egyptians are too proud to admit that amazing things do come from elsewhere. I laughed, and teased him saying, “ well, they have every reason in the world to think so.” He grinned admitting that at the end of the day, he does feel the same way.

I also had a fool sandwich (brown beans) with black tea that’s popular in Siwa. I thought that "consuming" this sandwich here, in this so-called third world , has safer effects on the world than the sandwiches produced in the first world by industries that hire underpaid illegal immigrants and slaughter cows inhumanely. Eating that food sandwich was eco-friendly, I happily concluded.

That’s what's so unique about travelling; it allows you to re- label things that you took for granted.

The Bedouins taught me how to live life to its fullest, even when I’m not feeling 100 percent secure, but this didn’t happen on the first or second day , or even the third. In the beginning, I was just too nervous and self-cautious that I’ll be ripped off or harassed. This perception started changing when Bedouins kept persistently inviting us to have lunch and dinner with them; they always offered the widest smiles and kindest gestures.

My American friend, Sarah, dropped her wallet when we touring the village; a Bedouin picked it up and ran to catch us and give it back. We offered him money to thank him; he strongly refused as if we were offending him. After this, I thought , “ maybe Siwa isn’t the dangerous place I’d imagined. Maybe it’s all in my head”.

I have never gone sand surfing, and honestly speaking, never planned to. We rented bicycles to go to the ancient fortress , known as (Shali Ghali). Our Egyptian guide , Khaled, told us that the British and German army fought in Siwa in the First and Second World War. He then sarcastically added that not only people come here to fight, but also to sand surf; I immediately exclaimed, “thanks, but I didn’t come here to kill myself.”

And there it came, the answer.. softly spoken by Khaled,

“ Sam, I went to Beirut in summer 2006. And guess what? It was war, bloody war. But there and then , only there and then , did I learn what it meant to live. Obviously, it was dangerous in the streets. But, lovers were passionately hugging beside the beautiful sea. Shop owners refused to close. Men and Women were laughing as they sipped coffee.

Were they scared? I bet they were, as hell.

But , they didn’t let the fright strong enough to stop them from living. And this is life Sam. You take a risk, you innovate. You come up with all these new things. Will you be afraid to try them because you might be rejected or maybe even harmed? definitely yes; it’s a fact of being. Plus, fear keeps you from falling from the edge, it’s for balance. But , whether or not you allow fear to stop you being the person you truly are remains the question, the ultimate question. And in the end, this defines your life.”

And this was it; the moment I learnt, the moment I realized how it ought to be .

When exactly do we lose the courage of the child within? Is it the culture? Or maybe the media? But the media is there to help us discover and explore. And exploration never happens without courage, and a decent amount of fear.

On that day, Khaled taught me what I needed to know; about the tomorrow I’ll have to make and the everlasting voyage this phenomenal life truly is.

I did sand surf , and it made all the difference in my world.