“Gosh, a funeral procession!” exclaims my English companion, with typical understatement. The air instantly grows heavy. A hundred men shuffle behind a rickety wooden bier. Inside lies a body shrouded in white linen.
“Unusual,” says an Egyptian acquaintance, “Muslim burials don’t happen
at night. Islam requires burial before sundown on the first or second
day after death. The deceased must have been important. Or it may have
been a tragic accident.” I watch in stunned silence as the soft swish of the men’s feet and brown galabeyas kick up dust and scatter lamplight into gritty shadows. Within minutes the procession disappears, followed by a raucous wedding party.
In Aswan, ancient Egypt’s frontier town, the usual order seems inverted. Sand takes precedence over water. The edges of the Sahara lap against the Nile. The dunes light up like honey in late afternoon sun. Despite its prominent spot on the tourist map—everyone has been here, from Agatha Christie to Winston Churchill—the town feels remote. The banks of the Nile mesmerize me. Water buffalo and camels graze in the fields. Veiled women wash laundry before low-roofed mud houses. Men cast fishing nets in wide fans into the Nile. The call to prayer lingers over the river at sunset.
The faces of Nubia greet me around every corner of Aswan’s souk, one of Upper Egypt’s largest. The town comes alive at night. I dress conservatively and set out exploring solo. A herd of boys in dingy galabeyas trails me. They offer carriage rides, felucca cruises, and tourist trinkets. Some taunt me, (“Why you walk alone lady?”) Poverty emboldens their desperate salesmanship. This anxiety and anger, born of political injustice, will erupt in revolution three months after my visit.
Yet the souk overflows with abundance. Shops display luscious, ruby red pomegranates larger than softballs. Green grapes blush rosy pink with ripeness. Tomatoes blaze scarlet under the searing sun. Moist, sticky dates tempt tooth decay. Butchers hide in cool shadows, where slabs of goat meat hang on hooks without refrigeration. Older women in black veils, no match for disguising their roundness, gossip on a curb. Two little girls in pigtails and matching navy blue pinafores hold hands and skip down the street. And everywhere the constant whisper of brooms barely keeps the sand at bay.
In Egypt, the mystery of death surrounds you: from the funeral procession, to the cult of the Dead in the temples, to the stark death of the desert. Yet life is ever present: from the emerald green fields of the Nile delta, to the heavily veiled women with steady, alert eyes, to the ripe produce spilling out of the shops in the souk. Since my visit, that funeral procession has become a metaphor for the death of the old, oppressive Egypt, making way for a democratic one. Now there is a new future for those boys in Aswan, a hope that some day they may also rejoice in the party that is the souk.
