Man is imposing so many changes on nature, they might
seem simple and stand alone for each of us, and we might belittle
their importance to relieve our conscience. But reality proves us wrong all the way as we get
into the cycle of changes that are interconnected, affecting us all in
different ways in our different places.
It is the day of the Moslem big feast `Bairam', and
`Hajj Ahmed' is sitting in his huge 4 X 4 car. The tires are eating
up the asphalt road from Cairo to El Quarra Oasis. He has decided to
go back to his home town to visit his old father `Sheikh Hassan' and
his other
relatives who still live in the secluded oasis
embedded in the far away Quattara depression in the Egypt's Western
Desert.
`Hajj Ahmed's' homeland has been isolated from the
rest of the world for thousands and thousands of years. The people of
the oasis live inside a great fortress they had built for the
protection of their village on top of a small hill. The inhabitants were always 250 – 300 in number
maintaining a simple life, growing olives and dates, and keeping some
sheep, goats and chicken.
The women did some embroidery and handicrafts out of
palm leaves. And that was all about El Quarra, the peaceful oasis.
`Hajj Ahmed' set out for El Quarra at 6 o'clock early
in the morning, leaving the suffocated seventeen- million- people
Capital. He drove 900 km along the Mediterranean coast and south to
Siwa Oasis. On the way he recalled many memories of the past. He
remembered that day in 1961 when he had said good bye to all his family,
relatives, and friends in El Quarra and migrated to Cairo.
He remembered dealing in old newspapers at the
beginning of his career so that he could keep a shed over his head and
have a bite to share with his wife. He worked day and night for
years, until he saved enough money to start his small printing
workshop, now a famous
Cairo printing house.
He started by buying the paper from the old
neighborhood El Fagala, but with more and more orders he contacted suppliers
from South America to provide him with paper made out of Amazon
rainforest wood. His business was well established and he led a
comfortable life full of luxury.
Twenty years later his son graduated from a top
-notch foreign university in Cairo and was officially an engineer.
He became `Hajj Ahmed's' pride and joy and `Hajj Ahmed' decided to
open a small air conditioning factory for his bright son.
The business grew more and more and the son, `Omar',
has been dealing in air conditioning for cars, storage refrigerators,
and refrigerating vehicles. And of course for the
operation of his business the son ordered a fleet of pick ups,
lorries, to transport his production.
Today in the late early 2000s the fleet has to race
across Cairo, the city buzzing with people, cars, motorbikes and old
busses. It seems that there's a cold war going on between the 17
million people of Cairo and the city.
The question now is: Who will finish up the other
first; the city or the people?
`Hajj Ahmed' remembered `Omar' his son who fled the
hot, suffocating summer of Cairo and went to visit an old college
friend in England.
Then, `Hajj Ahmed' surrendered to his fatigue of the
long journey. He decided to stop at his brother's house in Siwa Oasis,
spend the night there, and resume his journey the next day.
His brother `Mohamed' was so happy to see him and
arranged a nice meal and setting for them to catch up on what had
happened during all those years. His brother didn't look too happy.
`Mohamed' explained that life was not that
comfortable anymore. He said that ever since 1969, when this foreign oil
company came to the oasis looking for oil in the deserts near by, and
after three - four years of stringent digging they could only find a fountain
of sub-surface water spurting out of the newly dug well. So,
they gathered their equipment and left.
Twenty years later the government remembered the
story of the foreign company and the water they had discovered. The army
moved in and started building a new water factory bottling the
ancient underground water and shipping it to Cairo people to quench their
thirst. Another year passed and more investors from Cairo came and
everybody wasracing to get more water out of the grounds of the
oasis.
With that race going on Mohamed and other farmers
noticed that their agricultural produce was getting weaker and weaker.
Thesub-surface water had become saltier and saltier and was not
anymore suitable for irrigation. The soil had become too salty for growing
most of the
crops. Mohamed's olive field was in a bad shape and
the business of exporting the famous Siwan olives and olive oil to
European countries was dying, along with Mohamed's family dream of a
good life.
`Hajj Ahmed' was depressed at what he was hearing and
felt bad for his brother and family. They had tea and decided go
to bed.
The next day `Hajj Ahmed' resumed his journey of
another 250 km north east of Siwa Oasis to his final destination. At first
he saw nothing but extremely arid surrounding, with almost no
vegetation. Now he saw, more and more vegetation on the road and knew he
was climbing
down the escarpment of El Quarra Oasis. The gates of
the old fortress and the lush palm trees greeted his eyes.
He enters the oasis goes around looking for `Sheikh
Hassan' his father and sees nothing but long faces under the
strong hot sun of the summer. He goes to his father's house and finds
him looking older then ever. `Sheikh Hassan' is now in his nineties,
but has always
looked much younger than his age. Now it seems he had
suddenly aged with wrinkles embedded in his dark long face, around
his eyes, across his forehead, and down his cheeks.' Hajj Ahmed' is
concerned by the sight of his father but is distracted by the huge
celebration the village men have made for him. He had brought lots of
toys and sweets for the young ones and was giving them out to the
children, who were pushing each other and struggling savagely to get
anything.
Old `Sheikh Hassan' looked upon the yard from his
window with sad-angry eyes. He was sad that the children of his
village were so deprived to act that way, and felt great anger and
humiliation that he, the wisest and oldest amongst his people, could
not keep poverty and hunger away from them.
The women prepared a meal of skinny chicken,
macaroni, potato, rice, green olives and sun-baked bread celebrating the
arrival of the rich `Hajj Ahmed', the son of their chief.
Father and son sat together in the corner and `Hajj
Ahmed' asked his father about his health, his brothers, and the
village. He asked him why the people looked so tired, hopeless and
frustrated. `Sheikh Hassan' told him it was a along story, it all
had started seven years ago when rain stopped falling and they
had to live in draught for many years.
The fields were dry and many crops couldn't survive
the longer summers of extensive heat. Also, with the big hole in
the sky the guy on television is talking about the snakes stay longer
parts of the year hibernating avoiding the hot climate, leaving
field rats finish up the weed, and corn crops.
After many complaints on part of the farmers the
government came in and gave out some pesticides for the farmers to use.
Farming went better for a couple of years but now it's gone sour
again. The dealers in Cairo refuse to buy the crops from El
Quarra claiming that they contain too much chemical substance to be
exported, and what's even worse is that the soil has been damaged, and the
farmers are now at a total loss of what to do with the land and how
to make a living.
With that, `Sheikh Hassan' looked down in sadness and
ordered some tea after the meal. Children were playing around in
the community hall, curious at this stranger. `Hajj Ahmed' smiled
kindly in spite of his sadness at what he was hearing, and remembered
his son `Omar' who used to play in this hall many years back when
they came to visit.
Meanwhile, `Omar' was having a cup of coffee with his
British Egyptian friend at a café. `Michael' spent college in
Cairo, but then went to live in England with his mother. He stared a
business in the UK raising cattle.
`Omar' asked how things were going and `Michael' said
things were not going very well. At the cattle farm things were going
from bad to worse with this mad cow disease.
He told him the feed for animals they imported from
developing countries became scarce and expensive. `Michael' had
to find an alternate to feed coming from countries with draught,
and from countries where the floods resulting from molten
glaciers. One way out was to mix animal feed with parts of dead
animals. Now he can't sell his produce anymore. He is forced to execute all
his cattle and faces the possibility of leaving the UK bankrupt
`Omar' is saddened by the news and tells `Michael'
that things are bad in Egypt as well. These were tough times and they
will defiantly pass. `Omar ` himself was having trouble at work. He
had received a huge order from a fisherman in the Fayoum Oasis for
refrigerating
vehicles to transport the fish caught by the fisherman
in Qaroun Lake. `Omar' invested a lot of money in making those
vehicles and equipping them when he heard that his client from
Fayoum was held in court and was declared officially bankrupt.
The newspapers stated that the lake had been filled
with agricultural wastewater for more than 20 years and that more
minerals andchemicals were responsible for the slow reproduction,
and eventually for the death of the fish. The fisherman's debts
accumulated, and his creditors took him to court. Now, `Omar' doesn't know
what to do with the vehicles he had prepared and equipped, and has
been waiting for the completion of this deal to settle his own debts.
His last hope was the partnership with `Samy', their
other college mate, who opened a small hotel in `Sharm El Sheikh'
resort. Back in the 1980s, `Samy', being a scuba dive instructor,
decided to move to `Sharm El Sheikh' permanently, open a small hotel
and operate a diving center to provide boat tours in the Red Sea.
At the time, `Sharm El Sheikh' was booming with
tourists from all over the world who came to the Red Sea to enjoy the
sunny weather and the rich coral reefs. Over the past four years, more
and more concrete hotels invaded the entire coast. The
political situation in the region destroyed the business. Further more, the
corals and the entire underwater eco-system was greatly damaged by
ships and hotels dumping their waste in the sea. The reefs are turning
into ashes, the fish are dying, and so are the businesses.
Now, "Omar's" only hope is to get his main
business back on it's feet after this last stroke and to sell some of his villas
in the northern coast to avoid jail.
Back in El Quarra, `Hajj Ahmed' and his cousin
`Mustafa' went for a walk and `Mustafa' started telling his story:
After the problems with the soil in El Quarra,
`Mustafa' and other farmers gave up on the land and decided to look for
revenue elsewhere. They moved north to El Dabaa on the coast, where they
found an area full of Acacia trees. They used the Acacia to produce
charcoal to sell in the city. Others went hunting for export
purposes
Things went well for a while, then the Acacia trees
became fewer and overgrazed, and did not satisfy the demand of the
charcoal market. The men then went into fights about who owned which
tree and many killings happened, total unrest prevailed in the
nomad community and some had to leave. 90% of the community which relied
on capturing wildlife faced the same problem with desert animals:
snakes, foxes, geckos, lizards, wild cats and even gazelles were
scarcer and scarcer.
The hunters are currently obliged to decrease their
hunting activity or move and roam the deserts again in search of a
good spot to live and make a living.
Before, `Hajj Ahmed' could respond or show his
sympathy, he received a call on his mobile phone from `Omar's' Mother.
Their son had had a heart attack and was in a London hospital. He was
notified that the license for his air–conditioning business had been
cancelled because he did not meet the international environmental
standards of the industry.
The phone slipped from `Hajj Ahmed's hand and the
voice of the grief-stricken mother calling for her husband was coming
out of the mobile phone……..
Fiction
12 Aug 2003
