A highlight of the day was our visit to a Nubian Village. On the way there we cruised past a wet land full of exotic birds. We saw hooded crows (very common), grey herons, black headed gulls, pied kingfishers and a night heron.
At the village we were treated to the colourful public interior of the home, an informative talk on the Nubian family life and a demonstration of weaving.
Apparently when a Nubian couple marries the normal custom is for
• a large public wedding celebration to involve the whole village hence the need for a large public space in the family home, and
• the man to live with his wife’s family for at least two years and sometimes longer so the family home gets bigger and bigger as the family adds rooms to accommodate nearly the married couples.
The motor ship we are on – cruising the Nile – has about 70 guests on three accommodation floors and one service floor with the restaurant. I spent an interesting time with the captain trying to communicate about speed, engines and what we were passing.
We had a delightful afternoon watching the Nile river bank slide past and talking with new friends from the tour group. One was an IT guru and another was a retired public servant who made and sold replica guns. We have 6 Canadians in the tour group along with 4 Australians, 2 from New Zealand and 2 from the States.
We saw what we expected to see – a thin strip of futile land and then the edge of the Sahara desert, fishermen mending nets, lots of Feluccas, the odd water buffalo and children swimming in the shallows.
And we saw lots we didn’t expect to see – several double sailed tourist hotel ships, a huge suspension bridge and another ship pass us.
We visited Kom Ombo Temple just on dusk so we enjoyed the sun setting while we tried to make out the hieroglyphics – one was part of a calendar and one was a lady in child birth (see the photo). We saw an ancient Nilometer (a well with a tunnel link with the Nile) which allowed the setting of taxes based on the measured maximum height of floods.
Day 22 – 23rd February 2010
Fay is doing the catching, right? :-)
ReplyDeletehe he - that's Deirdre's job isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThat is totally amazing. Does rather look like Fay is the midwife :) Sounds like the trip is going well so far. I love the idea of a Nubian house ....plenty of adults to share the housework and cooking.
ReplyDeletethe guide called option 2 the new husband's communityu service. He had quite a sense of humour so I wasn't sure whether he was pulling our legs or not!!!
ReplyDeleteWe're in Tel Aviv airport on our way to Bangkok. It's raining and cold outside so we've been sitting out the 12 hours in the airport.....
fun and games only 2 hours to boarding....
Fay, the midwife - yes, I think that's what she intended it to look like and of course catching it before it did itself some damage! Didn't occur to me until I looked at the photo afterwards!!!
ReplyDelete