A Nubian Encounter

We were warned to expect things to not always go to plan! After a blissful 5 days having everything done for us, it was a rude shock to return to the reality of being a tourist in Egypt! We had checked into our very grand hotel...where we feel woefully underdressed & completely out classed...& as our first excursion, decided to take a motorboat across to Elephantine Island. There we were looking forward to seeing the Aswan Museum, which I had read good reviews about. There was also...allegedly...two nubian villages & some ruins to explore. Having been given a map with very clear guidelines as to where the roads on the island were, off we set in our little motor boat. We had figured 3 hours would be enough time to see everything, with most of that being in the museum! Imagine how we felt then, having got off the boat, climbed the million steps to the ticket office...to be told that the museum had been closed for renovations, since 2010 & they didn't know when it would reopen! As we heard this, the corner of my eye recognized that our boat had well & truly left the jetty & wouldn't be back until 3pm! GREAT! Okay...I admit it...GRUMPY! It was very hot, there was little shade & we covered the most interesting parts of the ruins in the first 10 minutes! To fill time, we made sure that we saw every hieroglyph & relief sculpture & went to every nook & cranny that run down site could offer us!! There were some interesting features & two more Nilometers! But the REALLY interesting part came after we left the ancient temple of Khnum & wanted to go to the village. A man attached himself to us as a guide! Oh boy...we'd heard about this ploy! We tried to tell him we didn't need a guide, we just wanted to go to the Movenpick (Hotel at other end of Island...only option for reprieve from sun & a cool drink), but he insisted he would just show us the way & tell us about the island. We were stranded on this former ivory trading place for a while, so there was no choice but to let him continue with us. We refused to go into potential baksheesh extraction locations, but tried to take an interest in the two villages. In time we became VERY aware that the map we had must have been drawn by someone with a rich imagination, as reality bore no resemblance to the map AT ALL, & without that man, we would have been COMPLETEY lost! There are two Nubian Villages on this small island, separated by a lush & well laid out, fenced garden farming area. This provides them with crops for their own use. I interpreted it to be very much like the allotment sites some people have in the UK. The mud houses, although all small & mostly joined together were made unique by the paint work each family adorned their home with. There were also decorative doors, my favorite having opened out foil biscuit wrapping placed behind the metal grill work! Poverty is the key word here, but alongside it is a very strong dignity & effort to make the best of what they have. The majority of the population work in the tourist industry & return to the island in the evening or weekends. So you can imagine how heavily hit these people are with the drop in tourism. Every person we saw though, greeted us warmly & was engaged in some sort of task, whether tending a flock of goats or sorting through grains of rice. And although they are poor, I still saw satellite dishes on some of the rooves, an electric blender being fixed and smelt the wonderful fresh smell of laundry being washed...in a detergent that smelt very much like the one I use at home!!