The window of the Egyptian Dahabiya consists of three layers (side by side)
which all slide out from flanking pockets. When fully closed, the
layers – respectively of glass, screen, and a blind – meet in the middle. You can lock the window by inserting two brass pins, which are drilled through the layers,
and all of the frames are united as a single firm unit. These windows are but
feet from the green clean flowing water of the Nile, which you could hazard to
touch.
Falcons fly overhead. Fishermen drop their nets in the water and slap the surface to chase Nile perch into them. Along the sides of the river, you can make out old and withered profiles of Nile buffaloes and various types of duck, moving along with their two back flippers as though it was swimming hole. In January, sugar cane burns on the banks, tossing funnels of red flame high into the sky.
It is elegant, smooth, and calm to watch the water idle by. You are on the water, as low to the surface as you would be on a kayak. The water seems unraveling satin as it shines and catches light. It is constant. You’d hardly know this water is as death giving as life giving, each year offering new temperaments and new auguries. The entirety of Egypt – environmental, social, political, religious – is bound in the movement of this water, outside this charming window.
From the Dahabiya, to the boats which are on the walls of the Egypt's temples, is but a short walk. The traditional, two sailed boat which contains the window is one of the oldest boat designs in the world. These boats were able to take a king to the afterlife or a god from place to place during seasonal festivals. At Edfu temple, for instance, there is a hieroglyphic that features the two sails from the time of the Ptolemies.
Falcons fly overhead. Fishermen drop their nets in the water and slap the surface to chase Nile perch into them. Along the sides of the river, you can make out old and withered profiles of Nile buffaloes and various types of duck, moving along with their two back flippers as though it was swimming hole. In January, sugar cane burns on the banks, tossing funnels of red flame high into the sky.
It is elegant, smooth, and calm to watch the water idle by. You are on the water, as low to the surface as you would be on a kayak. The water seems unraveling satin as it shines and catches light. It is constant. You’d hardly know this water is as death giving as life giving, each year offering new temperaments and new auguries. The entirety of Egypt – environmental, social, political, religious – is bound in the movement of this water, outside this charming window.
From the Dahabiya, to the boats which are on the walls of the Egypt's temples, is but a short walk. The traditional, two sailed boat which contains the window is one of the oldest boat designs in the world. These boats were able to take a king to the afterlife or a god from place to place during seasonal festivals. At Edfu temple, for instance, there is a hieroglyphic that features the two sails from the time of the Ptolemies.
Until the 1870s, this was how one traveled the Nile. David Roberts, the Scottish painter who perhaps more than anyone directed the European view of Egypt, would have traveled this way in the early part of the 19th century. To choose this way of travel now -- when most ways of travel from location to location are much faster -- is to align to tradition of the picturesque, to taking in the wonders of the world through a lens.
Unfortunately, harsh realities, horrible disparities of wealth, and less beautiful vistas are repressed in favor of the coziness of composition and safe distance. From my bed, in my Dahabiya room, I was very much in this privileged view.
Days before I boarded the Dahabiya, I was on Roda Island in Cairo. My wife and I had chosen to walk from our morning in Old Coptic Cairo to our next destination, and, we shouldn't have been surprised but we found ourselves walking through a world of extreme poverty.
Dogs and children were picking over piles of trash. People stood outside of their pulverized shops, looking out at us, and the smell was overwhelming. Once making our way through this desperate situation, we arrived at one of the most important historic places in all of Egypt: the Nilometer.
These devices are found at spots throughout the path of the Nile. Water would be let into a large tank and depending on where the level of the water finds its equilibrium, the entire culture of Egypt would brace itself for prosperity or famine. Priests could look to the sky to find the falcons of Horace, and from those images, they could make a prophecy. Yet, the real prophet was that line of water, cold science that proved what was coming. It was possible to stare at that line and know what to do.
I am thinking of the Dahabiya window now, two months after getting back from my trip to Egypt. I am sitting in my office at home, working remotely as most people are (if they are lucky). From my roost, I can see orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees. The streets are alive with blooming jasmine, poppies, and wisteria. Like a lunatic, my mind has changed the chorus from Carousel into, "Spring is bustin' out all over."
All is calm, all is quiet, this window, my neighborhood, my own bucolic version of water flowing by. On a walk, I watched bees dancing their ancient waltz of pollination. Early in the morning, as the world heated up, snails inched their way out of damp shadows, now confident to move across the sidewalks. People were setting boxes of free fruit on the curb, and my hands puffed up in allergic reaction to the overwhelming fragrance of rosemary in the air.
Unfortunately, harsh realities, horrible disparities of wealth, and less beautiful vistas are repressed in favor of the coziness of composition and safe distance. From my bed, in my Dahabiya room, I was very much in this privileged view.
Days before I boarded the Dahabiya, I was on Roda Island in Cairo. My wife and I had chosen to walk from our morning in Old Coptic Cairo to our next destination, and, we shouldn't have been surprised but we found ourselves walking through a world of extreme poverty.
Dogs and children were picking over piles of trash. People stood outside of their pulverized shops, looking out at us, and the smell was overwhelming. Once making our way through this desperate situation, we arrived at one of the most important historic places in all of Egypt: the Nilometer.
These devices are found at spots throughout the path of the Nile. Water would be let into a large tank and depending on where the level of the water finds its equilibrium, the entire culture of Egypt would brace itself for prosperity or famine. Priests could look to the sky to find the falcons of Horace, and from those images, they could make a prophecy. Yet, the real prophet was that line of water, cold science that proved what was coming. It was possible to stare at that line and know what to do.
I am thinking of the Dahabiya window now, two months after getting back from my trip to Egypt. I am sitting in my office at home, working remotely as most people are (if they are lucky). From my roost, I can see orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees. The streets are alive with blooming jasmine, poppies, and wisteria. Like a lunatic, my mind has changed the chorus from Carousel into, "Spring is bustin' out all over."
All is calm, all is quiet, this window, my neighborhood, my own bucolic version of water flowing by. On a walk, I watched bees dancing their ancient waltz of pollination. Early in the morning, as the world heated up, snails inched their way out of damp shadows, now confident to move across the sidewalks. People were setting boxes of free fruit on the curb, and my hands puffed up in allergic reaction to the overwhelming fragrance of rosemary in the air.
How diabolical and wonderful that this nature proceeds, that it all goes forward. It is as though the measure of the world and the measure of humans are separate and impossible to reconcile. What do the bees care for our virus maps, our shortages, our death counts, our charts, all of the massive mechanisms and global levers that are currently in action, all silent, mysterious, and currently unknown?
I can see none of these things from my window. From my window, you would think that nothing was happening at all, other than what should and always has been happening. My window is like the Dahabiya window. On one hand, a ribbon of water, seldom moved by storms and rain, never angry with waves. On the other hand, a slow moving inevitability, a slow rise and fall, easy and deadly and waving from the distance.