Missing Aswan

I miss Aswan and the Aswanians so much. I miss the Nile at Aswan, so calm and blue, flowing like a true gift to Egypt from God, a source of our livelihood and heritage, and a symbol of our softness, often manifested in our songs, dance and dialects. There is almost no amount of stomping in the dances native to Southern Egypt, where our civilization began more than 7000 years ago. I think it’s because of the serenity of the river that flowed into our land and gave it its mildness. Even when it inundated such land, the Nile was never thought of as a threat to Egyptians, only a gift to be thankful for. So, it’s no wonder that Aswanians and Nubians dance with the gentle grace that they do.

I miss the faces of the proud, happy, and kind Aswanians...people who’d share their food with you when they can’t be certain they’ll have enough for themselves the next day. There is a world of comfort in just being on that kind land of the ancestors, where they thought of Egypt as their life and death, the now and the hereafter. It was sacred for an Egyptian to love their Egypt, to dedicate their life to its continuity, to work in an intricate system of divided labour to achieve a common goal: progress. Oftentimes such progress was measured by the ancients as the amount of surplus grain after a harvest period, other times by the art and science produced, and by the monuments built to commemorate their lives. And to commemorate their love for the homeland, to which, in their afterlife, they once believed they would return.

Egyptians love their Egypt fiercely and ancestrally. Our love for it is in our lifeblood, flowing strong in our veins like the currents of the river that made us who we are. To leave our homeland breaks us mentally and spiritually; the world is sorrowful and depraved no matter how glittery it gets with privileges. We are as tied to the Nile and its banks, to the soil, to the songs and folk dances, to the stories of the ancients, to the love of science and healing, to the architecture and engineering, to the oneness of the Almighty, as a fetus is tied to its mother by an umbilical cord. Masr Heya Ummy, a song that translates to “Egypt is My Mother” is but a small flavour of that Egyptian sentiment.

I miss my Afrocentric roots, I miss the smell of the baladi roses, fol, and yasmeen that grow on the banks of our Nile, and elsewhere where the soil is similar. I miss the food on a tableya where hands join in communal sharing and love. I miss wearing a jalabeya and walking in a pressed earth market, joyfully searching for the best spices. I miss the Nubian drum beats and the fragrant tea they make in the early evening. I miss seeing the evidence of womanly power on Philae’s walls. I miss watching a jumaa prayer on the street. I miss the azan calls from the masjids. I miss the peace. I miss the belongingness. I miss my mother.

#Egypt

#Aswan