Nubian Village in Aswan

In front of the school

Views from the village.

Lovely paintings on a building

We visited a Nubian village on another island near our hotel in Aswan. Nubians are a tribal group similar to the Berbers in Morocco. We had the impression that we would see a makeshift village with some houses, a school and a mosque similar to the berber village we saw in Morocco. We walked 20-30 minutes through the villages, got lost, asked for directions multiple times and finally reached our destination. It was a quiet, serene island with narrow roads, and none of the hustle and bustle of the Egypt we saw thus far. For the first time, we only saw a handful of tourists. Women were sitting with their children on their front porches, elderly men were sitting and chatting, we saw a few women carrying water in a bucket on their heads and we also met an elderly female sheep herder. The village reminded us of India, garbage on the side of the roads, and open water drains along the streets of the village, it was still neater than most of the Indian towns. Egypt in general was clean, something that Sindhu commented on when we first arrived. Very few spoke English on the island. The mosque was simple and nothing to write home about.

We arrived at the school , we were fortunate that even though it was Sunday (Fridays are off) , school was in session and it was recess time so the teachers allowed us in. They had pretty decent security, you couldn't just enter the school unnoticed. It was a middle school so most of the children were between the ages of 11-14. A few girls crowded around us and started speaking in English, one particular girl was a little bolder and was very interested in speaking to us. She gave us some basic information about the school, the subjects they learned (Math, English, Arabic, Science, Geography, etc..) and she also asked us a few questions. The school was very neat and clean, it was far more impressive than the government school we visited in Bangalore. She asked us if we were Indian and then rattled off a list of her favourite Indian actors and actresses, (Big B, Abhishek Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Amir Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor) . They asked me the meaning of our names and when I told them the meaning of Sindhura's name, they asked me why I didn't wear a bottu (bindi). The girls sat on one side of the classroom and the boys on the other side but there was plenty of camaraderie between them. United Way provided them a snack or lunch and it was served during their recess period. Most of the teachers were male I believe. They had some computers and one of the teachers asked Prasad if he could fix his computer. Unfortunately they had loaded a set of pirated software and some of the software had expired. Meeting the children was one of the highlights of the trip.