Pearl of the Desert

My parents announced that we were all going on a picnic at someone’s farm. I thought about the mud huts along the Nile or even the more modern rough brick huts and wondered who we were going to see.


Are we going to stay at a mud hut with a gamoosa (water buffalo) and a ‘saqqiya’ (water wheel)? I asked.  That might be exciting but very uncomfortable.

“No we are going to one of Saneya’s friend’s farm.  Its called the Pearl” mom replied, and then added “Hala will be there.”  I was very excited at the prospect of seeing Hala again!  Then I started to think and I became
confused for a moment and so I said, “I know that there is NO farm in Egypt called ‘the pearl’. Mom smiled at me.
“Well it’s actually called “al Luqluq” which means the pearl.” she replied.

OOOOOOOOHHHHH so that’s it I thought.

We all got into the fiat. Dad was driving as usual like a mad demon, dodging the donkey carts and pedestrians along the way. We drove into the Giza area of Cairo and along the ‘strip’ where all the night clubs were just before you get to the pyramids….and we parked in one.

Hala’s father pulled alongside our car. My father got out and so did Mohammad (Hala’s father). As they spoke, I was granted permission to ride with Hala and I quickly skipped all the way to her car! While her brother Tarek (not to be confused with Tareq who lived accross from us on road 12) got into our car to keep my brother company.

When we started driving again, we drove along side a canal. It was not a main road at all and it seemed to pass thru very rural farm villages. All along the canal interesting things seemed to be happening. Boys were jumping off bridges into the water below for a swim, while girls herded their goats along the road. One girl walked beside her gamoosa. Hala and I stared out of the window watching the scenery go by while eating molasses sticks. The sticks are hard at first, but got softer as they got warm in our hands. When we bit off a bit it became real chewy and it got stuck in our teeth. They tasted a bit like the American “Mary Jane” candies, only they were really long. Saneya seemed to have brought tons of the candy and she did not object to us eating it …so we ate them all.

After a while the road appeared smaller, like it was going between fields. The fields were under irrigation so the rows of green alternated with rows of glinting blue as it reflected the sky. You could tell one man’s field from another because of the alternating field patterns. One fields rows were horizontal, the next vertical; each one separated by a wider channel that the water flowed through. Some fields had an abundance of date palms, others did not, yet the whole area had a “green” feel unlike the rest of Egypt which had a “Khaki” feel. Ahead of us on the right was a large stand of date trees with huge red fruit almost ready for picking and rising up behind them were huge mud brick dove (in this case pigeons) cotes. They were like 3 tall spires in tannish gold that were perforated by many holes and sticks.

“Why do people build such huge mud building for birds” I asked?

“Because they eat them”, Hala replied then continued “Hammam Mashwiy is considered a delicacy.”

“Grilled pigeon! People eat birds!” I exclaimed. Saneya laughed, “Well Erin, a chicken is a bird no?” I knew when to shut up…they were still laughing. Hala’s father became very serious (as he always was) and went into a lecture on the economics of village life and how they depend on such things as pigeon. As he spoke my mind wandered. It was such a lovely place. I wish I had a camera for every image that I saw.

W finally got to the farm house. It resembled the villas like they had all around Maadi where I lived…..not very farmish to me. It even had marble mastabas along the front steps.

Hala and I waited until all the adults had finished with their introductions. This seemed to take an eternity and so we made our escape into the house. Hala and I wandered from room to room, hunting for hidden treasure. It was a disappointing hunt. The only thing we seemed to find was some very old coats and Зabaya’s. When Hala and I searched the pockets we found a bunch of papers carefully folded in one of them. We were unhappy that it did not turn out to be an old treasure map.

“These look important” Hala said, “we must take them to the adults.”

How do you know?

They have a stamp…see. she pointed at what looked like a postage stamp. I even said so.

Hala looked at the papers. “ I am having a hard time reading the handwriting she said but these are not postage stamps…its what we use to make something official.

I sighed. she was going to make having an adventure very difficult. I followed her back to the Salon where they were all sitting, drinking lemonade and chatting. We showed the paper to Mohammad and asked what it was from. It was a work agreement of some sort. A girl had been hired to be a maid in the house for 13 piasters a month (13 cents. It was a stupid piece of paper but the adults seemed to be very amazed at it and began a lengthy discussion on how things used to be and how things had changed.

Our Hostess asked us what we would like to do and always I asked if I could ride a horse. She said no,,,but she could arrange a donkey ride for us around the farm.

Hala and I rode back to the mud towers that housed the pigeons. The whole area around there was so calm and green. The shaded area under the trees was even cool. Every where there were people working and preparing the harvest of something, some unknown greens. Huge heaps of these greens were being piled so high that you could not see the donkey underneath. This gave the impression of a huge shrubbery walking on 4 legs.

As we rode a long the road we met a man who had a wagon load of sugar cane. the wagon was piled high and the grassy ends hung off the back of the wagon and trailed along the ground. Hala pulled up her donkey and spoke to the man. He stoped the wagon and carefully cut off 2 segments off for us. While she negotiated the price of the sugarcane, I rode off thru the trees and dismounted. Riding the bare back of a donkey was a lot different than riding a horse….it was not very pleasant. I stretched and touched my toes. The donkey could not resist the target of my rear end and so head butted me. I fell down. I got up and reached for the halter of the donkey...but he jerked his head and ran off a ways and stopped. I walked toward him slowly. He trotted off a bit more keeping distance away from me until finally he just ran off altogether. Now I was in a pickle.

Hala came up behind me with the sugarcane sections. She looked as the donkey took off down the road. I wondered what I was going to tell her. I was not about to tell her the truth; that was too embarrassing! So my plan was to get sympathy instead.

What happened to your donkey?

It got spooked by something in the trees. I do not know what it was but it frightened the donkey and I was kicked off. It ran down the road. I said as I pointed.

Too bad she said. “you will have to walk back to the house” and she handed me a section of sugar cane.

I looked at it and said “how do you eat this..it looks like bamboo?”

Hala demonstrated from the back of her donkey,” You hold onto the hard part like this and use your teeth to crack the end. then you grab the cracked outer part with your teeth and pull it up and back …like this” she cracked her cane. I tried and found that it was fairly easy to do. Once we had all the hard stuff off she continued “you bite a section off, chew it and suck the juices. do not swallow…when all the juice is gone you spit it out”

Ok I said as I bit off a piece.

I chewed. It was a bit hard on your teeth but the sugar came juice was worth it.