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Jan. 19, 2007
Seeking shelter in a rustic setting
Despite dwindling tourist numbers, Sinai site maintains core group
of loyal followers.
GIL ZOHAR
Notwithstanding the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' never-ending
warnings about terrorist plots in Sinai, my wife and I are back
in Egypt for the fourth time this year.
We're staying at Camping Ras ash-Shatein, a seaside oasis of "one-star"
luxury 45 kilometres south of the Eilat-Taba border crossing on
the Gulf of Aqaba. The Arabic name, misunderstood by some as the
Devil's Head, means "Promontory between Two Beaches."
The campground sprawls around a rocky outcrop that divides two crescent-shaped
bays protected by a coral reef. Israelis who visited here under
the Israel Defence Forces occupation from 1967 to 1982 may still
call the place Magama Tzafonit.
Ras ash-Shatein deliberately has no sign on the highway, nor are
the rooms numbered. Our lodgings are a straw dwelling with a few
mattresses piled on a surprisingly comfortable adobe platform. Candles
placed in plastic water bottles partially filled with sand provide
romantic lighting without obscuring the incomparable view of the
Milky Way and equally remote Saudi Arabia just across the bay. The
marble and tile shower block has both Turkish and European-style
toilets and cold water showers.
Equipped with a generator and grill, Mubarak – the campground's
genial Sudanese general manager – and his staff of a dozen
or so Bedouin conjure up delicious feasts. Typically, we enjoy an
Egyptian breakfast of staples like fowl madamas, falafel and salad.
Dinner is fresh fish or chicken, followed by sahlab, eaten around
a fire pit sheltered by a sukkah of carpets and thatch.
The cost? About $20 per day, depending on how many cups of coffee
and Sudanese tea I consume.
Every night, musicians from Israel and Egypt and occasionally Sudan,
Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world, strike up an impromptu
orchestra of oud, guitar and darbuka drum - sometimes accompanied
by qanun and rabob. The campground recently built an acoustic room
– to call it a recording studio would be too grandiose –
and the première CD will be released later in 2007.
Local Bedouin and guests from Cairo, Tel-Aviv and Europe mix in
an easy camaraderie which flows between Arabic, Hebrew and English,
with German, French and Danish sometimes being heard. Everyone is
on a first-name basis.
Owner Ayyash Abu Suleiman, together with his Israeli wife, doesn't
so much operate a campground as serve as pater familias of
an extended family. Many of the guests here return frequently, leaving
whenever their visa expires and returning shortly thereafter.
Mizoo, from the Francophone part of Switzerland, has been living
more or less continuously at the beloved Ras for 12 years; Calvin
from Britain has been here for more than half a decade, while Stephanie
from Germany and her six-year-old daughter, Nora, are newcomers
who arrived eight months ago. Israelis, like Yaron, the orchestra
conductor, come and go more frequently because they can only get
15-day visas.
"When I come here for a week, I feel recharged for a month,"
said Ali, a Cairo-born lawyer who just completed a corporate-commercial
law program at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
At Camping Ras ash-Shatein, as in the desert, life has its own rhythm
of yom assal, yom bassal (one day honey, one day onions).
Planning too specifically would be futile.
Recently, Mesalim Selim Eid, a cousin of Abu Suleiman, hosted a
wedding for another Bedouin tribesman, at which he boasted that
he slaughtered 80 sheep. While the correct number was more likely
eight, what struck me was the presence of guests from Saudi Arabia
and Israel – yet another example of Sinai's magic.
Mesalim and his Swiss-born wife, Jessica, are proudly building themselves
a villa perched on a hill with a breathtaking view of the mountains
and sea. I asked him why none of the rooms are built at 90-degree
angles. When the views are so spectacular, he answered, shouldn't
the walls open expansively to maximize the exposure?
Mesalim has built a foundation of granite boulders that he gathered
in the wadis in the peninsula's interior. The walls are made from
mud bricks mixed with straw, using a technology unchanged from when
the Children of Israel were enslaved to build the pharaonic cities
of Ramses and Pithom.
Not everyone shares my historical perspective.
"What's wrong with Canada?" asked Matti, one of a group
of recently demobilized IDF soldiers, who was stunned by my decision
to immigrate to Israel. In a wide-ranging conversation, the army
buddies discussed the relative merits of the locally grown marijuana
called bango, Canada's "B.C. Bud" and India's jarish –
but never foreign words like aliyah, Zionism or peace.
Alas, the spectre of terrorism has killed tourism in Sinai. Camping
Ras ash-Shatein is treading water, unable to cover its costs. All
the neighboring campgrounds – including some upscale venues
with electricity, hot water and beds with sheets – are empty
or even abandoned. Hunger is stalking Nuweiba, the nearest town.
Dr. Shish Kabob, the restaurateur of the empty premises by the Internet
café, gave me a hug and kiss out of sheer joy to see an old
customer return.
At the five-star Nuweiba Village, the lights are turned to a minimum
to save costs. The bulletin board is bereft of notices from the
Finnish and Swedish tour operators whose guests were once the bread
and butter of the local economy.
The newly established army roadblocks along the highway have been
set up in a case of locking the barn doors after the horses have
bolted.
Why come here in the face of terrorism? I've been asked the same
question about moving to Jerusalem. In part, it's fatalism. Life
is full of risks; to heed them all, I would have to hide under the
bed of my bomb-shelter and never emerge. In part, the answer is
akin to why people in Japan savor Fuji fish with its deadly poison
sacs not entirely removed – to eat it is to taste life and
death.
But the real reason I keep returning to Sinai and to Ras ash-Shatein
is that here I viscerally feel that Abraham's children Isaac and
Ishmael are a'ila, mispachah: family.
Gil Zohar is a freelance writer originally from Toronto
who now lives in Jerusalem.
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