Nomads of the Egyptian Eastern Desert

Business Today (Cache Seel)

My first trip to the Eastern Desert was to visit a gold mine. I wasn’t the only visitor there — a group of geologists, miners and industry experts were inspecting the site as well. During our time together, I learned that these men had spent most of their lives in Egypt’s furthest corners. The average age of the group was well over 60, and there were literally hundreds of years of experience assembled in the desert. Naturally, the conversation centered on the uniqueness of —and the oddities in — Egypt’s hinterlands.

“Have you ever seen the Fuzzy-wuzzies?” one of them asked.

People don’t really say things like that anymore, do they?

I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because the man started laughing. “No, no, that’s what they’re called.” Then he described the tribesmen of the Eastern Desert: the hairstyle which earned them their nickname, their unique language and the amalgam of religious beliefs they had accumulated over time.

“But it’s very hard to get down to see them now,” he warned.

He was right, particularly when you consider the area he was describing includes the disputed border with Sudan. Besides being as far from Cairo as you can get and still be in Egypt, government permits are required for travel.

Shortly after, while working on a different story about the Bedouin of the Sinai, a project director for the World Food Program (WFP) mentioned that he had recently been working with nomads in the Eastern Desert.

“Have you ever heard of the Besharin, I think they’re called?” I asked, paused for a second then added. “The Fuzzy-wuzzies?”

He had: In fact, it was the tribe he was working with. He was also more than happy to help arrange a trip. Nearly a year and a half of red tape and scheduling problems later, I finally began my journey to find the group of nomads Egypt seems to have forgotten all about.

See the above page for the full story.

There are a couple of very good books, and many more academic papers about the nomads of the Eastern Desert, both present and past. Two of the books well worth considering if you are interested in this subject are:

• Joseph J. Hobbs, Bedouin Life in the Egyptian Wilderness (1989, AUC)
• Leif Manger (ed), Surviaval on meagre resources: Hadendowa pastoralismin the Red Sea Hills (1996, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet)

I've also added some fairly random bits and pieces about the Eastern Desert nomads on a web page at the following address:
http://www.wadi.cd2.com/html/appendix_h.html