Hapax Magazine
“We are soul mates,” he told me behind a baseball cap sheltering his brown eyes from mine.
Along this lover’s lane, many spirits come seeking seclusion in a city whose resolute heart never stops pounding. They look out over Cairo’s brimming cityscape and dream, yearn … love.
The River Nile is the artery feeding life across 11 countries in Africa. It’s the longest river in the world. It decorates Cairo with elegance and charm and nourishes this country of more than 100 million people spiritually and physically.
Over the past decade, and specifically since 2011, access to this gift from nature has become a sore point of contention between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD, is a multibillion dollar project initiated by Ethiopia in an initiative it says will provide power for its citizens and lift millions out of poverty.
The dam sits on the Blue Nile — waters coming from Ethiopia’s highlands that cross into Sudan where they merge with the White Nile, journeying northwards to Egypt. Once complete, GERD will be Africa’s biggest hydropower project.
Egypt and Sudan are worried GERD will cut their share of water short, especially during the hot summer months. Egypt relies exclusively on the Nile for its agriculture. Talks between the three countries have reached a stalemate, with Ethiopia insisting to go ahead with filling the dam’s reservoir without giving Egypt or Sudan concrete assurances their water supplies would not be affected.
Ripples have rattled the Nile’s waters. These historic waters that witnessed our ancestors build civilisations — a destination for dreamers, weepers, thinkers, talkers and lovers, has been murked by political vitriol and fervent patriotism.
“I wish I were a wave, so I tell you what I was crying out for,” wrote Egyptian poet Mahmoud Hasan Ismail in his 1954 lullaby “An Immortal River” — from which this series borrows its title. “Oh for your great secret and you’re mysterious wandering waves.”
What story do these waters tell if only we could hear?
“Two souls attached as one” — a home, an identity, a history. In this series I attempt to give the River Nile a voice. Through conversations with Egyptians I encountered along the Nile in Cairo, I show what the river means to Egyptians on a personal and spiritual level, a complement to the heavily politicised narrative encountered across news on TV, radio and in print.
Words & Photographs by Laura El-Tantawy 2021.
Egyptian people are spiritually connected to the Nile.
It’s like medicine from a vile.
Streaming mile upon mile.
A place to throw one’s worries away.
Here, lovers say what they otherwise can’t say.
This is a river of answers, throw at it what questions you may.
Problems get solved here.
Like a baby, when you whisper it’s all going to be Okay.
It’s a fountain of positive energy sure to make you sway.
Hypnotised, your soul will be whisked astray.
Far, high in the sky.
Back here you will evermore return to lay.