من الممكن معرفة الحقيقة ولكن الأفضل التحدث عن النخيل
It is good to know the truth, but it is better to speak of palm trees. I once read this quote on the internet, and even though no explanation is provided anywhere on the internet, I knew it carried a meaning that I would come to understand at some point. It began to make sense to me when I wandered around the oasis of Fayoum. We left Cairo in the morning with a group of about twenty people who mostly did not know each other but were bound together by Abdelhay. After passing through a moonscape where nothing grows, we suddenly found gardens and fields full of greenery and palms on our left and a fresh blue lake on our right. After having driven for hours through the desert, the lake of Fayoum appears to be nothing short of a miracle.
From a dry hollow to a lake
During the late Miocene Messinian salinity crisis, millions and millions of years ago, the Mediterranean Sea was a closed basin and evaporated to the point of being almost completely empty. Fayoum was a dry hollow. The Nile cut its course down to the new base level until it was several hundred meters below world ocean level. A long and deep canyon was created. After the crisis, the Mediterranean reflooded, and the Nile Canyon became an arm of the sea reaching inland. In time, the sea arm gradually filled with sediments and silt and became the Nile valley. Eventually, the Nile bed was high enough to let the Nile periodically overflow into Fayoum Hollow and turn it into a lake. The first record of this lake dates from 3000 BC. In 2300 BC, the waterway from the Nile to the lake of Fayoum deepened and widened and became a canal that fed into the lake.
There is evidence of ancient Egyptian pharaohs using the lake as a reservoir to store surpluses of water for use during dry periods. Due to the immense waterworks undertaken by the pharaohs to transform it into a grand water reservoir, geographers and travelers took the lake for an artificial excavation. But Fayoum is the work of nature.
Gazelle
After entering Fayoum, it takes a while before arriving in Tunis village. Our first stop was located just before entering the center of Tunis village: a beautiful mosque-like house with a big courtyard where a lunch of Egyptian Feteer with honey and cheese, coffee, and tea was waiting for us. Palm trees were gently waving their hands around us.
After eating, drinking, and taking the necessary photos and selfies, we continued our way into the village. Tunis village is a peaceful village where children and dogs play on the street, and people have used their creative impulses to decorate the sand-colored houses with all kinds of drawings. In the 1980s, a Swiss woman named Evelyne Porret settled here to open a pottery studio with her husband. It quickly became a pottery school where local children learned to make pottery to sustain their families. Until this day, the children of Tunis village go to the school and make sure the craft is handed down from generation to generation.
The main street of the village is filled with pottery workshops, and one of them was our destination for today: al Ghazal, named after its owner, who in turn is named after the kind of antelope that lives in all of Africa. Ghazal is a limby man who makes the most elegant artwork. If gazelles would be interested in art, they would have the same style. We first entered the showroom to see the creations made by Ghazal and his two young sons, who help him in the business. There are cups, plates, tiles, and vases decorated with palm trees, flowers, Isla patterns, and whatever else you can imagine. Behind the showroom is the workshop, where we were put to work ourselves.
Mella Fuchs is a writer and journalist interested in the middle east, and was volunteering with Eco Shine One on providing perspective and knowledge to our team.
Until we meet again, may the spirit of Fayoum guide you on your path, encouraging you to explore, create, and cherish the beauty that surrounds us. Shine on, fellow explorers, and let the palm trees whisper their secrets as you embark on your own unique journey through life.
