Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 11 april 2019
In a first, Bedouin women lead tours in Egypt’s Sinai

By NARIMAN EL-MOFTY in Holland. During the two-
Associated Press day tour, the group hiked
ABU ZENIMA, Egypt (AP) — across an endlessly broad
Amid a stunning vista of landscape of mountain
desert mountains, a Bed- peaks and valleys of dry
ouin woman, Umm Yasser, riverbeds. While male Bed-
paused to point out a lo- ouin guides range far from
cal plant, and she began home, the women tend to
to explain how it was used move closer, with an ex-
in medicine to the group ceptionally rich knowledge
of foreign tourists she was of the surrounding moun-
guiding. tains. The guides talked
Umm Yasser is breaking about the local plants and
new ground among the herbs, the history and leg-
deeply conservative Bed- ends of the area and point-
ouin of Egypt’s Sinai Pen- ed out the borders of the
insula. Women among the area’s tribes.
Bedouin almost never work In the evening, the group
outside the home, and returned to the Hamada
even more rarely do they tribe’s village. The women
interact with outsiders. But sat on the floor of Umm Yas-
Umm Yasser is one of four ser’s home and the tourists
women from the communi- asked the guide about life
ty who for the first time are This March 30, 2019 photo, shows the scenery on a trek led by beduin women, near Wadi Sahw, in the village, marriage and
working as tour guides. Abu Zenima, in South Sinai, Egypt. divorce.
“It is against our culture, Associated Press Umm Yasser is skeptical
but women need jobs,” the Until now, all the project’s wearing a full veil over the The violence has stayed far other Bedouin women will
47-year-old Umm Yasser guides were men. Ben face that covers even the from southern Sinai, where join her as a guide or in
said. “People will make fun Hoffler, the British co-found- eyes with mesh. tourist resorts are located working in general any time
of us, but I don’t care. I’m a er of the Sinai Trail, felt it Umm Yasser was the first to — but the industry has had soon. But, she said, “There is
strong woman.” was not enough. “How can join. She said she started to push hard to win tourists no shame in working. This
They are part of Sinai Trail, a we be credible calling this hiking when she was a child back. is what I believe in, and it
unique project in which lo- the ‘Sinai Trail’ if the women and knows the mountains On a recent tour joined by makes me strong.”
cal Bedouin tribes came to- aren’t involved?” and the valley by heart. the Associated Press, 16 fe- Some attitudes are chang-
gether aiming to develop But even after years of try- She convinced the families male tourists — from Korea, ing. Mohammed Salman,
their own tourism. Founded ing by Hoffler, almost all of three other women to al- New Zealand, Europe, Leb- an elderly man from the
in 2015, the project has set the tribes still reject women low them to work as guides. anon and Egypt — were Aligat tribe, said he thought
up a 550-kilometer (330- guides. Only one of the Their tribe is a poor one, liv- led by Umm Yasser and the the guides project was a
mile) trail through the re- smallest, oldest and poor- ing in small concrete hous- other three women guides, great step for women. “If a
mote mountains of the est tribes, the Hamada, ac- es strung along the Wadi Umm Soliman, Aicha, and woman wants to work, she
peninsula, a42-day trek cepted the idea. Sahu. Electricity runs no Selima, through the rugged should be able to have the
through the lands of eight There are some conditions. more than five hours a night landscape in and around right to,” he said. “Many
different tribes, each of The tourists can only be and there is no running wa- Wadi Sahu. men say no, a woman’s
which contributes guides. women, and the tours can’t ter. It is isolated deep in the “I think south Sinai is safe place is at home. But I’m
The project has been suc- go overnight. Each day be- mountains of south Sinai, especially when you are sick of this ideology. She’s a
cessful in bringing some fore the sun sets, the group far from the tourism centers in the care of Bedouins. ... human being.”
income to the tribes, who returns to the Hamada’s in Sinai along the Red Sea This is where I feel at home. “This trip is going down in
often complain of being home village in Wadi Sahu, coast or near the famed Every corner there is scen- history and will be talked
left out of the major tourism a narrow desert valley. The Saint Catherine’s Monas- ery and another beautiful about,” said Julie Pater-
development of the south- organizers also urge the tery. The men often leave view,” said Marion Salwe- son, a facilitator for Sinai
ern Sinai, home to beach tourists to photograph the the village to find work, ei- gter, a 68-year-old Dutch Trail who often works with
resorts and desert safaris. guides only when they are ther at resorts or in mines woman who travels to Bedouin women. “It might
further south. southern Sinai every year also go into Bedouin oral
“We need money to help alone to escape the winters history.”q
support our families for ba-
sic necessities,” Umm Yass-
er said. “We need blankets,
clothes for the children,
washing machines, fridges,
books for school.”
The Sinai Trail came to-
gether in some of the
hardest years for tourism.
It was launched as an Is-
lamic State group-linked
insurgency intensified in
the northern part of Sinai
and a year after a Russian
In this March 30, 2019 photo, Umm Yasser, the first Bedouin passenger plane crashed,
female guide from the Hamada tribe, looks at Umm Soliman
as she plays the flute, near Wadi Sahw, Abu Zenima, in South killing all 224 passengers In this March 29, 2019 photo, tourists trek in the mountains near
Sinai, Egypt. on board in a likely militant Wadi Sahw, Abu Zenima, in South Sinai, Egypt.
Associated Press bombing. Associated Press