Africa stole my Heart, but Egypt stole my Soul
David arrived, three days late, in Tamanrasset with the promised truck and eighteen passengers. I joined the trip that lasted six months, crossing the Sahara Desert from north to south, visiting Timbuktu, trundling through west and central Africa, and ending in the wild game parks of Tanzania and Kenya on the east coast. I was hooked. When the trip ended, I didn’t want to go home, so when David’s co-driver left, I signed on the dotted line. For four years I drove that truck across Africa and loved every day, even the days I didn’t like. The people, the diversity, the scenery, the food. It never stopped fascinating me. Our fourth year found us flying into Cairo, Egypt to complete a season of trips driving overland from Cairo to Cape Town and back again.
Africa stole my heart, but Egypt stole my soul. Nothing had prepared me for the sheer grandeur of Egypt. On my first day in Luxor, I stood in the Great Hypostyle Hall in the centre of Karnak Temple, surrounded by an edifice of 5,000-year-old stone pillars. Our guide told us to circle one column and to spread our arms wide to touch each other’s hands. It took eight of us to circumnavigate just one of the 134 columns in that one section of the temple. They were so high I had to tip my head back to see the tops. Each engraved in hieroglyphics from top to bottom. 30 different Pharaohs over 2,000 years have added to Karnak Temple. It was beyond anything I could have imagined.
Queen Hatshepsut’s obelisk stretched high into the clear blue sky between the fourth and fifth pylons of the temple. A throng of people shouting behind me interrupted the guide’s description of Egypt’s largest obelisk and first female ruler. I spun around to see a frantic crowd squashed up against the wooden slatted gates between the pylons. The entire crowd, dressed in white, banged wooden cups and plates against the gates to raise attention. At the front of the crowd, a young girl, about twelve years old, fixed her eyes on me. I felt her stare penetrate deep into my bones. She seemed familiar and thrust her arm out, holding up a wooden cup to me. I turned around to ask our guide what the commotion was about. But my group had moved on, the obelisk no longer their focus. I turned back to the gates and not only had the crowd disappeared, but the gates had vanished as well. The two stone pylons, now devoid of a gate, stood tall, impressive, but deserted.
My vision, I knew, was a glimpse into the past. I had seen those people; they were real. I saw them, heard them, felt their distress, and I knew the young girl had seen me. This visceral experience haunted me for years afterwards. I promised myself I would one day return to Egypt to search for the crowd that had appeared, then disappeared at the gates of Karnak Temple.
Five years later, after I had returned to Australia, opened a chain of African Art galleries, and sold them, I moved to Egypt. My business plan of exporting Egyptian handicrafts was to support my passion to study Ancient Egypt. I spent hours and hours in the Cairo Museum, researching the designs created by Ancient Egyptians and how I could incorporate them in my own projects. I also returned to Karnak Temple in Luxor as often as I could. The many tombs of the Valley of Kings keep me engrossed. I loved the perfect symmetry and proportions of their design. Some tombs were unfinished, and I cherished these rare finds; red grid lines snapped onto the wall using string and pigment dust, faint outlines of figures in the same red pigment waiting to be completed. I sensed the artist in the silent outlines.
I got the rare permission to visit Deir el-Madina, a site usually restricted to archaeologists and Egyptologists. Deir el-Madina is the ruins of an Ancient Egyptian workers’ village that housed the artisans and their families while they worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Archaeologists agree the site is invaluable as it illustrates the everyday life of Ancient Egyptians. Meticulous records, etched into stone stelae, record the hours worked, materials used, holidays taken, and provisions issued. They recorded every chisel, axe, and hammer issued as well as food portions, bonuses, and domestic disputes, such as divorces. I had seen these stone steles stacked in rows in the Egyptian Museum.
The village, built on the West bank of the Nile in an inhospitable rocky ridge, is now in ruins. The unbearable heat reflecting off the stony remains burned my face and cooked my feet through my shoes but didn’t deter me. I had waited almost a year to visit this site. Lucky for me, my guide stayed in the car with the air-conditioner, so I had unrestricted access to this normally prohibited treasure.
The sixty houses, built thirty on each side of a central road, were easily recognisable even though the walls had weathered down to shoulder height. I wandered in and out of the houses, identifying kitchens, staircases to roofs that no longer existed, and living rooms where the family would have gathered for an evening meal. As I explored, I felt drawn to a small room at the end of a corridor at the back of the houses. A stone plinth took centre place in the narrow chamber, with the remains of a low wall on either side of the platform. It felt special. I thought the room was for a statue or to store something of value. It seemed very purposeful and held my attention until the abrupt, loud cry of a baby disturbed me. I looked around for the mother and child, concerned they were in need, but found no one. However, I felt my presence was intrusive and didn’t want to disturb them and my head throbbed after several hours in the sun, so I left.
I described the small room to the driver as we drove back to my hotel. Confused for a while, he then let out a long sign and nodded. ‘Birthing Room,’ he says, pleased with himself for deciphering my description. ‘Mother, make baby in room.’ He then seemed embarrassed to speak about women giving birth, so changed the subject back to dinner suggestions. I let it go but promised myself to look it up.
***
That night, I dreamed of a woman giving birth to a baby in the same birthing room I’d discovered earlier that day. I didn’t know what a birthing room looked like, but my imagination did. The woman stood on the raised plinth; her arms resting on the two low walls on either side of her. Another woman stood behind her to support her weight, her arms under the armpits of the mother-to-be. Another woman squatted in front of the mother to help deliver the baby. On the plinth, below the woman’s spread legs, were wads of raw linen. The woman, in the last stages of labour, screamed. Sweat soaked her entire body, her wet hair stuck to her straining face.
The woman’s screaming upsets me, and the blood and mucus running down her legs makes me feel weak and faint. Dark spots of blood drip onto the linen below my mother’s spread legs. With categorical conviction, I realise I am no longer a silent observer, but a young child watching her mother give birth in the birthing room thousands of years ago in Egypt. The scene makes me feel queasy and the ladies attending my mother fear I will faint. Annoyed, they shout at me.
‘Run, Masa. Go tell your father your sister arrives. Run to the Valley of Kings. Go now,’ shouts the lady standing behind my mother. Relieved not to have to stay and watch the birth, I turn around and bolt out of the village. It’s a long way to the Valley of the Kings, where my father works, but I don’t care. My last little sister had died a few days after her birth, so I know this one is very special to us. My small legs run across the desert as the afternoon sun burns into my back and scorches my bald head.
Instead of being pleased to see me, my father is angry with me. I had left the village in such a hurry I forgot to change my indoor cloth sandals, now in shreds. I have also forgotten to bring water with me. My father borrows a pair of leather sandals from another worker. They are too big for me, but I say nothing. He makes me drink a full urn of water before we leave. He then pours some over my sunburned head that’s pounding like a ceremonial drum. We return to the village at a swift but silent pace. I must run to keep up with my father’s long strides, but don’t complain. I have made him angry on this important occasion, so try to disappear into his long shadow cast by the setting sun.
My new sister survives because as I sit on the stool in the family room to have my hair shaved, she is four years old and running around me, squealing, and annoying me. My head is being shaved for tomorrow’s festival; the “Beautiful Feast of the Opet”. That’s when I understand I am a boy, not a girl. Only boys have their head shaven, not girls, but that’s not how I know I am a boy. I know it in my soul, in my voice, in my groin.
To reach the festival, we cross the crop fields, now submerged by the annual Nile River flood. Packed into small reed canoes, we float over the flooded fields to the temple of Karnak. The tiny silver fish in the water delight me as they flicker in the sunlight and look like glittering stars. Squeezed into the crowded boat, I can barely breathe, but nothing can crush my excitement. This is the most important festival of the year and my favourite.
The festival celebrates new beginnings; the rebirth of the land, the annual floods, and the Sun God, Amun-Re. I meet up with my friends from the artisan’s village and a few scribes’ sons from the East bank. Because of our fathers’ status, we are all privileged boys and enjoyed a higher rank than common boys from the households or fields. We shove our way through the crowd and line up along the path to see the magnificent granite statue of Amun-Re being carried on a royal barque to the river. Over twenty priests carry the barque that supports the heavy statue. The statue, when upright, stands taller than a temple. Decorated with heavy gold jewellery, it sparkles in the morning sun. I close my eyes and give thanks to the gods for including me in this ceremony.
Our Pharaoh, to show respect, follows the barque on foot. This is the only time we see him walk and not carried on his golden throne. A gold and blue crown sits on his head and the strings of jewellery woven around his neck looked heavy, but he walks tall and proud. Sweat rolls down his bare back and drips onto the ground. I want to scoop up a handful of sand where his sweat has landed but wouldn’t dare. No-one approaches the Pharaoh and lives. His guards, tall powerful men from Nubia, carry long spears. Their naked black bodies glisten, and their intense, wild eyes command respect.
We keep our eyes downcast as the nobles pass but can’t tear our eyes from the musicians and acrobats, who follow. The oiled dancers, all young women, begin the procession with plugs of perfumed wax woven into their hair. As the sun melts the wax, it oozes down their naked bodies to release a heady perfume of lotus flowers. Their exotic beauty and intoxicating smell hypnotise my friends and me. We dissolve into their loveliness. As they glide past, the dancing girls, naked to their lower bellies, sparkle under the sun. They pluck golden harps and enchant us with their spell.
After the parade, we follow the procession back to Karnak. It has been a long day, and the insects pester my sticky body, but my friends and I sing, laugh, and share jokes. We are happy. We know Amun-Ra will stand by the Nile River once again, and our crops will flourish under his watchful eye. For me, the first day of the ceremony is the most exciting of the eleven-day event because on the first day, the priests allow commoners into Karnak Temple. Otherwise reserved for gods, pharaohs, and priests, the temple is sacred and secret.
My friends and I have bought our cups with us for the banquet. I untie my wooden cup from my waist belt and head to the gates of the temple. Eager to be first in, I shove my way to the front of the crowd. I know I will find my friends later. That’s when I recognise myself, and the scene I witnessed so many years ago on my first trip to Egypt. I was the young girl I had seen banging a cup on the gates of Karnak Temple, except I was a boy, not a girl. Now I realise how different it feels to be a boy. I look at different things, mostly girls, and feel everything in a different part of my body. As a girl, I felt my emotions in my chest. As a boy, I feel similar emotions, but they registered lower in my groin area. It is a heady experience; like gaining admission into a secret society I hadn’t even known existed.
When the enormous gates fling open, we charge our way inside. We devour a banquet of fresh fruit, roasted waterfowl, fresh baked bread, and water blessed by the priests. Then the beer arrives. My friends snatch a clay urn full of beer, and we hurry away to find a secluded corner near the sacred lake to enjoy our spoils. The liquor, sweetened with honey, is frothy and fermented. The yeasty brew smells divine and tastes strong and delicious. It put us all in a good mood. We laugh, joke, and refill our mugs until the urn empties and the sun sets on the other side of the Nile. I know this is the best day of my life.
***
I woke the next morning exhausted from my dream that I knew wasn’t a dream. Too exhausted to unravel the experience, all I could do was lie on the couch and sip hot apple tea to quell my hangover that had somehow travelled with me from the past. Nothing dulled the repulsive pungent taste of yeasty beer that still lingered in my mouth and nose. The offensive smell of the home-made fermented beer threatened to make me throw up all morning.
By early evening, I had recovered enough to recall my dream and sift through the details. The intimate experiences of the birth, the heat, the insects, and the noise convinced me it wasn’t a dream. The details felt personal; I had experienced being a boy. I could remember every detail of the food, the clothes, and I even felt my head being shaved. That’s when I knew my dream had been a past life experience; nothing else made sense. Years had passed, not a single night. My four-year-old sister validated that.
I knew at the time the young child I had seen at the gates of Karnak Temple was familiar, though I hadn’t realised then that he was me. This also helped explain my insatiable need to leave my home, family, and friends, to sell my successful galleries, and to move to a country where I only knew a handful of people. Not once did I ever regret that decision. Egypt still holds my soul in her hands.
Brilliant.
Orch