Category Muslim life
Abdullah’s miracle
8 October 2019, Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt. I was meandering my way down a dusty, nameless Dahab street on a sunny desert day, on my way to visit a toothless, old Bedouin lady. She speaks to me in an old dialect through her scarf and I barely understand a word, but I am intrigued by […]
Bedouin women making history
Um Yasser, a middle-aged Bedouin woman of the Hamada tribe in South Sinai, was born in a rock house, but spent much of her childhood living in a cave dwelling in the desert, where she and her mother tended their herd of goats. The Bedouins are an old, conservative ethnic group, with laws that govern […]
Ramadan in the Sinai
I have just spent my first full month of Ramadan in the Sinai, Egypt. In the past I had experienced snippets of Ramadan before in other Arab countries, but never been here for the full length, so was kind of excited to see how things progress. Here is a little bit of background and a […]
Getting married the BEDOUIN way – the women’s party
I walked carefully in the dark between the houses, through rough alleyways on stony ground, the sound of the Egyptian pop music getting louder. Finally I saw the tent walls and the hanging lights. Little boys hung around outside, as they always do, eager to get a glimpse of the girls as they anonymously entered […]
Valuable lessons about giving charity
Recently I posted a picture on Facebook of an old Egyptian man sitting in his chair on a chilly winters day outside a pharmacy in the little Red Sea town of Dahab. Spread in front of him was a blanket, where he was trying to sell odd things – shoes, some clothes – to eke […]
A fascination for the Sahara
Sahara is the Arabic word for desert. Visit a desert or two, and you will find out that the desert is a magical, ever-changing landscape and not just a huge pile of sand: huge golden dunes, flat packed desert, a moonscape scattered with strange rock formations or craggy and colourful mountains. If you care to spend a few days […]
It’s Christmas: still no room at the inn
It’s quite hard, I find, to enjoy a cup of tea at someone’s house when you can hear gunshots being fired outside. It was late in the afternoon, and I was at Hashem el-Azzeh’s house in Hebron, Palestine. My friend, Sophie, and I had just spent an interesting and moving day walking around the settler-occupied neighbourhood […]
What ever happens to the bracelet girls?
“Fatima, when are you getting married?” I asked 14 year old Fatima. Fatima is one of the bracelet girls who plies her colourful wares to tourists laying stretched out on sunbeds, baking themselves red-raw under the hot Egyptian sun along the beachside promenade of Dahab. Not that I expected her to get married any time soon, it’s just […]
9 different reasons why I love to visit Muslim / Arab countries
In these days of rampant Islamophobia, a trip to an Arab country could do everyone a bit of good. Being amongst Muslims has certainly changed me, and understanding other cultures, not judging them, is key, I believe, to peace. Travelling either as a lone female or with a group of women in the Muslim world, […]
Adventures of Venus 