CAIRO: Looking at the small boats floating on the Nile, one naturally assumes they are occupied by fishermen. But a closer look reveals a different reality. Complete with gas stoves, radios, TVs, blankets and kitchen utensils, these boats are the mobile habitats of Nile-dwellers who call the sprawling river their home.
Despite the fact that many families lead this aquatic existence, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics said that the number of these water nomads couldn’t be defined due to their volatile presence.
The agency’s public relations department explained that statistics are only carried out on the basis of permanent domiciles and because this category is in continuous motion, they can’t be tracked down.
The same problem faces charity organizations that try to help permanent boat-dwellers. Although they are aware of their hardships, a charity organization contacted by The Daily Star Egypt said they can’t help them because they have no permanent address to refer to.
“You’re from the media? Most welcome, smiled Mohamed Hamad, asking me to join them for a meal of soaked brown beans, fried egg-plant, some watercress and onions.
“This is poor people’s food, said his wife Om Mahmud jokingly. “But if you don’t want to eat, you can have tea. Don’t worry our tea is clean, she continued as she dipped the tea pot into the river and place it on the fire.
Mohamed who managed to prepare his shisha, did the same, for all of them depend on the running Nile water to drink, cook food, bathe and wash clothes and dishes. Their three children were vying to pose for a photo. One of them was Mahmoud, who goes to school in one Menufiya village and comes back to spend summer on the family boat.
“Mahmoud has to live at my father’s place to be able to go to school, his mother explained as Mahmoud and his cousins started diving in the water to cool off from the heat.
In a neighboring boat, Ibrahim, Mohamed’s brother, had just started praying. He spread his rug over the front of his boat and began to pray. As I was trying to understand why they lived on boats while they have relatives on land, we were interrupted by a third boat.
It was their father, Hajj Hamad, an elderly man in his 70s.
“You write for a newspaper? No use, said Hamad’s wife. “You should come from TV so that your help would be of use.
Only then I figured out why I was given a warm welcome by a class of people that is usually wary of the media.
Hajj Hamad who had been living on a boat for the last 40 years was seen by a Saudi businessman in a televised feature on boat dwellers on El Mehwar satellite channel. The rich Saudi, who took pity on Hamad’s destitute conditions, offered him a flat and a generous amount of money.
But Hamad isn’t your average boat dweller; he is a record breaker. According to his son Mohamed, rarely does any boat dweller live to be 50. But Hamad survived, married several times and is the proud father of 25 boys and girls.
A few months ago, he moved to a flat. But he visits his sons Ibrahim and Mohamed on a daily basis, as well as his other children scattered in several boats. His new flat is too small to accommodate anybody other than his latest wife and three children.
“If anything is to be called ‘naksa’ [in reference to the 1967 defeat], living on boats is one, said Hamad.
But their aspiration, according to Ibrahim’s wife, Om Mohamed, is to move away for eternity from these dilapidating boats. “I have sworn not to marry off any of my two daughters to a fisherman or anyone living on a boat, she said.
“My daughter Mayada has just got engaged to a young man who owns a flat, said Om Mohamed. Mayada’s sister Laila added that if she doesn’t meet someone who owns a flat she’d rather stay single.
But tracing back the history of boat dwellers is not an easy task.
“How all these people have come to live in boats can’t be shaped in one single story. Some of their parents were also boat dwellers, being fishermen who earned their living fishing and selling their catch at local fish markets, explained Ibrahim.
“Others are children of villagers who married boat-owners. A group of us had no other option but to leave when the family house became too small to accommodate everyone, he added.
Om Mohamed added, “I used to live on a boat with my father. After he died we sold the boat and my mother set up a vegetable stall in our village and we managed to live in a small house nearby. But eventually I came back to live in that boat after I married Ibrahim.
The idea of selling his boat caused Ibrahim distress. “It won’t generate LE 500. It’s an old one with a second hand motor. We don’t really mind if we register our names at some of the charity organizations, but we need someone to take us by the hand and guide us to their whereabouts. As I told you, the shores are another world for us, stressed Ibrahim.
Although the high real estate prices (no less than LE 30,000 according to Mohamed) is stopping these boat dwellers from fulfilling their dream of moving to land, it isn’t the only obstacle.
“But provided we get [a flat], what shall we do to earn a living? inquired Mohamed.
“We know very little about life on land. Take for example my younger brothers who moved along with my father Hajj Hamad to the new flat. They’ve been staying at home since the move. All the jobs they can do are boat and water related. This is another problem, Mohamed explained.
He added, “To work on a construction site or as a gateman is worthless. How much will they pay us? Suppose they offer me a room along with the job, where would I live if I am sacked the next day?
Ibrahim noted, “We would be better off living here than moving to a place where we don’t have jobs, noted Ibrahim.
Besides fishing and repairing boats, boat dwellers also help provide fishing-enthusiasts with mud-worms. But for the most part, they are discreet when it comes to the source of their income.
Mohamed claimed that the police and river security patrols are tightening the noose around their necks.
“Sometimes we are fined for moving to the shades on the riverside. So we’re forced to stay in the middle of the river in this heat. They might find problems with our official papers. They say it’s illegal to keep the young ones on the boat because they don’t carry a fisherman’s license.
“Look at this fine, I can’t pay it because I haven’t got enough money, Mohamed explained.
The posh houses on the river side along with floating expensive restaurants demand security. Often enough, in any crime or theft in these houses or restaurants, boat dwellers and fishermen are the usual suspects.
Boat dwellers say security guards try to keep as far as possible from such upper-class venues.
The Nile security guards told The Daily Star Egypt that they have to question these people for their own safety. Their boats are old and small, the guards explained, and the river patrol is the department to blame should any accident occur.
According to the Nile maritime laws, only two or three are permitted to be on board of each small boat, said the guards.
Each boat owner carries a renewable taxed boat license. But due to the housing problem, now the owners’ families are using the boats as a permanent shelter.
