Egypt Day 2

posted: Wednesday, 21 March 2012

Once again a sunny day (I suppose that’s taken for granted in Egypt) a fabulous fresh breakfast and a boat ride on the Nile to class.

We have an hour in the classroom, just enough time to recap peyote stitch and Cellini spiral, before a short walk to a small park where some local women sell handmade items.

It was quite shocking to me to see what was for sale. As a country with such a beading, jewellery and handicrafts heritage, I hoped to see some examples of wonderful work. Instead what was being made, and sold, used very garish and cheap beads and every piece was either loomwork, with very basic motifs, a crochet rope, strung seed beads or daisy chain.

It was hard, partly through the language barrier, over the week to ascertain whether this work is only produced to sell to tourists, or if the women would make the same thing just for themselves. But then again I‘m sure if you asked the average man, or woman, in the street in the UK if people did beadwork you might be told that no such thing exists. I also wasn’t sure how much of the colour used (I am not anti-colour but the colours being used very a very basic palette of bright primary and secondary hues) was due to choice, or what was available. I wasn’t able to ever visit anyone selling beads but was told that what I saw was what would be available. Again whether that is driven by market demand or outside influences I wasn’t able to find out. Are these beads for sale as that's what the customers want to use? What the tourists want to buy? Or what the seller makes available?

While we were there we got to see a woman using a loom who demonstrated to us how she worked and I was told that the work I could see used all the knowledge that was available. Apparently the women taught each other and the same designs were used again and again. I was told there was no innovation or new work being produced. Again I don’t know how true this is, or whether this is as the beadwork is only made to be sold and this is what sells, but all the evidence I saw over the week backed this up. I did see one style of netted necklace being sold, but then whenever I saw any beadwork being sold exactly the same necklace, even down to the size, was available- there was zero variation apart from colour- which was still in the same palette as everything else.

It was after these conversations that a very strange and scary prospect was introduced to me.

When I originally knew I was coming I understood I would be teaching beaders with lots of knowledge, but that maybe my style of work, and especially geometric work, would be new to them. I wondered how they would incorporate this into their work, using the materials available to them and thought it was would be interesting experience to share knowledge. Because I assumed that they would be already making their own designs, I thought that what they produced would be combine with their existing knowledge and work. It never occurred to me that perhaps being over here and teaching may have more of an impact than that. I was informed this afternoon, by some other students and oragnsisers of the workshop, that it was now assumed that actually my teaching two Nubian women new stitches and ideas would mean that these would be passed onto the beading community in Egypt person by person and that it would have a huge influence on what work would be produced in the future. It may seem a subtle distinction but once it was put to me it now seems a bewildering and somewhat frightening prospect.

Usually when I teach my geometric work I am showing it to beaders who already have beading knowledge and this is just something new to add to their repertoire and that they will incorporate into their work in their own way. Here these women potentially have no access to further instruction or advancing of these ideas, so whatever I teach them will be what they know. It’s a strange thought that if I ever visit Aswan, or anywhere in Egypt again, the beadwork being sold to tourists may be all peyote stitch, Cellini spiral and triangles. If you ever see any of this for sale you must let me know- I would love to see it!

Soon it was time for lunch and time for another boat trip. Today our lunch was eaten on the boat and included the added bonus of Feteer Meshaltet and black honey. Feteer Meshaltet is a type of flaky, puffy pastry - dense and full of fat- you can get a recipe here. Black honey also isn't honey, it's molasses. The best way to describe the combnation is the tastiest lard dipped into liquid sugar. Crazy, but very addictive. Add strong black coffee into the mix and we were all hooked.

After lunch we sailed to a ‘coffee shop’ where we sat on cushions, drank strong coffee, admired the colours all around us, danced and held a small crocodile before we had to be dragged away and back to class for more beading and me teaching everyone square stitch.

The Nubian women are used to doing loomwork so I thought being able to do this stitch would complement that and also mean they could do the same designs but without the big looms they use. I also showed them how to colour in and design a pattern on a square stitch graph and then how to follow it. It never ceases to be a source of amazement to me what things different people find easy or difficult. Following a chart, drawn very large and using only 2 colours for a basic motif, seemed to be very hard to learn, obviously the language barrier played a part despite the excellent translation, and I wonder if it was just a case of the ladies being less used to using written/ drawn communication? I never did find out (can you sense that this trip raised far more questions for me than it answered- in a - good way and I hope to return and begin to answer all of them) but by Friday both women were working on their pieces with no help from me at all.