Living in the Oasis

Accommodations here are different than any of us has experienced in the past. Mudbrick architecture makes a lot of sense out here, but it has its ups and downs. Essentially it is built by making bricks out of mud and straw, letting them dry, and then stacking them by the thousands. The walls are nice and thick, which both insulates and gives a lot of privacy to the rooms. The ceilings are supported by rough-hewn beams (I believe of palm in most places) with a layer of thin palm strips bundled together to form a platform over them. This is then covered with more mud to make a solid roof, and coated with a more sandy med plaster for appearance. Not all of the rooms have hard floors, though most of the dirt floors are covered by reed mats or camel-hair rugs. The dirt floors led to some adjustment, especially for the one room that lacked carpeting (the showers and bathrooms stalls are all tiled to prevent us inhabitants from destroying the house when we bathe). This is all a fairly easy adjustment , though learning to take 3 minute showers every day is a bit rough (water is scarce in the Oasis, and wells are being driven deeper and deeper to tap water sources that once sprang out on the surface) especially when you’re covered in dirt from a sandstorm. One has to be careful with the mudbrick benches built into the building, as we learned after breaking off chunks of them. The secret is to cover it with a rug before sitting, or keep your weight well away from the edge. Fortunately, repairing the house is simple-slop more mud on it and let it dry. I was leery about setting up my dart board in the common room, but I was assured that the craters left by missed darts (and I do mean craters, the wall is now a moonscape) will simply be covered over once we all leave.

This all works great, keeping the house cool during the day, warm at night, and making a startlingly quiet and comfortable home. Unless it rains. (more on that later)

The nearest town is Mut, the somewhat capital of the Oasis. It’s about a 20 minute bike ride to get to the main drag, but the bikes they bought for the program started falling apart on our first trip. This was our first experience with Egyptian quality-assurance, which is noticeable by its absence. By the end of our first 2-hour visit our 3 bikes had:

1 loose handlebar (my bad)

3 broken pedals (1 by me)

3 broken seats

1 broken handlebar (which the staff tried to tie together with string

Mut is quite a town, more on it soon.