Author, linguist, hotelier and village restorer Sevan Nişanyan traveled through all of Egypt recently. In a blog series called 'Notes on Egypt', he shared some insights on culture, religion and empires. This is a translation of his latest post. by Sevan Nişanyan The Botanical garden The British had turned one of the islands across Aswan into a botanical garden. From all over their empire, on which the sun never set, they brought and planted exotic tropical trees and thereby created a park worthy of the legendary abundance of the country on the Nile. It is obvious that it once was a magnificent place. Now it's just deplorable. The trees haven’t been pruned for decades; half of them have died off, and it hasn’t occurred to anybody to root them out. Its alleys are littered with garbage. A fallah who looks weary of his life, pretends to be sweeping in slow motion with a palm leaf in his hand and slowly but surely pushes it to the wayside. At the same time, he’s peerin...
Spielwiese und Kulturblog
