This was our destination after leaving St Simeon’s monastery. It took us about 45 minutes to cross some desert sands to get to here. This is a Nubian village. I can’t remember if the name of it was Siou or Koti. Those are two neighboring villages and this is one of them, I just never got straight which one it was.

The Nubians are an ancient people. They lived in the southern Egypt (below Aswan) and the northern Sudan area. Many of the modern day Nubians had to move when the dams were built at Aswan because it flooded their homeland. They lived right on the Nile of course.

We saw many of their villages and they were always easy to identify because of their colorful buildings. The colors in these photos were very typical colors for the Nubian villages. I don’t know why these colors, but I suppose they needed some color to keep their spirits up living in the desert.

We got invited into a couple of homes in this Nubian village. They were also very colorful on the insides as you will see in these pictures.

In the first photo, what I found interesting was that most of the rooms had tile floors (like under the far table). But in the main area of the homes that we were in, they had sand floors. I asked what it was for, but never got a good answer. Maybe it was homage to the desert sands.

They gave us a snack in one of the homes we visited. Our snack was fresh pita bread, falafels, and French fries. It was pretty crowded in the small room with our large group, so it isn’t a great photo, but at least you can see what I’m talking about.

Vicky got a Henna tattoo. Henna is a natural dye that the women use to dye their hair and for temporary tattoos. The practice goes back thousands of years.

I thought about getting a Henna tattoo myself on my shoulder that said “Mom”, but they said it would wear off before I got home to show my mom, so I passed on the idea.