Only very slowly do i proceed in this amazing book opening the boxes of Arabic poetry and life in a country divided clair-obscur like the human soul.

While listening to Mozart’s 24th Piano Concerto (so wonderful, tears welling when the piano first starts playing) The music starts here at 0:25:44

Yesterday walking along the shore. Occasionally groups of people sitting, young children playing in the sea. A group of four boys follows me at a certain point. They want to talk their English, i want to walk. Then i am suddenly hit with a big thump from behind between my head and neck. I fall to the beach. It is a big piece of wood, 30 centimeter long, 10 cm thick that one of them has thrown at me with full force. I am lucky it has not hit any bone or made damage. I rise, the boys are admonished by me and by a few fishermen. I shake my head in disbelief.

On the way back the boys want to approach me again. I tell them to beat it. Slight headbanger left.

As the drainage pipes have been laid, a new machine has come to flatten the road again.

The neighborhood is new. Digging for pipelines.

It was probably a luxurious outskirts of Alexandria with villas along the coast. Now it is stuffed with new and mostly still unoccupied apartment buildings.

I am told it was home to ministers and senior journalists, such as the head of the largest press institution in Egypt. They moved 100 km West about 10 years ago.

Very clear explanation of the situation in Sudan: https://www.tvo.org/video/the-crisis-in-sudan-explained

I almost went to Sudan to follow the Nile to Ethiopia. At the beginning of April and again on April 13th. Something kept me back. In Aswan i acquired with black market (banks and money changing stores have no $)- obligatory for payment – 150 dollars a 2 months visum. Theoretically i could still go. I did not have the impulse. Also my Arabic is medium rare.

There appears to be a semblance of a beginning of perhaps a quieting https://unitams.unmissions.org/en/statement-trilateral-mechanism-signing-declaration-commitment-protect-civilians-sudan Update: No https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sudan-crisis-jeddah-agreement-no-ceasefire-more-fighting

There are 45 million people living in Sudan. Perhaps i would have been safe. But it would have been very risky on my bicycle. Uncertain.

And once the fire of firing started, what would quell the fire? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/12/communal-violence-and-civilian-deaths-in-sudan-fuel-fears-of-widening-conflict

I am listening to the waves rolling in 30 kilometers West of Alexandria. Read about the forces behind the fires (see https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/sudan-crisis-hemeti-war-lost-what-if) This is an extensive article with many links to follow. To gold in Dubai, to regional power politics, the bosses of the countries, etc.

It makes me wonder about the next Climate Conference COP28 which will be in Dubai too. So many questions. Oil, money, CO2, melting ice, drought and rain, food and habitat and finding safety.

From Abu Simbel to the Mediterranean Sea (some impressions from last week transiting Egypt from South to North with bicycle in van ..)

Suspicion and exploitation, but also sympathy and support, greet people arriving in southern Egypt after fleeing war

Sudan now

The fall of Khartoum

Extreme difficulty going to Egypt from Sudan

Morning on the White Sea (as the Mediterranean is called in Egypt)