I want to introduce you to my new family.
They are a group of Germans and Swiss that have lived here in rural Egypt, driving this remarkable project at the edge of the desert, for many years – some since 1981! They have taken me in as a new member of their small community in January and within a few days I felt like I’d found a new home.
First I fell in love with Yvonne – she’s my mother. Really! One day, about two weeks ago, I wanted to ask her something and intuitively addressed her with “Mama”… I immediately forgot my question and stopped, to realise what had just happened – and without a second thought she said “Yes, my son?” Now she shares her lunch-packed sandwich with me and I buy her bread when I come back to the farm from the office and once in a while a pack of cigarettes. From the first moment that I saw her, I found her strikingly beautiful – a perpetual and motherly beauty.
In SEKEM, she is responsible for a million things – when she suggested to the people making her business card, that they should just leave the place for the position blank, they almost refused – “that’s impossible – you must have a position”. I would say she’s a column, keeping up all that is SEKEM, in every part of this growing organisation – in the companies, the school, the vocational training centre, and now even in the university, where she is currently responsible (NEXT to all her other activities) for the interior design of the buildings.
Yvonne has 4 children and a wonderful husband, none of who mind having a new family member and together with my flatmate Nick we go to breakfast at Yvonne’s house every Thursday. She is sometimes called “Mrs No Problem” and indeed her inexhaustible positivism, strength and life-energy are like nothing I’ve ever seen. Although she is tough and seems to be invulnerable, she radiates a comforting warmth and motherly care combined with that incredibly enthusiastic and encouraging spirit of hers. Her family – the Florides – have risen to such status in my personal family-ranking, that I consider them one of the two most wonderful families I’ve ever come across, in all respects, particularly harmony, mutual respect and freedom. Their house is always open – you can come in ANY time and make yourself a cup of tea, sit down and pick up a magazine or something. And if you come in by chance while they’re eating you’ll be at the table with a plate full of potato gratin in front of you before you know it – as I said: a top family.
Right now Yvonne is sitting in front of me, between Regina and Angela on the back row of Rafik’s white Land Rover, which he is driving. I’m sitting in the boot, just like the family’s baby would do. Rafik is my uncle. But this time: Really, he is! After I arrived, I found out that his mother’s maiden name is the same as my own surname – Ibing – after some interesting research we found the common ancestor -- back in the late 18th century!!! – Johann Friedrich Ibing, born 30th May 1771 and died 2nd May 1839, both in Hattingen, Germany. He was my great great great great grandfather.
Rafik is a very quiet and calm man, although not the kind of calm that Yvonne’s husband Christophe has – that man literally emanates calm and it is soothing just to be around him. Rafik has more of a contemplative kind of calm – he just doesn’t speak much and even when he does, he chooses his words very carefully. I sometimes watch him when he is getting ready to say something. You can see how he is first weighing it up, pros and cons etc. Then, when has thought it through and formulated it in his head, he sits up, moves his upper body slightly forward, slowly takes a deep breath, simultaneously raising his hand – centimetre by centimetre – to accentuate his first point, opens his mouth and carefully shapes his lips to articulate the first word – all that with incredible patience and calm – and finally, when he is about to utter the first sound, to share in the conversation, it sometimes happens, that someone else will speak before him and maybe say what he wanted to say… and his mouth slowly closes, his hand drops – centimetre by centimetre – and he sits back in his chair. In that sense, I find him amusing, cute almost. I think he finds me amusing, too, in a different way – he finds me a little impossible sometimes, like when I forget to bring my music to a choir rehearsal or when I welcome guests barefooted. I like the way he looks in such a situation, shaking his head at me like a teacher, but with an amicable smile on his face. He is a teacher in the school and runs the school’s finances and administration.
In a few days, I’m going to go the desert with him and two others in his Land Rover. I’m looking forward to that.
Regina and Angela could sort of be my aunts. Angela maybe more of an older sister, although she’s more than twice my age. She was the first European who came to SEKEM in order to stay – in 1981, with 40 Bavarian cows. She established and still manages the agricultural part of SEKEM, which is all bio-dynamic, meaning a little more than just organic – bio-dynamic (also known as ‘Demeter’) agriculture doesn’t only NOT use herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertiliser, but also takes into consideration cosmic cycles (like that of the moon), when sowing, pruning or harvesting and it recycles all biological waste to a special kind of very rich and smelly compost that provides wonderful nutrients and energy to the growing plants.
So she’s been here for a long time. She is grey-haired, has thick and unusually fleshy wrinkles in her face, hands like a bear and is playful and kind. We always play a kind of teenager flirting game. I wink at her in the morning meetings and massage her shoulders, when I’m sitting behind her in the car and she always throws her eyes open with exaggerated joy and regularly pretends to faint when I flatter her once again. As far as I know, she’s never had a husband and I think she’s been… let’s say ‘on her own’ (because she definitely doesn’t seem lonely) since she’s been here.
She said something ridiculously funny one day. I was telling a story about how I’d brought a specific kind of German sweet to Scotland called ‘Negerküsse’ or ‘Dickmanns’ (after the most popular brand). It is a kind of chocolate-glazed cylindrical blob of foamy cream on a small round waffle. I had brought the small ones with me to Scotland after a holiday at home. The were called ‘Mini Dickmanns’, which was written on the box in golden emboldened letters over a photo of the many little ‘dickmanns’ (in a shape not completely unlike that of a phallus), standing in rows. I explained, why my friends in Scotland found this incredibly funny and how I had never even thought about this somewhat ambiguous name until they’d pointed it out to me. Angela frowned and said: “But they don’t look much like… well, at least not as far as I can remember.”
Regina is a master-mind of organisation and a wonder of endurance. She is the secretary of Dr. Abouleish, the founder of SEKEM – who is normally just referred to as ‘Doktor’. She organises all his visitors, visits, trips, conferences, presentations, interviews etc. and manages all the contacts he has around the world. Apart from this organisational side, she also has to bear the massive burden of being the obedient right hand of a strong-willed genius and a powerful visionary. I have seen her in impossible situations and don’t understand how she can cope with it day after day after day, especially when I realise that the situations I have seen her in are probably just a shadow of what happens, when I leave the room and close the door behind me. I hold deep admiration for her.
There are more in the family – Konstanze & Helmy, Viola, Liliane, Eni & Constantin, Herr and Frau Marienfeld and Martina. Over the first few weeks here, I more or less fell in love with one after the other of them and discovered so much beauty in them, each one in their own way and despite the little human flaws we all have. But not only in them, also in their interaction with each other and with me, which instantly made me feel at home and welcome.
They are a family, a group of people that have grown together through the every-day work, each in their own area of responsibility and through their devotion to and striving for a common goal – sustainable human development in Egypt, which is bringing living light to the people of an area that was shrouded in darkness and careless sleep.
