Maison Haya

As of 1 September, I am on a one year sabbatical from my job in the Norwegian Foreign Service. After five blissful weeks of vacation back in Norway, I have returned to Egypt. I was posted in Cairo until I started my leave, and Egypt is where I will spend most of my time in the year to come. Not, however, in the capital Cairo, which is a fantastic place, full of endless things to see and do, but a little too noisy, hectic and crowded for my taste. And of course, it has little wildlife to offer. So I have retreated instead to the governorate of Fayoum, a lush and fertile piece of heaven in this land of (mostly) desert.

Fayoum has much to offer. The beauty and diversity of the landscape, with sunflower fields, sand dunes, lakes, hills and streams. The vast emptiness of the desert under a moonlit sky; the busy, loud and crowded towns and markets; the quiet fields and olive groves, where foxes, mongoose, swamp cats and even wolves roam. Ancient temples and pyramids, whale skeletons in the desert, a petrified forest and a salt lake. And much, much more. And then there is the people; hospitable, funny and kind.

I have been here for close to two months now. There hasn’t been a lot of time to explore the area yet, we have been busy getting our house and gardens in order. My partner and I have rented a property with two small houses (Egyptians refer to them as villas). It is a lovely place, surrounded by fields and olive groves. A little too close to the main road, but you can’t have everything….

When my partner took over the place in late September, the land was rather barren. There were some sad looking olive trees, but that was about it. We have been working hard to make the place look nice, planting a lot of trees, shrubs and flowers, as well as a lot of different vegetables. Neither of us were born with green fingers, and although we have both come to appreciate gardening over the past few years, we are still making some mistakes. Not all of our efforts bear fruit, so to speak. Some plants get too much water, some too little. Some were planted too late and others too soon. I am still confused by the Egyptian seasons, not fully understanding what I can successfully plant at this time of the year. Overall, though, I would say we are doing pretty well. The place looks totally different today than it did two months ago. Check out the before and now photos in the gallery below (pardon the bad cell phone footage).

There is still work to be done and it will take time before we will even see the results of what we have done so far. I can hardly wait for the plants to start flourishing. Patience is indeed a virtue, and truth be told, by the time our garden really starts prospering, we will probably have moved on.

The owner of the land has a gorgeous daughter named Haya, she is around two years old. He asked if we would name the place after her, and so we decided to call it Maison Haya. Haya means life in Arabic, so that worked out rather well, I thought. We are just about to start letting one of the villas on the property. If you are a bird and wildlife photography enthusiast planning to visit Fayoum, please consider coming to stay here with us.