CAIRO (AA) – The motor-powered boat sailed smoothly and calmly down Egypt's river Nile, but the passengers on board were impatient to get rid of their calm.
As if on tenter-hooks to hear the music that played in the background grow higher in pitch, almost everybody on board started swaying, dancing and shaking their bodies suddenly to the music when it became louder.
Young men and women immersed themselves in the dance, giving onlookers the impression that they had all made an unwritten deal to rise up and fall into the same dancing trance.
"We wait from year to year to enjoy these few moments," riposted one of the male dancers. "We will go back to the usual routine shortly any way."
Leaving a turbulent country, deteriorating security conditions, and a faltering economy behind, Egyptians are trying to enjoy their times during Eid al-Adha to the maximum and this cannot be clearly seen anywhere in this country other than the river Nile, where tens of feluccas, traditional Egyptian boats with lateen sails, offer poor and limited income Egyptians cheap rides and joyful moments.
Taking a felucca down the Nile is something Egyptians are keen to do especially during the feast when large numbers of people are seen sitting, eating and playing along the banks of the Nile, particularly in the part of the river near to central Cairo's Tahrir Square.
The advent of the feast has brought some activity to the moribund felucca business, heartening owners, and also offering sweet moments to ordinary Egyptians. Offering its passengers the chance to catch the breeze of Egypt's hot summer day, this felucca warmed its way through the low waves of the Nile, but the passengers were unmindful of everything outside the creaky boat. They repeated after the pop singer who sang in the background and plunged in the dancing mood.
Women, however, managed to attract most of the attention on the boat. Dancing more masterfully, they seemed to buck a general conservative trend in Egypt. But most of them were young and perhaps more liberal than their more conservative Egyptian peers. They had this courage to dance before total strangers.
-Better business-
Mustafa Adel, the owner of the felucca, watched the people on board dance and sing in joy.
He says he has been waiting for the feast for months to compensate some of the losses he incurred as a result of Egypt's persistent political turmoil. "People like me keep waiting for the season for months," Adel, 34, told Anadolu Agency. "We have been suffering recession since the uprising almost three years ago."
Egypt has been thrown into prolonged security and political turmoil since millions of Egyptians rose up against Egypt's former strongman Hosni Mubarak in early 2011.
This populous Arab country, however, experienced considerable calm during the first few months of the first half of 2012 with the election of the nation's first post-Mubarak president through transparent and honest elections, but this calm was shattered by growing opposition to elected president Mohamed Morsi in the following months.
This opposition climaxed on June 30, 2013 when millions of demonstrators took to the streets to ask Morsi to leave. But the ensuing ouster of the president by the powerful military has ushered in more unrest as Morsi's supporters and pro-democracy groups continue to stage protests against the overthrow, which they describe as a "military coup".
Adel has seen the protests inside the nearby Tahrir Square and in its vicinity in pain. The protests have caused his business to totally die.
On Thursday, however, he saw his business coming back to life again with more and more Egyptians heading toward the Nile for enjoyment.
"I think the security conditions are becoming better now," Adel said. "This is why people are not afraid to go out and come here."
He offers his felucca rides for five Egyptian pounds (around 80 cents).
Although the fare is low, Adel never gets it without high-spirited haggling from his customers, some of them want to pay three pounds only.
"Money is scarce these days," Adel said. "But, I am sure things will get better. They will get better."
Reporting by Amr Emam
