Marsha Bailey, Fine Artist

Seaside Neighborhood in New Damietta
The seaside neighborhood, where I am living, is part of the larger New Damietta planned city. The seaside neighborhood is on the north side of the highway that connects New Damietta to the Damietta Port and Old Damietta. The highway also serves the truck traffic between Port and Alexandria by connecting to the Port Said-Alexandria highway. Both the local highway and the main highway are also new, built in the last ten years. Previously, one had to go through Tanta to get from Port Said to Alexandria and that is still the only rail route between these big coastal cities.

The primary residential part of New Damietta is on the south side of the highway and is laid-out in a grid pattern with neighborhood shopping areas near mosques in each sector and a central commercial street with shop-fronts set back from the curb. This leaves room for outdoor seating at the restaurants and outdoor display area for the shops. There is a range of residential accommodation, from big villas to modest apartment blocks. The industrial sector, with its furniture, tile and marble-cutting factories, is set beside the residential area. The population is substantial and new sectors are continually sprawling outward. There is even a new Coptic Christian church currently under construction that will be quite a sight when finished. It has the feel to me of new-growth American development like the suburban areas of Atlanta. It is quite different from old Damietta as described in the adventure of the plates. 

The seaside neighborhood was laid-out and the plots were sold off in the 1990s, or so I am told. The map of this neighborhood (see Maps of Some Places for *.PDF download) was made from a satellite photo. There are more constructed homes today than are shown on the map, although only half of the lots are more than sand and weed plots. A quarter of the lots have completed houses and the other quarter are in various stages of completion. The homes are built incrementally – first the reinforced concrete foundation and frame; then brick infill walls; then stucco with tile veneer; and last windows and doors. Each step seems to occur as the owner has the money accumulated instead of borrowing to build all-at-once. This is quite different from from the approach in other places you may know.

The ground floors of the houses are used as garages and empty space. This is due to the expected height of the storm surge waters that would flood this area, similar to the barrier islands of North America.

As I have said, only a quarter of the lots have finished houses but I should mention that very few of these have year-round residents. Folks speculate about who owns these houses – Cairo people and Egyptians living and working abroad are often suggested. They come here in the summer and on holidays. For this reason and because there is a lot of construction material lying around, there are watchmen who live in the neighborhood with their families. They are paid by groups of homeowners clubbing together. Some watchmen and their families live in partially completed houses in the “with brick infill” stage, using plastic tarps and palm mats to fill in the gaps. Others live in the ground-level space of vacant but finished homes.

Other part-time residents are the Bedouin families who come in October and set up palm mat sheds in the margin between the houses and the beach promenade road. They are here to catch game bird that are flying south from Turkey and Europe. They set up nets running parallel to the shore, three meters high and thousands of meters long. I was out for my exercise walk one morning and startled one of these quail-like birds out of the weeds. It flew fast along the ground and hard into the net. The birdcatcher was about 50 meters away mending his net and looked up when the bird hit the net and dropped to the ground. He quickly raced over to get the bird before it was hurt, struggling in the web. We both clasped our hands over our heads in victory. The birdcatchers keep the birds in stick cages made from palm fronds and take them to market where they sell, I am told, for a handsome price.

Another morning I was out for my exercise walk and was admiring the gorgeous sunrise, huge and orange on a foggy morning. The whole Bedouin family was out sitting near their shelter watching the sunrise, too. I waved to them and I received back a broad wave and a hearty baritone, “Allah Akbar,” in recognition of the beautiful gift we all were receiving.