Nesmahar Sayed and photographer Sherif Sonbol joined the buzzing palm owners on their collection spree It was our second visit to Al-Marazik, an hour from Cairo, on the road to Upper Egypt. The first visit was to learn about palm trees and the date market. However, the second time around was more enjoyable as our eyes were glued upwards, for it was the season to collect dates from palms. Our guide Faisal Serri organised the visit. Serri met us at the entrance of the village after which we went directly to the fields. Men are all around the place, some atop the palms, others collecting what fell on the ground. Fixed to the palm with a metla (belt) around his waist, Serri climbs the tree and when he reaches the top he cuts the stems carrying the dates, then puts them in a big plate made of khoss. Serri says there is no age limit when it comes to climbing the palms. "Anyone who can do it is welcome. People can climb the palm trees even in their 50s." The yellow dates that remain stuck on the stem are to be plucked out by a process called khart. A man holds two sticks, puts the stem with the dates between the sticks, then closes them. After reaching the bottom of the stem, the dates fall in an offa packet. As the process nears its end, a carriage arrives to pack the dates in bags and delivers the packets to another site where the dates are divided into two. Here, the manshar, an old woman squats on the ground separating the dark dates from the yellow. Eida Ahmed, 70, with wrinkles on her face, smiles while talking to us and insists on giving us a taste of the collected dates. "Coming from Al-Saf, a village near Marazik, every day to work for LE40 has always been my job," Ahmed said. Many of her neighbours share the same line of work. The yellow dates are dried in the sun; that's called nashr (drying) while the brown ones are sent to the berka (basin) in which the dates are washed. The dates during this process are spread on a hasseer over the ground, in an area surrounded by maize dried stems in a square shape. The measurement of each square depends on the number of palms the owners have because the more there are the bigger the harvest. Then the dates are pushed down the basin, put in the offa and covered tightly. According to Salem Amin, 34, owner of the manshar, this step is for storage. After that the dates can remain good for a whole year. Siwya dates are those sold as agwa. These packets are delivered to Delta governorates and Cairo to biscuit factories and bakery shops. In the field one cannot differentiate between the owners of the palms and the merchants. All are working and everyone knows exactly what to do. While some date merchants buy the dates on the palms, other palm owners sell the dates on their own. According to Serri, the money needed to start selling dates ranges from LE5,000 to millions of pounds. At the end of the four-hour visit, Serri invited us to tea with his family in their manshar. While we were sipping and sitting on a hasseer, Serri recounted something that happened seven years ago. The government had installed pipelines for clean water and left them buried under the ground but up until today they have yet to function. But how do they get drinking water? "We buy water for us, and water the palms and the plants from the canals in the village.
