Bracelet

Wadi Al Gimal Artisans

From:Wadi El-Gimal National Park

Zainab Mahmoud Fadl, daughter of Marsa Alam City, a woman in her forties, was married at the age of thirteen, and a mother of two girls and a young man,. she did not know how to work with the coastal beads, but she had a wish that motivated her to discover by herself how to stack units of beads side by side, perfectly textured, and magnificent. At noon each day she carries what she wove, and goes to the beach of her city on the Red Sea to display on the ground all her beautifully made bracelets that are so brightly colored as she wishes her life to be. Zainab, Aisha, Amnaa and more than 200 women working artists try to preserve the legacy of their ancestors from the protectorate valley and the area south of Marsa Alam beside Egypt's Eastern Desert villages like Kulaan , Apogson,  Hamata and Berenice and Sheikh shadliy and many valleys of small mountains All the people there are descendant of the tribe Al ababda with a great history and rich cultural heritage, they inhabit "Wadi Al-Gimal" protected area, one of the most beautiful natural reserves places in Egypt The Ababda extend from the Nile at Aswan to the Red Sea, and reach northward to the Qena-Quseir road, thus occupying the southern border of Egypt east of the Nile. They call themselves "sons of the Jinns.  In this area the local population is the Ababda bedouin who have many rich and colourful traditions - much of which is endangered by the pressures of modern life and the economic exploitation of the area and its' rescources. Traditionally nomadic, many still work herding their flocks of goats through the network of wadis in search of grazing land and water.  They are renowned for their skilled animal tracking abilities. The Wadi El Gemal Nationa Park ( meaning "Valley of the Camels" ) is an extensive area of land and coastal water lying to the south of Marsa Alam.  It includes many diverse ecological habitats and a rich variety of animal and bird types including several endangered species.