My life has not followed much of a pattern these last few years it has to be said, the odd and surreal have become almost real and normal, but here I am in a field on the Nubian Island known as Elephantine, adrift in the Nile of Northern Nubia, I am digging for worms, one thing does seem to lead to another, all I said to Hamdy was, what do you feed it, I was of course referring to the small crocodile I was now holding at arm’s length, Hamdy eyed me with suspicion, fish, obviously, I was only making conversation, in fact it’s about time we fed him, now the crocodile eyed me suspiciously, first we need fish food, yalla he beckoned heading into the furrowed field, I returned the croc to his cramped home and followed Hamdy, after successfully extracting dozen or so fat looking worms we set off for the river, when I was a kid I would fish the Thames, the amount of essential equipment needed would take an hour to pack and buckle my back, all my friendly Nubian had was a stick and a plastic bag of earth worms, we scrambled down the bank, skip over the rocks and board a rowing boat, a Felucca sails past the flagging sun and Hamdy baits his hook, casts the line into the water and lights a cigarette, we sit and wait, the world is somewhere else and its gone completely mad, at this moment fishing for crocodile food seems quite normal and perfectly sane.
John Wreford Photographer 
Beautiful picture!
Nubians and crocodiles need a free Nile river to live and prosper.
The Aswan dam has made both of them exhibits for the sake of politics.
In Sudan, one of the few areas where the Nile crocodile lives in its wild environment is the area of the Third Cataract, home of the Mahas and the Sukot, the Nobiin-speaking Nile Nubians.
Their language is descending from Old Nubian, the local language of the Christian kingdoms of medieval Nubia; themselves, they are the descendants of these medieval Nubians.
Their land, their language, their customs, the flora and fauna of their environment are threatened by Arabization, development schemes, gold mining, plans for building the Dal and Kajbar dams.
Thanks for spreading the word in favor of the Nubians and the crocodiles!!
You may also wish to see:http://medievalsaiproject.wordpress.com/?s=crocodile
Or even sign: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-the-dams-in-sudan.html
Thank you so much, my visit was part of an ongoing project and I appreciate not only your interest but insight and information-
We keep in touch.
Gladly!
Reblogged this on Oxford School of Photography and commented:
Our man in Nubia?