Mountainous

Music

01.07.00.00

landscapes

Lester:  On the edge of the desert of legends, once a venue for Old Testament miracles, a new wonder is taking shape.  Nuweiba Muzana on the Sinai's east coast was a simple Bedouin fishing encampment.

Abdallah Muzana  

Whistle, yelling, splashing

with whistle

holding out squid, dolphin jumping out of water,

Abdallah with dolphin

Lester:  Until a whale sized money spinner surfaced in this stretch of the Red Sea and Abdallah Muzana found it.  Twenty five years old, partially deaf with a learning disability and only the skills of a poor fisherman, Abdallah had nothing.  Until he stumbled on his remarkable ability to communicate with a dolphin.

07.28

Whistling

Intv with Abdallah Muzana

Muzana:  I was in my boat when the dolphin started going around and around me.  The motor of my boat wasn't working well and the dolphin came and pulled the boat.

07.55

Muzana with dolphin

Lester:  Abdallah calls her Olene, she nuzzles noses with him, he gives her a tummy scratch.  Dolphin experts are scratching their heads.  It's odd for man and mammal to have such a relationship but unheard of to be inseparable for four years.  And there's no nets holding Olene here, just her attraction to Abdallah

08.22

Intv with Abdallah Muzana

Muzana:  The dolphin starts crying.  If I go to Eilat the dolphin looks for me.  Where is Abdallah?  Where is Abdallah?  When I come back to Nuweiba the dolphin smiles and I hug her.

08.50

Tim Lester with children

Lester:  You pop it on there.

Child:  Give me twenty. 

Lester:  I'm not giving you twenty for that.

09.29

Lester:  And Abdallah family smiles as well.  The popular view here is God sent Olene to Abdallah Muzana for the making of an economic miracle in which all of them can share.

Lester:  If you want me to buy, you be patient.  No, no, no, you be patient.

09.47

Lester:  And virtually the whole village is from the one family.  Every one down to the five year old bracelet makers.  Abdallah's cousins and nieces - all Muzana's and all mobilised to cash in on the Western dolphin curiosity.

Child:  What you want?

Lester:  Please don't shout.

Intv with Salama Muzana

Salama Muzana:  It's good, for the Bedouins here at Nuweiba. 

10.10

Lester:  It has helped Bedouins.

Salama Muzana:  Yeah, yeah.  Because it brings in money, the dolphin.  And dolphin go, finish money, no money.

Lester:  Do you worry about that?

Salama Muzana:  Yes, no work.  Where would he work?

Salama Muzana driving truck

Salama Muzana:  Okay, thank you.

Lester:  Abdallah's cousin, Solama Muzana sells tours to dolphin goers.

10.28

Solama Muzana:  This supermarket but not for Bedouin, for Egyptian.  Egyptian come, huh?  Give him supermarket here.

Truck through town, people making mud bricks

Lester:  It might not look like Miami style over development but this is a Bedouin boom.  With dolphin dollars, the Muzana's are building the restaurants, the stores, even tourism statues all on the back of Olene and Abdallah. 

10.41

Things have changed so much Solama takes visitors wanting to see a genuine Bedouin village on an hours drive through the mountains to an undolphinised valley.  Mind you, most in Bir Izooker are also from the Muzana family.

10.57

Lester drinking tea, woman beating

Lester:  A lot of sugar, hmmm. 

bread, Lester

eating, women in group

Lester:  Here in the hills you drink tea, eat bread and listen to Bedouin legends, like the story of Abdallah and Olene.

11.18

Lester:  Hmmm, very good.

Lester:  These members of the Muzana family have never met their famous relative but are grateful for the tourist spin off he's delivered to them.

Woman:  We've heard about him, but we've never seen him.

11.38

Abdallah with dolphin, people cuddling dolphin

Lester:  The real treat for the visitor, a privilege only for those who pay the four dollar gate price, is to join Abdallah as he meets Olene.  It's a swim thousands have now taken.

11.49

There is some effort at control here, at protecting this unusual friendship.  But for many who take a dip with the dolphin the measures go no where near far enough.

12.07

Intv with woman and man standing side by side

Woman:  All day, people come and try and grab her and they harm here, they make marks.  You can see all day cars coming and going, the shouting, the arguments about money, in the water, out of the water ... it's terrible.

12.20

Man:  But all the arguments are about money, there is no arguments about if you hurt the animal or hassling the animal ...

Woman:  They don't care what you do with it as long as you pay.

Intv with Abdallah Muzana

Muzana:  From all around the world they come to film Abdallah - from Germany, Italy, France, America, Australia, everywhere.

12.44

Abdallah in water with dolphin, woman watching, dolphin breaching out of water, tourists watching, Abdallah with Olene

Lester:  There's a rumour the Muzana's are trying to befriend a second dolphin, realising that if Olene leaves or dies, the family's economic miracle will come crashing down. 

13.04

But for now, as long as Olene keeps coming to meet him, Abdallah will remain the most important man along this stretch of the Red Sea.

ENDS

13.36