I absolutely loved meeting Aliya in her first adventure, Aliya to the Infinite City so was really excited to return to her time-travelling world in Aliya Aboard the Time Train and what a thrilling, action-packed and danger-filled adventure it turned out to be! You can read my review: https://bookcraic.blog/2024/08/09/review-aliya-aboard-the-time-train/
On today’s Blog Tour, Laila introduces the Blog Tour and I have the first letter from Aliya to her grandfather as she travels on the Silver Express.
Blog Tour introduction:
I began writing the Aliya series as an attempt to ignite my own children’s interest in their country’s fabulously rich history and culture. At first I imagined it would be a series of non-fiction books in the style of Horrible Histories, but soon after starting my imagination hijacked me. I ended up writing a highly fantastical story packed with everything from naughty flying carpets to scary ghoul-maidens who run student hostels and, not to forget, a time-travel academy located in an alternate Egypt.
As a writer, I can vouch for the idea that you don’t really know where your story is going to take you. Still, while the Aliya series mainly is an action-packed adventure, I’m hoping that the backdrop of Egyptian characters and historical places will be enough to inspire my young readers (and old) to learn more about the fascinating history of Egypt and the middle east.
The fictional letters you will find here are ‘written’ by Aliya to her grandfather as she traverses history aboard the Silver Express, the time travelling train featured in my latest instalment: Aliya aboard the Time Train. The letters are intended as an accompaniment to the books and explore a variety of historical and cultural subjects, such as food, clothing, housing, and education throughout Egyptian and middle eastern history.
To read all the letters, check out all the stops of this blog tour! I have prepared classroom resources for all the letters that you can access for free on my website www.lailarifaat.com. Be sure to check them out! I hope you’ll enjoy Aliya’s adventures and learn as much from them as I have!
Letter 1: Eat like an Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian Food)
Dear Geddo,
I’m writing to you from my compartment on board the Silver Express. It’s night now, and my coach is quiet, and the lights are dimmed. Since we took off from the Grand Central station and whooshed into the time-tunnel, I’ve been moving around as if in a dream. Watching time pass by outside at such speed is making me light-headed, but also: this train really is something out of this world. The Silver Express is even more magnificent on the inside than on the outside, with thick carpets and glossy wooden panelling. They’ve got a 24/7 operating chocolate fountain in the first-class carriage! All genie coach-attendants sleep in sweet little lanterns that hang at the end of the coaches, and they redecorate the lounges and the dining coach to fit with each stop on our itinerary. Right now, they are Ancient Egyptian themed in anticipation of our first stop. The digital timeline display in our compartment shows me that we’re fast approaching the Old Kingdom. That’s sometime in 2649 BC!
Today at our Ancient Egypt-themed dinner, we got treated to a real banquet. As we walked into the dining coach, we discovered that the genie waiters had all dressed up (or undressed rather) to look like Ancient Egyptian servants, in loincloths and short-sleeved linen shirts (Charlotte, our prude Victorian chaperone, nearly fainted). Once we were seated, they poured scented water on our hands and gave us garlands made of lotus flowers to wear. Charlotte was offered a cone of fat infused with perfume to wear on her head. It was supposed to melt into her hair to make it smell good. The fat cone is like an ancient Egyptian gift bag, but it didn’t go down well with Charlotte who, after she had carried on about the nerve to offer her a fat cone, kept telling us how surprised she was that the ancients had healthy food.
Each dinner guest got served a newly baked loaf of emmer-wheat, a staple in the ancient Egyptian diet. It was delicious but quite compact. Soliman, our genie guide, said that this was because the low gluten content prevented it from rising well. The ancient Egyptians liked shaping their bread into all kinds of forms and we had fun guessing the shape of our loaves. Aion’s was horse-shaped, and mine was a spiral. Victoria kept nagging Aion to switch with her because hers looked like a headless hippo. Some of the loaves had spices in them like coriander, and some had dried fruits, like dates and figs.
The rest of the food was served on a long table. Soliman told me that the crew had prepared for the feast by going shopping in the Old and New Kingdoms. Imagine that! I recognized most of the food, so not sure why they bothered to time-travel to get it. Ancient Egyptian vegetables are onions, spring-onions, lettuce, and cucumbers, just like our short, chubby ones at home in modern Cairo. I recognized other foods as well: Mallow (khobbiza) and lentils, both brown and yellow. The meat and fish were just like ours too, just cooked differently. They even had a lot of the disgusting stuff you and great-Aunt Gigi try to convince me is ‘healthy,’ like cow-feet soup. Some of the modern travellers started making a fuss about the whole cow-head that sat in the middle of the table on a ceramic platter. I was mostly surprised at the exotic meats. There was cooked hartebeest, addax, oryx, ibex, gazelle, hippos, and even crocodile!
For dessert we got cakes and pastries sweetened with honey and dried fruits. Did you know that the Ancient Egyptians believed that honey had been created for the god Ra’s tears, the drops turning into bees? The signature sweet dish was a high, conical tiger-nut-cake coated with honey. It looked a bit like the fat cone the waiters wanted to put on Charlotte’s head. There was fruit too, many of which reminded me of home: dates, grapes, melons, figs, and juices made from pomegranate and doum (like the juice you drink in Ramadan). They also drank cow’s milk, did you know that?
All in all, most of the food reminded me of what we still eat back home in Cairo, apart from the exotic animals and the tiger-nut cake. I don’t know why Charlotte had to make such a fuss. She only touched the fruit and a bit of the bread. She even insisted that the waiter’s remove the boiled cow-head because ‘it was looking’ at her.
There was music and dancing too performed by the genie staff, but I’ll tell you about that later. I better go to sleep now. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow. By the way, if you hear some strange news about the train…don’t worry. Should anything happen (you know what I mean), Professor Fayrouz is here to protect us. We’ll be safe, I promise.
Your granddaughter,
Aliya
About Laila Rifaat
Laila moved to Cairo, Egypt, in her twenties to explore her father’s native country. She fell in love with the country and has lived in Cairo for over 30 years now. It remains a main source of inspiration for her stories. She has an MA in English and Comparative Literature and has worked as an ESL and IGCSE teacher. Nowadays she’s a full-time writer and stay-at-home mum to her four kids. Find out more at www.lailarifaat.com.
Thank you to Megan Farr and Chicken House Books for inviting me to be part of the Blog Tour, and to Laila Rifaat for providing these wonderful letters.
Do check out the other stops on the Blog Tour:
Book Craic 