Dipping in steamy spring at night is unforgettable. Sunglasses, sun block, comfortable shoes and mosquito repellents are essential, especially when camping. People are building houses of concrete, forsaking ''kersheif,'' a salt-laden mud brick. The old homes are cooler with their thick walls and small windows, but the mud melts into a kind of porridge in the rare heavy rains. In Dakhla, the guard Mahmoud complains that farmers have stopped storing wheat under sand dunes to protect it against moisture and rats fearing it will be stolen by strangers, poor laborers from the congested Nile Valley.
Most people say change is inevitable.
It is how to deal with it that matters. The good is that the changes bring money and activity, but our customs and traditions are disappearing bit by bit. Osman complains that the younger generation mingles Arabic words with Siwi, a Berber dialect. Most Siwans descend from North African Berber tribes who mixed with immigrants from what is now Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan. The thinking is to create a tourism system,'' says Adel Rady, head of the Tourism Development Authority.