The southern part of Egypt and northern Sudan comprise the area of the Nubian people, once one of the great civilizations in Africa. Dr. Agha described the impact of building the Aswan Dam on her Nubian ancestors in the early 1900s. When the British dammed up the Nile in order to control its resources and the people around it, many men were forced to leave the area to find work in Cairo, Alexandria, and Khartoum. Increasing the height of the dam led to further lands being flooded, displacing even more families. These families were forced into villages surrounded by farmland that were built by the government with the intention of the resettled Nubians growing food for much of Egypt. For the Nubian people, colonizing resulted in displacement, shifting family structures, poorer living conditions, and a stripping away of agency and autonomy. 

In my curriculum, we already discuss something similar to this with the construction of the Lake Turkana Wind Farm in northern Kenya. Students learn about the benefits of the wind farm and also about some of the contested components of the project, including the displacement of several ethnic groups. We ask students to consider the pros and cons of the project, and then create a poster advocating for or against the wind farm. It would be great to find out more details to share with students on the experiences of the displaced people, perhaps even a first-person perspective on what that was like. I'm also interested in looking at how colonialism shaped Mombasa, Kenya, as it became a major hub of trade for first the Portuguese and later Omani and other settlers. How did this colonization reshape the port of Mombasa? Which people gained and lost power, wealth, and agency during this process?