Within international water management circles, one of the most commonly cited reasons for poor water management is ignorance. People do not understand the scarcity of water or the most efficient methods of utilizing it, so the argument goes, and hence use it wastefully. The solution, therefore, is to raise awareness. This paper examines the idea of awareness raising as a route to improved water governance through the case of Egypt. In Egypt, management of the limited water of the Nile, which provides 96% of the country’s water, has become a critical concern. Drawing on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork with farmers, irrigation engineers, government officials, and development practitioners, I explore the common refrain that Egyptian farmers, who use 90% of the country’s water, need more awareness (wa‘ai). I look at how efforts to raise awareness are employed in initiatives to promote modern irrigation, establish water user associations, and encourage adaptation to climate change. I look, also, at how farmers use the term “awareness” in contrasting ways. The paper demonstrates the conflicting notions of what it means to be aware and the limitations of education programs designed to improve water governance that fail to interrogate underlying assumptions about knowledge and expertise.