Cairo/Giza Daily Photo

Summer Evening

2013-05-25T19:55:00.000+02:00

Egypt is hot but the temperatures drop quickly when the sun sets, and even more quickly if you are lucky enough to be on a felucca, one of the old wooden sailing boats, on the Nile.

Taking Care of Younger Ones

2013-05-12T19:33:00.000+02:00

Out here in the villages you often see younger children and babies in the care of their older siblings. It isn't something you see so much in the city, especially with middle and upper class families who might have staff working for them to take care of the kids. But I remember being the oldest of four and essentially being responsible for my younger siblings when my mother had something else to do. I guess it's a bit of a lost art some places now.

Dwarfed

2013-05-10T20:33:00.001+02:00

The mosque of Ibn Tulun is one of the largest mosques in Cairo and also one of the oldest. Built in about 880 AD it was attached to the royal palace of the Abbasid ruler of Egypt at the time, but it is the only building of the era that still exists. It is one of my favourite mosques, its clean lines and open spaces give a sense of isolation from the chaos outside. Click for a larger version of the picture and you will have a better sense of the size when you see the two people in the upper left corner of the courtyard. The Gayer-Anderson museum is attached to that corner of the compound.

Riverfront Property

2013-04-22T11:05:00.000+02:00

Along the riverside that parallels the island of Zamalek are lined old houseboats, one of the more exotic and romantic varieties of housing available in Cairo. These are near the northern tip of the island along the Giza shore. It looks more like a resort than one of the craziest cities on the planet.

Little Things Mean a Lot

2013-04-05T20:53:00.001+02:00

Most farming families in rural Egypt don't own a car, a tractor, or anything more complicated than a bicycle or a motorcycle. The family donkey is a vital and not always well-understood part of the farmer's equipment. Flies can cause eye and skin infections and flies are endemic in farming areas. Most of the farmers make a sort of makeshift halter/bridle using chain across the nose area. Chain is cheap and unbreakable but hard on the skin so there are a number of lovely women who make these nose fuzzies to cover the chain and shield the donkey's nose. The Donkey Sanctuary distributes locally made flymasks (thus also providing jobs in an economy that really needs them) when they join The Rural Wellness Initiative Egypt's mobile vet clinics on Tuesday afternoons. The Rural Wellness Initiative is a group based on Facebook that provides free medical care to farmers in the area near our farm. Our staff works on these trips as donkey hoof trimmers, cow wormers and chicken holders, while I am the chief goat hoof trimmer. These clinics are making a difference in the health of the farmers' animals and thus with their productivity.

I want to apologise for not posting for a long time but my internet has been so terrible for the past month it's been really hard to get online.

Opposite of a Post Card

2013-03-21T23:20:00.000+02:00

In the villages, when a member of the family has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, a painting is often added to the front of the house, sometimes showing the means of transport, but always showing the Kaaba. Rather than taking photos there, they come home and then record it.

Pyramids Make People Silly

2013-03-05T21:57:00.002+02:00

The panoramic point at Giza always has bizarre photo opportunities. Maybe a Japanese tourist jumping high into the air from a wall. I don't know why.

Or people standing posed to touch the top of a pyramid...or maybe a tourist bus. At the correct angle you get the shot of someone touching something untouchable but at another, complete nonsense.

Movers And Shakers

2013-03-04T21:50:00.001+02:00

Many of the farmers in rural Egypt rely on their donkeys to carry manure to the fields, to carry their crops home, to carry the farmers and their families on visits and errands. These patient and undervalued creatures are the prime movers of Egypt.

Sharing Sunlight

2013-02-26T22:20:00.000+02:00

This was Tuesday and Tuesday afternoon is the Rural Wellness Initiative mobile vet clinic. A friend of the group came along with us and took a break sitting on an upturned rowboat. She found herself sitting among a group of women and children who took great delight in trying to teach her Arabic. Yes, the woman in niqab as well, who turned out to have quite the sense of humour.

We Are The Eggmen

2013-02-22T20:56:00.000+02:00

While a group of us were out riding the other afternoon a pickup truck carrying what must have been at least a thousand eggs passed us on the way from a chicken production warehouse to wherever it is that they take this many eggs. They will be left in their cartons standing in warehouses and stores for a number of weeks or until they are bought. Eggs, oddly enough, stay fresh unrefrigerated for months UNTIL you refrigerate them....and then they must be kept cold.

What Camels Really Do

2013-02-19T21:34:00.000+02:00

Out on a ride the other day we saw a farmer leading his camel with a huge load of berseem clover. One camel can carry almost as much as a cart.

Apologies for being away. My annual case of bronchitis laid me a bit low.

Mourning

2013-02-03T12:12:00.002+02:00

We have had Qamar (it means "moon") out water buffalo for about 6 years. This winter she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who we named Negoom (which means "stars") which gave us the moon and stars. Her previous offspring was named Kofta (for grilled ground meat) since as a bull calf that was going to be his fate. Kofta was dispatched very humanely last year, but Negoom, who was a delightfully friendly little girl who loved attention and scratches from everyone was going to be staying at the farm with her mother. This morning Negoom was found dead in the paddock of no apparent cause and her mother stood next to her crying. Water buffalo aren't known for their intellect but they they feel things keenly.

Spot light

2013-01-18T22:23:00.000+02:00

On a winter afternoon with big thunder clouds blowing above the desert, the sun will shine down through a gap to highlight a spot on the desert. When the spot happens to be the pyramids of Abu Sir.

Lending a Hand

2013-01-10T22:37:00.000+02:00

Egypt's small farmers are being crushed by a lack of support. There are government subsidies on human medications to keep the prices affordable, but no subsidies are provided for veterinary medications that the farmers need for their livestock. These prices are rising steadily along with the prices of clothing, schools, books, and food that they need to buy with what little money they make from their crops, whose prices are rising much, much more slowly. Many farmers now are lucky to be able to pay for medications for their animals, but can't afford to pay any more to cover the cost of gas for the doctor's car or money for the doctor's time. Most vets can't afford to spend time without earning a salary so they are not going out to treat animals.

A few months ago the Egyptian Society of Animal Friends and Al Sorat Farm joined forces to provide free veterinary care to farmers between Shabramant and Abu Sir. Here the vets from ESAF and the grooms from Al Sorat are working on a donkey with an infection in his shoulder. They make weekly visits to different parts of of the farmland as it isn't easy for farmers to find time to take a sick or injured animal to either the clinic or the farm to have it checked. Much of the work consists of discussion with the owners about the proper care of their animals to help them keep them healthy.

Some Things Never Change

2013-01-04T14:24:00.000+02:00

Cairo's bridges are more than just ways to cross the Nile. They are parks on summer nights, sites for protests, and more than anything else a public yet private space for a young couple to meet and talk about life.

Trailer Optional

2013-01-02T19:28:00.001+02:00

One of the guys who works for me was doing some work on his home in the village and needed to borrow a wheelbarrow. They don't have cars so we offered to haul it over with the jeep, but his cousin said that he would take it over with his motorcycle. This was something we had to see and record!

Pink Cloud

2012-12-28T15:58:00.000+02:00

Cotton candy seller

The youth market never fails. In this case a man has filled plastic bags with wads of pink cotton candy (candy floss for the Brits) and is bicycling around the villages selling it to children for probably something like 25 piastres, which is a healthy markup on his materials, although not so healthy for the teeth.

The Free Market Is Thriving

2012-12-25T20:09:00.000+02:00

A Cairo blogger posted this picture of a man who was driving his car around with this sign posted on both sides of it. The sign apparently says:

Hashish "Afghan- Dutch" available
Salah Imbabay
01099649952

There are pretty strict laws on the books against the sale of hashish, marijuana and other drugs, but the police force has been pretty slack lately. Still..... wonder if anyone called him.

Two Gems Broken

2012-11-18T22:16:00.000+02:00

On our last ride from Dahshur we took a route that ordinarily would take us past two lovely limestone sarcophagi near the railway track that runs between Cairo and Fayoum. This time, however, we found two broken sarcophagi. Someone came and smashed them for no apparent reason.

Living In Tents

2012-11-14T22:44:00.001+02:00

For years I've noticed a group of people who would appear here in our area with herds of cattle and unusual patterns of dressing. They often split up into small groups of cattle who graze on the stubble of the corn fields and they told me that they were from Zagazig in Sharkeya province. On our ride to Dahshur we came upon this camp under the palms near the lakebed. Our hostess for lunch told me that these were the cattle people, a group of Bedouin who travel throughout Egypt in a huge loop and have a base of sorts near Zagazig. The army apparently rents the lakebed to a man who has been harvesting the reeds from it until the last couple of years when the lake wasn't filled. This year he rented the lakebed as grazing land for a few weeks to the Bedouin.

Rope Of The Pharoahs

2012-11-10T19:47:00.000+02:00

We were riding through the village of Sakkara and as we passed this garden, I noticed that the woman here was making a palm fiber rope. We've used this rope for construction around the farm because it is incredibly strong and doesn't degrade from the sunlight. It is spun from the brown fiber that they take off the palm trees when they are trimming the fronds from them. This is the same rope that was used to build the solar boat that is on display at Giza.

Going, Going, Gone!

2012-11-06T22:18:00.000+02:00

We found a gorgeous green chameleon at the farm today. A speedy little fellow and not very shy. He was happy to threaten us with his gaping mouth.

When placed on a visitor's arm, he made tracks for the wall with the bougainvilleia from which he had emerged.

It didn't take long for him to figure out how to reach a branch and to scamper up the vine...

and disappear.

Fluffing Up The Pillows

2012-11-04T19:59:00.000+02:00

I'd bet anything that most people can't identify that machine. It's a cotton fluffer for pillows and mattresses. The traditional mattresses are filled with cotton and every few years the fluffer man comes around to re-fluff the mattresses.

Everyone Comes To Giza

2012-11-01T22:07:00.000+02:00

We went to Giza and were delighted to have to dodge many, many tourist buses. As it was the last day of the Feast, there were also a lot of Egyptian families enjoying an outing to the Giza plateau and having picnics in the shadow of the pyramids.

Archetypes

2012-10-31T21:12:00.002+02:00

The pyramid, the camel, the sky. What more?

Photo by Cally Stephenson while in Cairo playing tourist.