A Working Man

With all of the equine workers in Egypt, blacksmiths are still an important part of our lives. You will see a man set up in a quiet nook in Nazlit Semman shoeing the poor pyramids horses and the donkeys that pull the carts, or at a village market the farmers will stop by to have their donkeys trimmed. Not all of our smiths are well-trained unfortunately, since the last outside influence over training left with the British in the 50's. My farrier, for example, was trained by a local farrier who had been British trained, but his mentor only trained him when Yassin realised that he was going blind. Since then a number of us have arranged training for Omar with visiting farriers and vets, bought him good tools and so on, and we have an excellent farrier now.