Putting His Shoes Back On

I have a young photographer staying with me and I've invited her to join me on this blog. This photo is one of Catherine Feeney's. A visiting Canadian friend of ours was with her at the Citadel today. He's putting his sneakers back on after visiting the main mosque...whose lights shine in the darkness behind him.

Topiary

Various types of ficus trees thrive in Egypt growing lush and green. Things like those spindly Ficus benjamina that people fuss over in the north, shoot up to massive trees in a matter of months. Since they are evergreen they make great topiary, trees and shrubs carved into shapes. This tree has the word "Allah" carved into it in counterpoint to the mosque of Mohamed Ali at the Citadel.

Bringing The Water

One of the roads from the Nile to the Citadel at the very edge of the desert under the cliffs of the Moqattam hills runs along the Arab aqueduct. At the river, the aqueduct is very high, perhaps 15 meters, and then it seems to grow shorter as you go uphill. Over the roughly thousand years since the aqueduct was built, the roadbed has come up higher and higher against the stones. Now the city takes better care of things.

The Mother's Heart

Cairo, as a city of that name, began with the conquest of the old city of Fustat by Sallah el Din, better known in the west as Richard The Lionhearted's foe Saladin. He established the the heart of the old city of Cairo in his Citadel overlooking the city in the late 1170's. Sallah el Din was a Kurd, the first of the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt, just one of the many ethnic groups to come to and be absorbed by The Mother of The World, as Cairo has been known. Subsequent rulers added on and changed the Citadel, but it is the home of the mosque of Mohamed Ali and the site of some marvelous music concerts in the summer. The music festival sells its tickets for about LE 2 each, well within the reach of working class Egyptians who will hear everything from folk music, to classical Arabic music, to modern Arab jazz while sitting under the stars and looking out over the city.