Come Back Later

While in a nearby village on an errand we parked across the road from this shop. Naturally it was closed in the morning sunshine. I suppose it only opens after dark. 

Checking His Mail

Waiting for a train to pass a village level crossing I spotted this man leaning against a bridge over the canal and checking messages or mail. Mobile phones have changed life immeasurably in rural Egypt. 

Pigeon Palace

Egyptians are serious about their pigeons. They live to eat squab, young pigeon stuffed with cracked wheat, and they like to fly or race them. The elaborate structure on top of the apartment building is a multistory pigeon coop. The pigeons are usually out free by day foraging and come home at night to be shut in for feeding and safety. 

Third World Problems

Egypt doesn't have a lot of trees. We have a lot of palms, which are technically a grass, but wood trees are definitely in the minority so when we see someone cutting down the eucalyptus along the canals in the countryside, we stop to ask.  I went to ask to se the orders but the gentleman with the crutches was already grilling the guy loading the truck, so I left them at it. 

Sand Sifters and Floor Coverers

It's a problem in the countryside. We live in an area where the most common surface for a road is sand or dirt. People wander in and out of homes all the time and the dust blows in from the desert. Stone or tile floors are cold and hard, and in village homes most people sit on the floor rather than on furniture. Rugs are nice but they collect sand and dust and really hard to clean, so these woven plastic mats are a great solution to the floor covering problem. They provide a bit of cushioning, a bit of warmth and the sand and dust just sift their way through the mat to the floor surface. The mats can be rolled up, the sand swept out, and you are good to go. When you want to wash them, all it takes is a hose and few minutes to let them dry in the sun. AND they are quite cheap.

Cairo Traffic

The joy of Cairo can be expressed in two words most days. "Cairo traffic" is stickier than duct tape, slower than molasses in January...but at least the guys in the flatbed have a nice breeze and a decent view. 

The Things Tourists Do!

I took a rider out a year ago on a trek around the desert. She was on a long trek herself and had been given a small stuffed animal to take pictures of in various places. In honor of her ride, she put the duck (I believe) into Wadi's bridle. I love photos of people doing random things.

Apologies for not posting for a while but I was being a tourist myself and visiting family in the US.

Egyptian Jacks

If all these photos look a bit random, that's because they are, at least as far as my understanding of them. We were working on one of our vet clinics near a mosque in a village by Abu Sir and there was a very intent knot of young girls sitting together all facing inward on the terrace of the mosque. I noticed them but it wasn't until we had finished with most of our patients (donkeys, buffalo, cows, goats, and so on) that I got a chance to see what they were doing. One of the girls had three flat round stones and three flat angular stones. She would toss them on the tiles and then toss one stone up into the air and collect the stones on the tiles in various combinations. It reminded me of a game we played when I was a child in California with a ball and a set of spikey metal objects called Jacks.  In Egypt it is called "Al".

Sheep Branding

The village Bedouin in this area graze their flocks of sheep on the fields after harvest, which adds some organic fertilizer to the soil and reduces the stubble. With perhaps a dozen families wandering around the tracks, it's not a bad idea to identify the sheep in some way. These have been marked with a dot of henna on the face or back.

Killing Farm Land

The news has stories of thousands of acres being sold to Arabs, but out here near Abu Sir, they are building warehouses by the hundred on good cultivation land. This would look to be a factory. How can our government be so stupid and shortsighted? 

Bounty In The Trees

In April we are surrounded by red/black and white mulberry trees full of ripe fruit. In the old days, the cities were also filled with mulberry trees along the streets, but as the ripe fruit does gather flies, people are cutting down the trees. It's heaven to go for a leisurely ride on horseback and stop to pick a few every few meters.

Study In Pink

Wrought iron bars are often placed on the ground floor windows of homes for security. Obviously this young lady felt that they were there for another purpose. It's a great look out for a small one.

Farming Friends

I love the contrast of the facial hair adornments on these two men. They are two of the farmers who brought their animals to the Rural Wellness Initiative clinic last week.

Moving The Calf

When you don't have a livestock truck, and most farmers here don't, you make do with what you have. In this case it's a pickup truck and A LOT if rope.  

The Cotton Candy Man

During protests, the activists used to tweet that it wasn't real until the cotton candy man showed up. That's how ubiquitous these men carrying a big plastic bouquets of bright pink sweetness are. You may see them in any neighbourhood, walking down the center of a busy street or winding through coffee shops. This man was walking the dusty roads near Abu Sir. I have never seen a cotton candy machine to make the sticky sweet inside the bags, but there must be one.

Handprints

White chalk handprints on a red wall are meant to convey good fortune and ward off the evil eye. Sometimes blue handprints are specially used for this, but any colour or medium works.

Ruffled Ears

A mule has long ears, so what better to decorate when the clipping men come around. Many of the carters will do a body clip of their horses or mules since they are going to be working quite hard and usually sleeping indoors. This mule had this lovely ruffled design clipped into his ears.

Even Egyptians Can Be Tourists

What happens when you put an Egyptian on a camel at Giza and you give him a camera? You get even more funny pictures than you might expect from a foreigner. And oddly enough some of them get seasick. 

A Lonely Sarcophagus

...and a sad comment on pollution. Roughy ten or fifteen years ago a friend of mine was visiting the antiquities at Sakkara and took this photo except that in hers you could see the pyramids of Giza as well as the pyramids of Abu Sir. As little as six years ago the Giza pyramids were visible from Abu Sir more often than not, but it is no longer true. 

Pyramids Make People Silly

 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.