Locked In

Some of the heavy old doors on mosques and palaces in Cairo have some beautiful locks installed. Of course the keys are skeleton keys and security wasn't all that great, but the locks are gorgeous.

Stars In Your Eyes

Every time I go to Khan el Khalili I almost have to tie my hands to keep from buying  lamps. These metal lamps with their cutouts are beautiful to look at and cast a lovely light as well. But with the media saying how "dangerous" Cairo is, the three of us women were the only foreigners we saw there. It's tragic as so many families are in desperate straits for the lack of tourism. 

Rope Of The Pharoahs

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.

All Packed And Ready To Go

One of the aesthetically pleasing aspects of the date industry in Egypt is the way that the farmers mostly  utilise the products of the palm to harvest and ship the fruit. The boxes are made of the ribs of the palm fronds, the mats on which they are dried are made of the leafy portion of the fronds, the ropes that the pickers use are made of the fiber found at the base of the frond.

Creativity

A traditional component of most village homes is a mastaba, a bench on the front of the home where the family can sit in the cool of the evening or in the morning sun. Many of them are simply painted concrete, but the owners of this home took fragments of tile to create this image of lotus flowers.

Bling For the Carters

Egypt is a country that still relies on real four legged horsepower for transportation. Harnesses are both important and mortal, but where do you go to buy harness fittings or ornaments? We went to the Sunday souq at Menawet to find things for our donkey harnesses. Most of the pieces are handmade.

The Water Cooler

In a country with heat like ours, water is very important. Traditionally it is something that people provide for others. During Mameluke times people built sabils throughout the city where people and animals could get a drink. This tower contains terracotta jugs that absorb some of the water and then cool their contents through evaporation through the walls.

Colourful gardening

Wheelbarrows are quite simple to make and despite the cheap factories of China, most of them in Egypt are still made here. And Egyptians like colour. So why shouldn't your wheelbarrow match your flowers? The wooden poles in the barrel are handles for tools that are also made by hand by our blacksmiths

Etfadalu! Welcome!

This is one of the wrought iron statues at Fagnoon. Most, if not all, are created by the owner Mohamed Allam. The bridge goes over the canal so that child and adult clients can wander back and forth to do pottery, painting, or maybe play in the mud pit. What a wonderful place!

Political Pottery

I've been gone for over three weeks now, having taken my annual holiday to visit my kids in New York City. It's pretty much the only traveling that I do and I'm always sort of stuck trying to find a reasonable present for them. New York apartments are notoriously tiny, so I have to come up with something useful, enjoyable and small. This year I found some Palestinian pottery at the Bedouin Market in Maadi. The owner imports Palestinian pottery from Hebron in the West Bank and I decided to combine my political inclinations with gift buying so they got some lovely tile hotplates and a bowl.

Positive and Negative

Our Great Dane and our Dalmation decided to sneak a nap on a low sofa against the bedouin pillows.

A Shave And A Haircut

Remember those beautiful patterns cut into the camels' coats? They look so crisp that they must be done with some pretty good clippers. The clippers involved are in fact hand made iron scissors wielded by hand.

Things To Do With Rice Straw

Apologies for not posting more but I broke my right hand two weeks ago and that has seriously slowed down my photography and typing. Casts hit a lot of extra keys.

We grow a lot of good rice in Egypt and the stems can be used for these beautiful thatched umbrellas and brooms.


photos by Feeney

Quiet Shops

I was taking some friends to Coptic Cairo the other day and we noticed a new shopping area near the entrance to the area. It was cool, quiet, well laid out and maintained.....and empty. Most of the shops carried the handicrafts that various NGO's and charitable groups produce. This young woman had fabrics and embroideries from Upper Egypt.

Beginning a Batik

A staff member at Wissa Wassef explains how the batiks that they make there are prepared. This one is floral and starting in a startling orange.

Bedouin Carpet with Kitten

An ethnic craft shop had spread some of its Bedouin carpets on the sidewalk in the sun and a wandering kitten decided to take advantage of a nice spot for a nap. The carpets are woven on narrow looms and then sewn together to make a larger carpet. The Bedouins generally use a mix of wools: goat, sheep, and camel.

Washing Rugs

Bright rag rugs hang in the sun to dry. These are made of recycled fabrics by the villagers and the zebaleen. They wash beautifully and make great rugs or throws on sofas.

Redoing the Pillows

Many people in Egypt use cotton to fill their mattresses and pillows. Aside from the substantial weight of the filling, cotton eventually packs down necessitating the visit of the people who remove the stuffing, fluff it up and restuff the mattresses or pillows. Here the man is beating the pillow to settle the stuffing.

Green Wool

Driving into the Wissa Wassef compound we found one of the daughters supervising the dyeing of the wool used for weaving their famous tapestries. They use natural dyes from the plants grown on the premises.

UFO's in Khan el Khalili

The tops for the posts certainly look like spaceships up close, but they are based on the traditional designs on buildings in the area.