All Tied up

Just before Ramadan started, about a month ago, I had to have surgery on my right shoulder because encroaching arthritis had produced some sharp bone that had severed a tendon in the shoulder. The hassle of surgery aside, this has meant living with my right arm tied up next to my body and absolutely no way to use both hands. I'm now slipping free of the bindings and have two hands for my keyboard as long as I don't move my shoulder.

So this young donkey reminded me of my predicament with its traditional village binding of the legs just above the knees and hocks and the stitched together ear tips. The villagers believe that if they don't do this the legs will grow crooked and the ears will flop, which is, of course, utter rubbish. When our George was born my staff at the time wanted to do this and I laughed at them pointing out that we never do this to foals. George has lovely straight ears and legs despite being deprived of his bindings.

White Donkeys

The original donkeys were grey with black stripes on their legs, a black bar over their shoulders and a black stripe down their back. Somewhere along the line in Egypt the predominant colour for donkeys has become white and I have no idea why. But this had to have been one of the whitest donkeys I've ever seen

Fading Into White.

We had a young German couple come to stay at the farm a little while ago. They do photographic art and went out to the Rural Wellness Initiative Egypt's mobile vet clinic with us. Jan Nikolai set up a white plastic drop cloth to shoot portraits of some of the farmers and children with their animals. The results were amazing.

Little Things Mean a Lot

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.

Movers And Shakers

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.

Lending a Hand

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.

Walking In Circles

A blindfolded donkey walks alone around the track pulling the wooden bar that turns a sakia, a water wheel in a palm grove near Dahshur.

Helping Farmers By Helping Animals

The Egyptian Society for Animal Friends is doing farm animal clinics at our farm every Thursday afternoon. Farmers can bring their donkeys, water buffalo, goats, whatever, to the doctors to have wounds checked, animals wormed and generally checked out. This is important for the farmers because many of them live too far away from a vet to be able to get their animals to one. We enjoy it as my grooms get to assist and learn more about animal care. And sometimes we get a visitor who has an ingenious solution to a problem. For some odd reason, the flies LOVE donkey blood and will bit the donkeys until they have raw wounds. This poor lady has wounds on her face and on her legs, so her owner cut a pair of pants and tied them on her legs so that the flies can't reach them.

Waiting Their Turns

We hosted a vet clinic at the farm today. Doctors from the Egyptian Society of Animal Friends came and treated our neighbours donkeys, cows, and water buffalo for free. Most of the work was pretty easy going, worming, hoof trimming and so on, along with a lot of talking to help the farmers and their children learn to care for their animals better. We'll do it again next week and expect an even better turnout.

An Egyptian Cattle Drive

 While driving into Maadi yesterday I encountered an Egyptian cattle drive of sorts. The farmers from the eastern province bring their cows and some of their sheep and goats into the farming area here around Sakkara and Dahshur every July/August. The animals graze from fields that are being harvested and avoid some of the spraying of the cotton plants in their home province. In the old days, they used to walk them here but now they use trucks.

Egyptian Driving Clue

A friend of mine once waved a hand at a chaotic flow of cars down the streets of Cairo and blamed it all on donkeys. I was puzzled as there were no donkeys present. No, she explained, it isn't the donkeys who are here but the donkeys that the drivers' grandfathers used to drive who are to blame. Donkeys are smart, they learn where to go, and they take care of themselves and their carts with out input from the driver. When Egyptians get behind the wheel of a car, they act as though the car were as smart as the donkey...but it isn't. 

Always Time To Talk

If there is one thing that Egyptians love to do, it is talking. Most of the social interaction in this country is conversation over tea, coffee, a domino game. In this case two friends stop to chat on their way home from the fields, despite the high winds and the stifling dust. It's never too unpleasant for a chat.

Balancing Act

If you live in Egypt, you've seen the donkeys piled high with berseem clover in the winter, a block of beautiful greenness that extends way beyond the donkey's sides and high into the air, often with a young boy perched on top. How do they do that anyway? It's all in the packing. The berseem isn't tied but merely balanced.

Highway Robbery

Horses don't have the same ideas of ownership as we do. To them, a donkey wagon full of fresh green grass is like a tray of canapes being passed around at a cocktail party. What can you do?

Ubiquitous

There might be people who think that donkeys have no place in a city, but I would beg to differ. A few more donkeys and we might have fewer traffic jams. We certainly would have fewer accidents...unless motorists took to picking on the donkeys. They at least have the brains not to run into each other. I'm all for donkeys. Easier on the environment.

I'll Just Stop For A Snack

Donkeys are really smart. They can be sent on errands from a farmer's house to his fields and will reliably deliver things, in this case a load of manure for the fields. They do, however, have their own ideas about when and where they can stop for a break.

Hey! Look What's In Here!

The boy was leading his sheep along a trail towards us. They were on their way home and the donkeys were leading the way as they usually do if the trip (like home to dinner) is important. He stopped to greet us as they were passing a gate to a fenced plot of land and the lead donkey took advantage of the distraction to check out the grass on the other side of the door.

Yet Another Use For Duct Tape

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The Donkey Sanctuary isn't a place; it's an idea. The parent organisation is in the UK but in Egypt it consists of a group of trucks fitted with drawers for medications and tools, a farrier, a vet, a harness maker and a driver. They go out in to the villages where donkeys are the main form of transport or they go to the brick kilns where they haul the bricks around. At each visit they check working donkeys for signs of worms, sharp teeth, wounds from bad harnesses or hoof abscesses...among many, many, many other things. The donkeys are treated on the spot and the owners are coached on how to care for their furry partners. Farmers and brick kiln workers simply can't do without their donkeys. In this case they were driving along on their way to a regular clinic visit when the driver noticed a limping donkey. They stopped, examined the animal and found an abscess in the hoof. This was excavated a bit so that it could drain and a mix of sugar and betadine were packed into the clean hoof, covered with cotton to pad it, and then secured with shiny silver duct tape. All for free.

The Bean Cart

One of my earliest memories of Egypt was the donkey-drawn cart that delivered foul (stewed fava beans) every morning. These are simmered gently in huge heavy pots overnight and then every housewife has her own secret seasonings for them. The donkeys are amazing. They learn the route in no time at all and stop automatically at the various homes that are customers.

Driving School

People wonder how Egyptians learn to be such horrifying drivers. This is how...driving a donkey cart the wrong way against huge trucks.