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".

International Language

A visitor at a veterinary clinic day held at our farm decided to do some simple disappearing coin magic tricks for the village children. He speaks no Arabic, they speak no English. But everyone understood.

Important Addition To The Neighbourhood

We have much less pollution out here than in the city and more room, at least technically. But most of the land in the countryside is spoken for and used for farming or housing for the most part. The true stuff of life for male Egyptians under the age of about 50 is football (aka, soccer for North Americans) and it is played in any place that it can be played. In the villages along the desert there are football pitches lined up along the edge of the desert that are filled every Friday afternoon. Near my farm, an enterprising individual leveled some land, fenced it and laid out a football pitch that can be rented by the hour. If everyone playing chips in a couple of LE, the cost of a game is minimal for each. There are even lights for a night game. This is going to be a busy place.

A Sign of Normalcy

I suspect that Egyptian boys could find a place to play soccer ANYWHERE. This young man was getting in some good kicks to a barely inflated ball in a blocked street near Tahrir. A silver lining to any cloud.

Homemade Playground

Some children in a village play in an abandoned truck that was parked across the alley from an animal shelter near us. Of course this would be considered terrible in the "civilised" world, but I would have loved it as a kid.

Fussball At The Harley Shop

Harley Davidson and Cairo don't usually roll off the tongue together. After all, with our traffic roaring down the highway isn't usually an option. Be that as it may, there is a Harley Davidson shop in Zamalek and another in Mohendessin. And the one in Zamalek has a nice fussball game to play with.

Cat's Cradle

We decided to drive through Nazlit el Semman because Catherine had never seen it. It's a pretty horrifying place with all the stables and the horses who are worked way too young and way too hard. The suffering, pain and fear are so thick you can cut them with a knife. At the very end, just before we turned onto a main road, we spotted these two young men, one of them teaching the other to play cat's cradle, an ancient string game.

The Next National Team

These determined young men are typical of boys this age here. If there is one thing that Egyptian males take seriously, it's football, aka, soccer. In any small patch of bare ground you will find a group of boys (or men sometimes) kicking a ball around, and they can create a good football pitch out of anyplace. Naturally, one is less likely to find a three-piece suit playing football but on a weekend once the vests and ties have been shed, even the suits are game.

Sandy Picnic

Three village girls share snacks on a sunny hillside near the Step Pyramid. The edge of the desert is a favourite play area for the children.

That Time Of Year

Each fall they open the canal between the Nile River and the lake at Dahshur to flood the lake bed for the migrating waterfowl. It isn't entirely altruistic as the military have duck blinds on the lake that are rented out for totally exorbitant rates, but the rest of us and the birds that are lucky enough to avoid the hunters do appreciate it. The village boys are probably less thrilled since their goalposts are clearly visible on their now very soggy playing field. The lake bed will slowly dry over the winter.

Easter 2008, Round One

Happy Easter, everyone...or at least Happy western Easter. We celebrate both the European Easter and the Eastern Orthodox/Coptic Easter, which will come in about a month. So today was the first Easter of the year. I spent it at an early Easter brunch with my Lebanese/Finnish/Egyptian/Canadian adopted/extended family in Maadi. We had a lovely lunch and then an air-conditioned (it was over 100F/38C today) Easter Egg hunt after which the adults had a great time assembling Kinder toys from inside the chocolate eggs. After that I headed back to the countryside to join another Easter lunch/dinner in a garden at a neighbouring farm with an outdoor Easter Egg hunt that had children working in teams to solve puzzles that would lead to the location of a buried treasure. The adult team leaders, including myself, had to be able to explain the directions of the game in English, Arabic, and Danish...though other languages were helpful and we resorted to a mom to help out with the Danish.

I don't think that I will be hungry for a while.

I Can Fly!

What is it about the pyramids that inspires such lunacy in people? I really don't know but I like it. I recall visiting Stonehenge eons ago before it was all put behind walls and explanations, when it was just a bunch of rocks in a field, and my brother posing for a photo on the edge of one of the horizontal stones in a traditional surfer's stance, hanging five. What will we do for dreams when everything has been made safe?

Waiting Out the Rain

On a wet afternoon in Cairo a group of men play dominoes at a coffee shop while waiting for a shower to stop. Visitors sometimes wonder what is smoked in the waterpipes at the coffee shops, but as a rule it is a fruit flavoured or honey flavoured tobacco.

After School

Like boys almost anywhere in the world, this group is wheel-mad. A Saturday afternoon is best spent with friends and bicycles. I watched the tentative attempts at "no hands" while waiting for a friend.

For the Artist in All of Us

Out on the Mariouteya Road on the way to Sakkara is a unique art center. Fagnoon is run by Mohamed Allam who decided to give children an artistic outlet in a way that no one else here has ever done. His center is in the countryside and out in the sunlight and fresh air. For 40 LE (roughly $8) a child can spend all day on two art projects and no one will rush him. The projects range from pottery to painting to wood working and staff are on hand to help with materials or an extra hand. The center itself is built in a totally child-friendly fashion with outdoor pottery wheels set in a garden that is reached by a curving bridge that is much stronger than it looks. Patios on the second floors are connected by other bridges and part of the ground floor has a wonderful net made of coloured cotton material for children to climb, slide down and swing from. Activity is the order of the day. A small flock of goats roam the pottery garden and there is a huge pile of lumber for choosing wood with which to work. Open air showers are even available to clean paint and mud from mucky artists before they get back in the car. The name of the center, Fagnoon, is an Arabic joke based on the words for artist "Fanan" and crazy "Megnoon". It's a wonderful place to go nuts, as I noticed the day I visited when a group of college students (probably people who started coming to the center while still in secondary school) were streaking about the upper verandahs with water balloons. Many of the schools in the area use the center for art classes, and it's usually a favourite with students long after they leave for college.

My photos may be a bit spotty for a while as my camera is unhappy and must go in for service. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can do with my Nokia....

Just Resting, Thank You

Egypt is a playful country. People work hard but they see a lot of humour in life and they like to play, whether it's an actual game or a joke or just a bit of clowning with a friend in the street. And we do have some stunning props! This lovely red granite sarcophagus lies in the desert near the railway to Fayoum and everyone who sees it has the irresistible urge to climb on or in it. I have a whole collection of sarcophagus photos.

The Flute Man

I've known this man for almost fifteen years and have probably bought about twenty flutes from him over that time, first for my own children and now for other people's. His face is wonderful and his smile as he patiently instructs purchasers in the delicacies of blowing a bamboo whistle is irresistible. My driver was the latest victim of my purchases of two whistles for his sons.

Immortal Games

School is out and the kids are simmering in over 40 degree heat (Celsius, over 100 Fahrenheit) and entertaining themselves with quiet games. While in Maadi doing errands I saw these two boys who were playing a game that I used to call "lagging pennies", tossing stones against a low wall and collecting those that came closest to the wall.