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.  

Kelly's Girls

Yesterday we were doing a mobile veterinary clinic for the Rural Wellness Initiative just outside of Shabramant/Abu Sir, a farming area of Giza that is south of the Giza plateau. With all the governmental unrest and changes in the past few years, agricultural services to farmers have essentially died in Egypt, so members of my farm staff, some veterinarians and members of the Donkey Sanctuary staff have gotten together to provide free vet care for the small farmers in a roughly 300 acre square. Neighbours and friends donate money to buy simple preventative care veterinary medications such as wormers, vitamins,  and antibiotics for wound care.  The Donkey Sanctuary trained our staff in hoof trimming, abscess treatment and also how to flush the tear ducts of donkeys, which when blocked cause the tears to run down the donkeys' faces attracting flies which infect the skin with parasites causing long open sores on the face.

We have found a local craftsman to manufacture sturdy fly masks to protect the donkeys' faces from the flies, more  humane halters that help to control wayward donkeys without causing damage to their noses as is caused by the usual chain halters, and noseband covers to prevent chain damage for people who are using the chain halters.

But a huge part of the fun of this work is seeing the children of the countryside playing, like these two girls who were on their way home from school and hitched a ride on a VERY slow moving truck.  As it slowed even more to pass our clinic site, a little boy joined them on the bumper.

A Quick Look Is Plenty

I'm not entire sure what the guy owning the truck had in mind, but I'm pretty sure that misspelling "ingestion" wasn't it. Still, with all the aggravation of driving in Cairo traffic, it gave me the giggles and I was delighted to catch it.

The Road To Hell

I went to Sakkara Country Club with a friend today to arrange a stay for him and his wife next weekend. While there the manager opened his drapes and waved at a dark line in the desert next to the Club. Apparently last night a group of local sand and gravel miners trucked in tons of clay to construct a road coming in from the asphalt road to the Giza dump to the north, along the edge of the desert and then up the hills just behind the Club. Apparently the goal is to mine and truck away the hills behind the Club that hid the sight and considerable stench of the Giza dump from the rest of us. And this is on antiquities land. The dump is not but the road most certainly is, and it's highly probable that the workers on this endeavor will enjoy a bit of moonlight archaeology. So who are they paying off? The Army or Antiquities? Or both?

Wake Up Call!!

I really hate posting ugly pictures of Egypt when there is so much beauty here, but every now and then I have to in hopes of helping people care for our country. The government (old government) built an extension of the Ring Road to connect the end of the Moneeb coming from Kattameya to the part of the ring road that circled around to the north of the city. Originally the road was intended to go around behind the Giza Plateau but UNESCO blocked that route arguing that the construction was not good in an antiquities area. Just last fall someone put up some tent material along the canal just where the extension took off from ground level and began dumping garbage there. Now every day trucks come and dump load after load of smelly gross garbage under the overpass while bulldozers dig it up again and put it in big trucks to move somewhere else instead.

All of this is incredibly stupid. Instead of investing money in the Zebaleen who recycle roughly 80% of the waste they collect, we are paying people to move it around in trucks, using gasoline and polluting the air further. And it goes to landfills, which as might be expected, FILL UP!

Soon Appearing at a Midan Near You

We were driving into the city today to do some necessary errands and to see what was going on for the first time in a few weeks. The traffic was occasionally even worse than usual Cairo traffic. We found out later that there was a fire in the Ministry of the Interior downtown (rumours are that a records room burned...how convenient!) and a demonstration at the Ministry of Agriculture. Not sure what that one was about.

On our way into the city on the Moneeb Bridge we spotted a pickup truck with a wrought iron sculpture in the back. The young people holding it up were cheering and we weren't the only ones shooting pictures. A young man was sitting in the window of the passenger side of a car and following the truck. The sculpture was created by Mohamed Allam of Fagnoon and I'll have to keep my eye out for it.

Shyness

We were driving behind the girls in the truck who were laughing and waving at us until I stuck the camera out the window. As soon as they camera disappeared they were laughing again.

Band On The Run

Another uniquely Egyptian traffic photo. While crawling along in some heavy traffic the other night we saw this band casually sitting on top of their equipment in a pickup truck. That's one way of keeping an eye on things being transported.

Do It Yourself Shade

Apologies to blog friends but I was in New York City for the past ten days visiting my offspring.

This shot was taken, as many of our photos are, on the highway as we pulled up behind a truck carrying furniture and a workman who decided that balancing a drawer over his head would provide enough shade to protect himself from sunstroke. Now if we followed rules here, we would never have these great scenes to meditate on.

A Little Help From Friends

A week ago I was hosting a group of high school students at the farm and their bus managed to run off the dirt road into a ditch. My jeep isn't exactly big enough to drag even a small school bus back to the track, but happily my neighbours happened to have a bulldozer handy. They came over and very, very carefully lifted the bus back onto the road. What would we do without our neighbours?

Unpacking The Shopping

Ok, so we got the cabbage, macaroni, some rice, the chickens....and don't forget the sheep. This is truly bulk shopping.

On The Way Home

Yesterday was a bit of a mad rush finishing things with a friend who has been staying here for a month. We hoped to be home early but the sun was setting as we crossed the Nile to Giza. The north wind had blown all the pollution away and the clouds glowed crisply in the sky outlined in silver, pink and gold. On an evening such as this it's hard to imagine that all this beauty is just there to enjoy.

Ridem Cowboys!

What can I say? I was just driving into Maadi to see my physiotherapist and there they are cruising along the Ring Road at about 80 km per hour. They LOVED having their picture taken....

FEET!!

Cairo roads provide endless amusement. I was interested in the haj painting on the back of the truck and only spotted the feet later.

The Shop Comes To The Village

Most villagers don't own cars, and it isn't easy to go to town with a donkey cart. If you think an SUV is difficult to park, try a donkey. At least the SUV doesn't get bored and decide to go home. Clever merchants load a pickup truck with what they think that the village women will want and make their rounds.

Against The Flow

Drivers in Egypt are simply amazing and it doesn't matter what they are driving. In the village a donkey cart winds in and out of enormous trucks going against traffic. It simply boggles the mind.

Colour!

Truck drivers here like colour. They paint their trucks blue, red, yellow and then apply stickers and such to add even more colour and pattern. I was sitting in traffic next to one and these colours just grabbed my eye.