Equestrian Photography

It isn't easy to take good photographs from horseback and taking great ones is a total fluke. I was out with a couple of friends this morning who decided to record the occasion. The contortions to get the right angle were entertaining, but the horses found the approaching cattle and donkey cart even more riveting.

A Girl and Her Dogs

 

Christmas is chaotic anywhere anytime. My daughter and I decided that a walk in the desert would help to clear our heads. A couple of the dogs agreed.

Milling the grain

We were riding through Sakkara village and saw these two women seated on the ground facing each other milling grain with an old stone hand mill. I suspect that they were grinding sorghum and possibly fenugreek to make a very old type of local bread. It's extremely thin and crispy with a slight herbal taste...Egyptian crackers. I love it and it isn't something that you can buy anywhere. You have to get it from the village women.

On The Boardwalk

There was a wedding in the village just down the road from me last night. The festivities generally take place out of doors just outside the home of the family, and in this case some ingenious soul decided to make more room for the partygoers by creating a platform that slightly overhung the canal. Of course the younger boys in the neighbourhood had to take over the platform and the resulting overhang in the afternoon for a good exploration.

Face To Face: Women's Options

Egypt is a country of contradictions and nowhere is this more clear than Cairo. While visiting a shopping mall recently I shot these two shop windows with my phone. They basically face each other across the walk and express very clearly two aspects of life here.

A Wall Of Flowers

A shop selling silk flowers is partially shaded by strings of flowers hanging like a screen.

Making The Do

Egypt has a big television and film industry and you can run into them in the oddest places. I went to look at a local hotel for a friend of mine and found that there was a birthday party taking place by the pool and a television series being filmed in the garden. This hairdresser was working away in a corner of the pool area with a gas powered curling iron.

Village Store

Many of the village women run small businesses out of their homes while the men work in the palm groves and fields. This woman and her daughter sell dried beans, rice and such in Sakkara village.

Walk This Way

I've had a friend, Tracy Karbus of The Fifth aElement (www.TheFifthaElement.com) staying with me for a couple of weeks. Tracy arranges very special tours to Egypt and she also does equine-assisted learning workshops, wonderful opportunities for play and learning with horses. We had a group of high school girls from one of the American schools in Cairo and the task was to convince a horse to moved to a specific place in a large paddock without the use of language, touching, or bribing with food. Kids today are pretty inventive!

Traveling Department Store

Village women don't have the transport or the time to go into town to buy things so enterprising businessmen bring goods to the village wives. In this case, a tricycle motorcycle base has been fitted with a box on the back to carry cartons and some rails on the sides where quilts and blankets or dresses can be hung for viewing.