We're All Here

We had to go visit the Sakkara Country Club where they have been renovating their hotel rooms. The rooms were originally horse boxes but they have been seriously transformed a couple of times now. The new embodiment is pretty nice.

Got The World On A String

I was going to the first terminal of Cairo International today to pick up a friend arriving from Bahrain for a riding holiday. As we walked into the old terminal we spotted two young men suspended on ropes while they wiped down the front of the building. As far as I can imagine, that's a totally endless task with all our dust.

Walk-by Shooting (with camera)

Schools have started again in Egypt so when we were driving home from doing errands downtown we were blessed with after school traffic. The bright murals on this primary school and the flags flying gaily along the fence seem very inviting, but to be totally honest the inside is probably much less welcoming due to poor teacher training and salaries and overcrowded classrooms. A pedestrian walking down the road in the street is not an unusual sight. The roads are generally more smooth and even than the sidewalks, unfortunately. So you worry about being run over rather than falling and breaking a leg.

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.

When I Grow Up...

A few weeks ago some good friends of mine asked me to take on one of their horses because they'd been transferred out of the country and couldn't take him with them. Andalus is an 11 year old gelding who has won quite a few FEI endurance races here. I'd admired him from afar for years and was delighted to take him into our herd. Introducing a horse to a herd of horses is not done casually. He'd spent a few weeks in a separate paddock adjoining the two year olds and getting to know them over the fence. Today we put them together and the youngsters thought that Andalus was simply too cool. This is one of the two year olds peeking under his role model's neck over a mouthful of hay.

Empty Food Stalls

By the third day of the Feast, salad vegetables had gotten to be a bit scarce around the house, so we ventured in to the Maadi souq. This is pretty much what we found for the most part....empty stalls. Usually you'd have trouble pushing your way down the alley. We found some tomatoes and cucumbers and called it a day.

Lights Above You

Growing up in North America, I thought of lights as strictly utilitarian. In Egypt, on the other hand, every light is a piece of decor. This brass chandelier in a garden is a lovely piece.

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.

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.