Turnip seller Abu Sir

 In the fall when they plant the berseem for the winter the villagers plant turnips as well. Sometimes they are planted in with the berseem crop and harvested with the second or third cutting of the berseem. Other times they plant them along the borders of the beds and harvested as needed. Turnips in Egypt are generally eaten raw like the radishes that are closely related. I like to cook the greens but this isn't a common dish. Generally they are cut and pickled in a simple brine solution and eaten as an accompaniment to almost anything.  She was enjoying  the winter sun in Abu Sir and snacking on some of her wares.

Things To Keep Us Safe

Almost every car in Egypt has something hanging from its rear view mirror.  In my case, it's quite a few somethings. The bottom object is a beaded triangle made by the Bedouin women of St. Katherine's which is filled with sand from the desert around the monastery, which is supposed to protect vehicles and travelers. The blue disk at the top is a Turkish evil eye charm which is a circle of blue glass with a white glass center.  And finally hanging from a bracelet of blue glass beads in the Turkish style is the kaf, or hand of Fatima, which is supposed to protect from the evil eye. In Cairo traffic, you need all the help you can get.

The Tiring Building

If you are driving from Khan el Khalili to downtown, you see this extraordinary building to your right. Originally built by a Turkish born Austrian as a department store, it only served as such for about ten years until 1920 and since then has been floating in ownership limbo. You can read more about it at cairobserver.com/post/38678056409/landmark-tiring-department-store. 

A Loved Dog

I spotted a dog wearing a sweater barking at passersby in the area of The City Of The Dead that adjoins the Autostrade. Lucky dog on these chilly days!

The Snow in Egypt

 For some bizarre reason these days I can't load photos from my desktop so all my posts are from my phone or iPad. We didn't get any snow in Cairo or Giza at all, just enormous quantities of rain. The snow in Egypt fell on New Cairo which is a suburb up on the desert hill just east of Cairo and in St. Katherine's in the mountains in the center of Sinai. It isn't at all that unusual to get snow in Sinai, but snow in the gated communities east of Cairo was a first. There was no snow at all at the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, despite photos posted to Facebook. Those were either a park in Japan with miniatures or photoshopped.

Someone else's photos of the snow in Cairo

Stars In Your Eyes

Every time I go to Khan el Khalili I almost have to tie my hands to keep from buying  lamps. These metal lamps with their cutouts are beautiful to look at and cast a lovely light as well. But with the media saying how "dangerous" Cairo is, the three of us women were the only foreigners we saw there. It's tragic as so many families are in desperate straits for the lack of tourism. 

Even Egyptians Can Be Tourists

What happens when you put an Egyptian on a camel at Giza and you give him a camera? You get even more funny pictures than you might expect from a foreigner. And oddly enough some of them get seasick. 

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 Lonely Sarcophagus

...and a sad comment on pollution. Roughy ten or fifteen years ago a friend of mine was visiting the antiquities at Sakkara and took this photo except that in hers you could see the pyramids of Giza as well as the pyramids of Abu Sir. As little as six years ago the Giza pyramids were visible from Abu Sir more often than not, but it is no longer true. 

Flipflop Land

A visiting friend needed some sandals so we went into Nazlet Semman to find them. Most of the poorer Egyptians wear these most of the time