Fouling The Nest

Most days when I go out into the desert with my horses, I feel blessed. I have equestrian friends all over the world who have to load horses into a trailer and drive for hours to get to someplace where they can ride for a morning. I can saddle horses, get on, ride for about ten minutes through a village full of friendly children calling out to me, and find myself in some of the most beautiful desert in the world. With the amazing pyramids of Abu Sir, Sakkara, Giza and Dahshur within riding distance, I have what most riders just dream of.

When I first began riding in the desert around Abu Sir and Sakkara, there weren't very many riders out there. During the early 90's we didn't have that many four-wheel drive vehicles in Egypt, so there weren't many vehicles out there either. The desert, once you were well away from the three-ring circus that is the Giza Plateau, was clean, unmarked and silent. The few riders who went out exploring on horseback left a few hoofprints, but that was about it.
A big revolution came with the introduction of the desert endurance races under the "guidance" of the UAE/FEI...races that saw as many, if not more, SUV's racing across the desert as there were horses, with passengers in the cars passing water bottles to riders who simply dropped them onto the sand. Many of these bottles were eventually collected by the villagers who recycled them, but many more remained to remind us of the racers. Not only did the racers leave their trash (water bottles, electrolyte syringes, and power bar wraps) but the cars' tires tore up the desert sand in a way that horses never could. The fact that the desert is a delicate environment seems to have evaded the notice of most of the organisers of these events.

There has always been an understanding of sorts between the riders in our area and the antiquities department that riders would maintain a good distance between ourselves and the antiquities. We don't bother the archaeologists who are excavating their sites, we don't interfere with the antiquities' activities, we don't dump our trash in the desert. After all, that would be self-defeating, wouldn't it? We have the world's best riding area...so why ruin it? Lately, however, the Antiquities Council have joined the ranks of polluters of the very place that they are supposed to be protecting. When archaeologists are excavating an area, a lot of sand, dirt, rock and debris is generated. A lot of time this excess is just piled near the dig after it's been sifted to remove any important objects, however small. Over the past few years, however, piles of debris that are obviously from digs have been appearing along a track that leads from the main Sakkara pyramid area to a hill that the Japanese have been excavating for quite a long time.

These piles include very old mud bricks, pottery fragments, pieces of old wood, and quite a lot of old human bones. Even with only the basic understanding of human anatomy, a skull is pretty identifiable. One might feel that it was inappropriate to simply dump human remains in the desert, that perhaps they could have been sifted out and then reburied, but on the other hand, all the old stuff kind of goes with the area, after all. What definitely does not go with the area, however, are old paint cans, plastic bags full of ordinary day-to-day garbage, and bricks, tiles and old steel reinforcement rods that have been removed from the remains of a building that the Antiquities Council decided to remove. These are definitely eyesores.

I suppose that the logic is that the piles of trash can't be seen by the tourists who are walking around the Step Pyramid compound. Well, if they don't know what to look for, probably this is true. They can be seen on Google Earth however, and they are certainly seen by the riders who pass by this area as we exercise our horses. Maybe because we live here, we don't really count. It isn't as though there is no place to put all of this rubbish, after all. The Giza Municipal Dump is also within eyesight (read: eyesore) of the Sakkara Antiquities Area, a fact that has been brought to the attention of Dr. Hawass. Sure, the dig crews might have to arrange a truck to carry it to the dump about 20 minutes away, but since they are using a truck to dump it all in the desert, this shouldn't be much of a problem. Maybe it's time for the Antiquities folks at Sakkara to start cleaning up after themselves. We don't see this sort of mess around Abu Sir or many of the other antiquities areas that are currently being excavated. Come on, guys, clean up your act.
copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Seasonal Renewals

You would think that after over fifty Januaries, they would get to be a bit routine...but one of the things that keeps us alive is the fact that life changes all the time and you never know what you will find. This winter has been a good example. On the plus side of the register, I've had many more visitors this year than in years before. Over New Years I had two interesting Sue's visiting, one from Spain and the other from Kenya. I love listening to my guests' impressions of Egypt and the ways that life here differs from life in other places. Unfortunately for one of the Sue's, Kenya's elections did not lead to a peaceful New Year and she flew home early to check on her home and pets.

Riding with another visitor in the desert, we happened to go up a trail from a village to the sands that I'd never taken before and we found ourselves amidst pharaonic ruins on top of a hill. I'm used to seeing a stone wall or a pyramid, but these ruins were hallways and courtyards of a complexity that I haven't see before outside of some of the huge temples in Luxor. It's always so delightful to find something new in an area that you think is so familiar to you that you know it all. You never do know everything even about a patch of sand, and now I have the fun of sharing it with some of my local riding partners.

The winter weather that has us all shivering has been fairly unique in my experience here. I woke early one morning to find frost on my grass, a clean white carpet of real cold frost. The dogs were seriously unimpressed with it and in fact did everything they could to avoid walking on it. As far as they've ever known, the ground in the garden simply isn't white and cold. The lawn as well hasn't been too impressed with the frost and has turned a rather sad beige as a result, but I suspect that it will recover, since the frost only burned the green stems and not the roots. Canadian grass has to be much hardier to withstand the snow that they get in Alberta.

For my current batch of Canadian guests the contrast is pretty strong and they snicker a bit at our shivering in our rather feeble cold, but the wind whipping off the desert has had them zipping fleece jackets as well. Still, taking a good look at the desert and countryside through their eyes lets me see my surroundings anew. The children are on midyear holiday right now and not in school, which means that where ever we ride in the farming area we ride, we are surrounded by crowds of kids.

The children are ever hopeful that one of these days I will strike it rich and start distributing cash to them all, but there being far more of the children than there is money in my pocket, restricting my gifts to the odd photo printed in the study or a laugh and a chat seems to be the plan. They are good kids for the most part, with lovely dark brown or hazel eyes and big smiles.
Happily, Paddi and Linda enjoy the interactions and they've gotten some great photos. Guess it's time to warm up the printer.
copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

No Man Is An Island

Funny things happen to islands in the Nile near Cairo. A couple of years ago residents of Maadi noticed dredging equipment working on a small unoccupied island just off the Military Hospital on the Maadi corniche. Rocks were piled against the banks of the little island, palm trees brought and planted...all very intriguing. Oddly enough, no one could find out who was doing the work or why or to what end. Now as you drive by there is a very manicured island with a picture of the President of Egypt on it. Did he change the island? No one knows. But there was quite a loud fuss made over the process because changing the shape or size of an island changes the way that the river flows and the River Nile is not just an Egyptian river but it is a major world river. When the Aswan dam was constructed and the silt that used to travel down the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea became blocked behind the dam, the farmers of Egypt weren't the only people affected by the change. The sardine industry was devastated because the sardines relied on the nutrients that had been reaching the sea through the Delta...except now their food source had vanished. Changing a river in any way affects much more than the people who are living on its banks.

Not long ago news reports mentioned that another island was having problems of a similar sort, but this was a larger island and one with quite a few people who have been living there for a number of generations. The islanders found some dredges parked alongside their island and some military personnel standing about on the shore. Having both military personnel and dredges is a very awkward situation. The military have fairly remarkable powers in Egypt... one doesn't want them as an enemy.

The situation became quite tense in fairly short order. The inhabitants of the island are, for the most part, farmers and as such very dependent on their land. At the rate that farmland is being developed in Egypt, to have to pull up stakes and move to another plot of land would not be an easy thing at all. Starting over on reclamation land is a massive enterprise in terms of installing infrastructure and building a new life...plus, Egyptians in general really don't like moving. They like living near their families and friends from generations back.

I've been watching the news to see what is happening with this island and for the past week or so there's been no news. The islanders are fighting the incursion of the army in the courts, but in a country where the military have extraordinary powers, that's not an encouraging activity. There's been no indication of who it is who wants the island or who claims to own it and no indication of the intended outcome. Hopefully, at some level of planning in this issue, people will realise that this isn't just a corner lot somewhere that might make a good grocery store. Islands are part of a river and the Nile isn't just any river.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

A Prayer for a Neighbour

One of the things about living in Egypt is the fact that my neighbours in an international sense are pretty high profile. About ten years ago, right after the end of the long Lebanese war, my husband and I had the opportunity to visit Lebanon for a weeklong conference of millers, mill owners and suppliers where the wives spent four days visiting different parts of the country. Diaa fell into the later category as one of the main suppliers of corn and soybeans in Egypt and I was happy to be a tourist. He'd been to Beirut once long before the war and I'd spent a couple of summers in Cyprus arguing idly with a Danish woman married to a Lebanese pilot who was a refugee with her two kids while various armies shelled the hills around their home above Beirut. Our longterm friendly argument was over which city was more beautiful: Beirut or Vancouver, BC. They have so much in common with the sea, the mountains, skiing, and good living. We never really decided, but Beirut definitely had some problems.

When I finally got to see Lebanon, I could definitely see my friend's side of the argument. Lebanon is one of the most lovely countries on the planet...or at least it was. When we visited the first time the scars of war were very fresh and the rebuilding that the Israelis again so brutally shattered summer before last was just getting started. Our Lebanese friends were very worried however about the generation of Lebanese who were growing up with no experience other than chaos...how can you teach order and care to people who have never known it? This is a central issue in any developing country and a heartbreaking issue for a country that knew order for so long and then lost it for fifteen years.

One of my blog notifications brought up a post about a Lebanese singer Majida el Roumi who is a UN goodwill ambasador and who recently took all of the parties in her country to task for not working together to rebuild Lebanon. She was speaking at a ceremony to remember the slain journalist Gebran Tueni and I think that every leader in the world should take these words into his/her heart:

The English translation of her speech is online at
Now Lebanon

How many hearts have to be broken? How many homes have to be ruined? How many Lebanese have to be given worries as their daily bread? How many young men and women have to leave the country before you decide to meet and put an end to this disastrous situation and this horrible division? How can divisions reach the point of having people tell me, “Do not pray at Pierre’s funeral or say a word in Gebran’s commemoration, or you would be speaking up against the others.” Who are the others? Aren’t you all Lebanese? All those martyrs who have died from the southernmost part of the country in massacres perpetrated by Israel to its northernmost part, in the case of our beloved army martyrs, and all those who died for our youth’s sake, … Aren’t they all – truly and honestly – ours? Didn’t they break our hearts? Aren’t they only guilty of being Lebanese?

We no longer meet to pray for the martyrs’ souls, since we now have “their” martyr and “our” martyr. I reject this painful discrimination. I hereby say that it was an honor to sing for Pierre inasmuch as it is an honor to speak about Gebran. If I am accused of being Lebanese, then I am the lucky one. I no longer care who will be offended by these words. Indeed, I know that some people will be offended, but I no longer care about them because, after 30 years of war, we have come to lose hope. I no longer care to bear witness to anyone on this earth, especially not in politics. I only bear witness to the Lord, and our Lord loves peace. He is against violence and He tells me to bear witness to what is right, to the best of our youth and to the sovereignty and freedom of this land, as any self-respecting citizen with some dignity should do. I bear witness to the tormented, martyred Lebanese people who has close brushes with death everyday and barely hangs on to life. I say: enough is enough…

You say you are entrusted with Lebanon’s sovereignty and our safety… [In reality,] you have torn the country into pieces, and you want to replace it with one that is tailor-made for confessions, parties and power obsessions. However, this country is far greater than that. You are responsible for driving wedges among us and dividing us under a single roof. You have scattered us and linked our case with half of the world’s pending issues… Why should we be a card in everyone’s hand? How can you accept to remain divided for 30 years, and then tell the whole world that you are unable to run the country’s affairs? In the end, this may be the ultimate aim. If so, then why are you doing it? You are entrusted with our freedom, our sovereignty and our independence. I am here to say: [You have done] enough… let us live.

In the name of what is right, in the name of the Lord, who you say you love and according to whose will you claim to be acting, let this state remain a state. Whose interest would be served if this nation remains unsheltered and if the state breaks up into countless component parts? I am here to conjure you up in the name of the Lord to make peace. You are so stifling us that there will be no one left to hear you. I am here for Gebran’s sake to tell him: I have come to pay tribute to you, my dear brother and friend. Our hearts will keep on beating as one as long as you are alive within us. Why is that so? Because we remained oblivious to the worth of the perfect man that you were. If no tribute is paid to you today as a King who left us, who deserves such a tribute then? Do those who have slain us deserve it? We shall not give it to them. Dear Gebran, I see your pictures on billboards, and I am ashamed to tell you that your blood will not have been spilled in vain. In the name of the everlasting God, I tell you with total confidence that there will come a day when your blood will bloom only in the three colors of our national flag. This day of freedom and sovereignty will undoubtedly come no matter how long it takes because no one can grow greater than Lebanon… Nor shall Lebanon ever be diminished. All shall perish and Lebanon shall remain, and you shall always be there, O Gebran, along with the great men who have borne witness to its dignity and its special vocation on this Earth.




copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

A Season For Horses

As I have been reminded by friends, Christmas is coming, and a trip into Maadi reminded me as well. I drove past a very expensive florist to see real Christmas trees for sale. These trees probably sell for about a thousand pounds....but they do smell right. The usual Christmas tree in Egypt is a cypress or juniper and they don't have the same scent at all. With both kids in the US for grad school this year, it's going to be quiet in some respects around here at Christmas. But not in all respects. I have guests arriving beginning day after tomorrow and staying on until after New Years. The people coming are riders so there's going to be quite a lot of work done over the next couple of weeks.

Winters in Egypt are the stuff of legend, both in the sense that a winter in Egypt was the ultimate in luxury many years ago, and in the sense that unfortunately they are no longer what they once were. Even five years ago we would have weeks of air so clear that the stones on the pyramids of Giza could be seen from Abu Sir. This is no longer the case, unfortunately, because the inversion layer over the Nile Valley is keeping a thick black pall over the city. When there is a strong north wind, the smog is dispersed to the south and we have the lovely clarity that was once so common. When there is no wind, I have to ride out into the desert to find clean air. The wind also sculpts some extraordinary cloud formations that the sunset paints with vivid colours each evening.

We now have another new face on the farm with the birth of Lily's son Rayyan. I was wakened at 5 am on the 12th. I wrapped myself in a shawl and went out to find the most enormous fuzzball on stilts I've ever seen. Lily was a cart horse when friends of mine found her working on the streets. She's probably got some draft horse in her because she is a big, fairly heavy, black mare. She spent some time as a riding horse and was recently retired to my place because of her gentle nature. A sneaky little bay colt got to her and to Shabboura the mother of Shams, giving us two totally different babies to enjoy. Shams still thinks that she's a dog and I have to put a chair in my front doorway to be sure that I won't find her exploring the living room with disastrous effects. At three days, Rayyan is almost the same size as Shams at about 6 weeks. Extraordinary. Her legs have half the bone his do and she must weigh less than he does despite the fact that she stands around eating berseem and drinking roughly 15 litres of milk a day. We still have to wait until April to see what the combination of Wadi and and Anglo-Arab will produce. This next crop, aside from being siblings, is going to be interesting.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Suffer Little Children

I heard from Mohamed today that my neighbour's son Ahmed had been asking why I hadn't been by to visit him. And why was I supposed to visit him? Well, it turned out that the families here circumcise their sons at about the age of four and it was Ahmed's turn to have this done. I was a bit shocked because I simply assumed that male infants would undergo this surgery right after birth, the way that it had been done in Canada. Please pardon the frankness, but I can see a good reason to wait since it is easier to snip off small pieces of skin when they are of a visible size, but then again the trauma to a newborn who may or may not even wake up during the process (and I know a few who slept right through it) is probably much less. However it works out, I was amiss and I snagged a small box of dark chocolate digestive biscuits as a little bribe to my small friend.

Ahmed seemed quite fine for someone who had just gone through a life-changing surgery and was buzzing around the house offering everyone cookies in no time. His older brother Mahmoud, who is in about third grade, was sitting with one of his aunts working on his math homework. When he finished that, he started his English and his aunt asked if I could help him. Sure, why not? When I saw what he was assigned, I was horrified. He was given a small paperback workbook to deal with that could not have been more irrelevant to his life if it had been written in Martian. Mahmoud and I sat together as we sounded out such vital questions as who in his family or neighbourhood played golf.

Golf? I don't think that a child in this area has ever seen a golf club. Mahmoud's aunt explained to him, "You remember that game you saw on television with the men on the grass with the sticks and the little ball?" Mahmoud's smile said volumes. Golf is not exactly a reality here. One series of questions asked about Mahmoud's interest in sport. Does he like to run? Did he play sports today? Did he go swimming today? Is he planning to record a sporting event on television today?...What was he supposed to understand from this? His family doesn't have a video machine, nor does anyone in the neighbourhood. Mahmoud has never seen anyone tape a show in his life. And swimming....just where is a boy from the countryside supposed to swim? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I chatted with Mahmoud's mother and aunt about the work. I had to admit that one of the reasons that we'd never sent our kids to Egyptian schools was the horrific curriculum that is inflicted on the students. I'd been quite aware of the enormous load of homework that these kids have for some time...this on top of the fact that Mahmoud leaves for school at 7 am and gets home at 4 pm...and the fact that the work assigned is often quite inappropriate for the age range of the children. And Mahmoud is going to one of the local private schools as well. They are suppposed to be better than the public. The public schools are much more crowded and the teachers are even less qualified. For now, Mahmoud is going to drop by in the afternoon for some help on his English and I will be explaining golf to him.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Historical Note

One of my internet treats is The Writer's Almanac, published daily by Garrison Keillor and American Public Media. Each day it brings a poem and historical notes about writers and world culture. Today's historical note offered an interesting and thought provoking reflection on the conflicts of today:

"It was on this day in 1095 that Pope Urban II, while on a speaking tour in France, called for the first Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from the Turks. There was no imminent threat. Muslims had occupied Jerusalem for hundreds of years. But Urban II had noticed that Europe was becoming an increasingly violent place, with low-level knights killing each other over their land rights, and he thought that he could bring peace to the Christian world by directing all that violence against an outside enemy. So he made up stories of how Turks in Jerusalem were torturing and killing Christians, and anyone who was willing to join the fight against them would go to heaven.

About 100,000 men from France, Germany, and Italy answered the call, formed into several large groups, and marched across Asia Minor to the Middle East. Nearly half of them died from exhaustion and sickness before they ever reached their destination. They began sacking cities along the way, and they fought among each other for the spoils of each battle. When they reached the trading city of Antioch, they killed almost everyone, including the Christians who lived there. By the time they got to Jerusalem, it had recently fallen into the hands of Egyptians, who were friendly with the Vatican. But the crusaders attacked anyway, killing every Muslim they could find. The Jews in the city gathered in the temple, and the crusaders set it on fire.

Pope Urban II died two weeks later, never hearing the news. But the crusading would go on for the next 200 years. In the fourth and last Crusade, in 1202, the crusaders never even made it to Jerusalem, but got sidetracked and wound up destroying Constantinople, which was at the time the last great city left over from the Roman Empire."

The Egyptians who whom the note refers were those under the leadership of Sallah el Din (Saladin in western history books) who built the Citadel in Cairo and established the city in its current place. One of the buildings of importance in Constantinople was Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine cathedral that was later remodeled with minarets to become the Grand Mosque of Istanbul and the model for the mosque of Mohamed Ali in the 1800's. Now when you visit the Grand Mosque you can see some of the old Christian Byzantine paintings and murals that were once painted over with whitewash, and Mohamed Ali's mosque remains a favoured resting spot for weary tourists schlepping their way through Old Cairo. The past never really leaves us.


copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani