Living in Colour

When I was building my house I decided that I wanted the house to blend in with the trees and the fields around me, so I asked for a stucco roughly the colour of the cabbages and palms in the fields nearby. After rejecting mint green, sea green, turquoise green, kelly green, forest green, and a dozen other shades, the plasterer finally got the colour right, to his great disgust. "But, madame, this is not a bright colour!", he complained. That's right. It's a grey green that is very easy on the eyes. I love the colour and am happy with it, but the neighbours have decided that this is simply another example of my eccentricity.

Local tastes in house colour are a tad stronger than mine. Sometimes I wonder if the colours are conscious choices or whether someone simply had a sale on a certain shade of paint. I remember a number of years ago when there was a sudden outbreak in lavender painted balconies in certain parts of town. We decided that a huge truckload of lavender paint had been highjacked, but it may have simply become fashionable. Riding through the villages, I notice the house painting fashions change over the years. Just recently it has become popular to paint balconies and houses and then make flower-like prints over the brighter or darker colours of the base.
The interiors of the houses are often equally strongly coloured and bright. I was also scolded for having such subdued tastes as painting my living room a dusty rose rather than a bright yellow or pink. To each his own, I guess. But then I have a collection of prints, photographs and paintings collected over the years that decorate my walls and the village houses are generally more bare of decor. Farmers save their money for schooling for children, new animals, repairs to machinery or buildings or such. Paintings are less practical.

While I choose to live in subdued tones, I really enjoy seeing the bright patterns that people paint on the balconies and walls. Cities are far too much grey cement and red brick in my mind and the colours brighten spirits as well as they brighten the view. Sometimes they are geometric patterns and some of the paint jobs provide optical illusions of texture and space.

I'm sure that in many of our more regulated communities, the local authorities would be having fits at some of these paint jobs. But that is one of the wonderful advantages of a fairly uncontrolled building code.





copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Photoshopping the "Real" World

About a week ago an Egyptian blogger noticed something odd on the Al Ahram website. While news sites from all over the world had published a photo of Obama, Mubarak, King Abdullah of Jordan, and the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian states all walking into begin a new round of peace talks, Al Ahram had published a slightly different version of the photo with Mubarak walking in front of the others. As Wael and subsequently many, many others pointed out, the picture was obviously photoshopped. One discussion of Wael's post quoted him as saying that this approach was typical in Egypt. When there was a problem to be solved, rather than really doing something people preferred to "photoshop it".

Adobe may not be too pleased to see that the name of it's photo processing program has become a verb, especially one with such controversial underpinnings, but it most definitely has. Discussions of the use of Photoshop to alter body shapes for models appear online at Jezebel.com and in media articles. People gasp and say "horrors" but the visual distortion of our world has become so commonplace that looking at something warts and all can be shocking.

I was sitting with some friends on Friday enjoying the afternoon with lunch in a garden and the talk turned to the terrible piles of rubbish that one finds at the very end of the Moneeb portion of the ring road. The road was intended to go around the back of the Giza plateau to join up with the highway to Fayoum and the other end of the Ring Road near 6th of October City. UNESCO and other groups protested the proximity of a highway to the antiquities and construction was stopped on the road abruptly. The dirt road bed still exists and is, in fact, used extensively by cars and trucks wanting a short cut to the Fayoum road. But at the end of the highway portion, trucks carrying rubbish to the Giza dump take advantage of the fact that no one is around to see them to drop of their load on the end of the highway, thereby saving the driver both time and the money that he would normally pay for entrance to the dump site. This particular spot is also one of the best places to take a distant shot of the Giza pyramids...as long as you crop out the enormous piles of stones and rubble in the foreground.

Some of the people who live in the city were asking why the government allowed such dumping and those of us who live out here just began laughing. The "government" does nothing out here and sees the need to do nothing. Every so often someone important will visit and in the weeks before the visit trees are suddenly planted along roads, canal banks are covered in truckloads of sand to disguise any ambient garbage and so on. This is like the transformation of Cairo University (which included banning most of the students) for Obama's visit. If it looks good for a photograph, then that's good enough.

But at the end of the day, we don't live in photographs, do we?


copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbanis

Here Comes The Cloud

Masry el Youm today reported that the farmers have started burning the rice straw in the fields in the Delta. This happens every year and every year I get angry about it. The smoke comes from the north nearer the sea, but is blown south to the Cairo/Giza area by the prevailing winds which blow southwards up the Nile. So in addition to the horrible mess that the cities produce in the air made up of industrial pollution, diesel exhaust, gasoline exhaust and so on, we have smoke. Throats become sore, eyes tear and swell, noses run and get stuffy. The ordinary day to day pollution of the valley is so bad already because of the inversion layer (heat and pollutants rising from the valley is trapped beneath a layer of cooler air from the sea and desert) that we truly don't need this.

The real annoyance to me, however, is the fact that rice straw is a perfectly good animal feed. There has been almost no education done among farmers who know it as bedding or compost only. Here we have a total waste of animal feed in a country where animals are still so much a part of our lives. Part of the problem is the lack of baling machines in the Delta where they grow the rice. Last year we did some checking around about the rice straw situation figuring that maybe we could get it cheaper from the farmers...which we could if they had baling machines.

Egypt could solve one of its annual problems with something so simple.


copyright 2010 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Are We Upstream or Down?

The New York Times today ran an article on cities like Seoul, South Korea, that were digging out, or "daylighting", streams and rivers that had been covered over for the sake of automobile traffic. This is an interesting idea here in Egypt where lately a lot of work has been done in areas of Giza in which large irrigation canals have been buried in pipes to make way for roadways. We do have the Nile in Cairo, although building and businesses line the river and don't really give human access to the water and view. The bridges here are crowded all night long during the summer as city residents seek the cooling breeze that persists along the river. Businesses have sprung up among those who rent out chairs, prepare food, and offer tea or soft drinks to the bridge lingerers.

Many suburbs of Cairo have lost their canals to roadways as housing has overtaken farming in the area. Maadi has a wide green space of sorts along Canal Street, named for the canal that once flowed there. I don't know if the canal was filled in or redirected through pipes. While some people say that covering the canals helps to keep the mosquito population down, I would argue that we manage plenty of mosquitoes in areas with gardens but we are lacking the frogs, toads and dragonflies that abound around open water and who are major consumers of mosquitoes. But Egypt has millions of miles of irrigation canal in the countryside that could be enjoyed by walkers and others if they came out to do so.


Living out here in the farmland I have gained a special fondness for the canals that I have to admit is not shared by many. Most people think that the canals are dirty, which in some areas they are, and especially when the water is low, they can have a rather ripe aroma of mud and rotting vegetation. The water in the canals is slow-moving so they tend to be a dark green with abundant algae, but many people don't realise that they are also full of life. They are teaming with small perch, frogs, toads, crayfish, and support a wide variety of birds and animals. One can find egrets, herons, three different varieties of kingfishers as well as bee eaters, rollers, swallows and other birds nesting near, eating from or flying over the canals.


There are problems with the canals, without doubt. They do harbour schistosomiasis parasites and the water is best viewed from a distance, but this is certainly no reason to do away with them. Schistosomiasis, or Bilharzia, is a problem for the farmers who work in the fields and are often wading in irrigation canal water. I don't know that there are any sure solutions to our need for irrigation and the problem of Bilharzia other than the easy access to inexpensive medication for it. I see that my staff (who irrigate with well water on the farm, but who might help in fields on their days off) get dosed with praziquantel twice a year at least. There is also the problem that there is no better place to dispose of a dead donkey or water buffalo than a canal if the farmer lives in the valley. The water table is so high that nothing can be buried in the Nile Valley and most farmers don't have any means of hauling a carcass out to the desert to let the wild dogs and kites dispose of it, even if they wouldn't be subject to prosecution from the Antiquities Service should they do so. The fish, crayfish, dogs, and birds do a pretty good job of disposal in the canals, however unpleasing it may be aesthetically, and the body is generally gone in about 2 weeks providing water soluble fertiliser.


Our canals are the circulatory system of the Nile Valley. In the old days we had four months during which the Nile flooded the entire valley, drowning a large proportion of the rodent population, laying down a fresh layer of silt to fertilise the fields, and in essence, giving the valley land a yearly transfusion. We no longer have the floods to clear the valley and I don't believe that the mentality has ever adjusted to the change. The canals are seen as a necessary evil for the farmers and little or no work has been done to educate people in the best ways to keep their canals healthy. We have an astonishing wealth in our waterways and they should be nourished, protected, and cherished.


copyright 2009 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Going Out With A Bang

Although they are illegal and quite dangerous, Egypt has a thriving fireworks industry at a cottage level. Small factories make what we used to call cherry bombs (wads of paper with explosive powder and a bit of grit in them that explode when thrown against something), rockets and firecrackers, all of which are part of traditional festivities on the feasts and at weddings in the rural areas. The people who work in these industries suffer injuries fairly constantly and the users of the noisemakers also are injured with great regularity. So when the police get the chance to impound fireworks they do...but one could truly wish that they'd do a better job.

A couple of days ago one or two truckloads (depending on to whom one is speaking) were seized by the police in the area near Shubramant. Concerned that they might be explosive...I would imagine that they would be...the police rather haphazardly hosed down the cargo with water and then dumped it. Where was it disposed of? In the desert, most likely near the Giza Municipal Dump just up the road from us. Day before yesterday, innumerable grain bags of illegal fireworks were appearing all over the area between Abu Sir and Zawia/Shubramant to the delight of the children of the area. After all, most of the garbage in the dump is checked over for recycling, so why not recycle it, right? From about 4 pm on Wednesday to the present the air has crackled with explosions fairly constantly. The first night it went on all night, with a lot of very crabby adults wandering around the next day.

Of my ridiculously high dog population, probably 90% are terrified of the noise of fireworks, so I have about a dozen dogs running in circles all day barking at the unseen threat or running for shelter under my legs, in my bedroom, in the shower, in the kitchen...wherever. After two days of this nonsense, they are no longer barking at explosions more than about 300 metres away, thank heaven, but a neighbour estimates the supplies at sufficient for about two more days of this lunacy. Who knows, maybe this will get them so overloaded with fear that they will stop being frightened? I'd rather not be using the technique however.

Of even more concern with the vast quantities of these fireworks being used is the fact that children are being injured by them in the villages. I saw one boy not more than about seven years old clutching a round cluster of rockets in his fist and showing them to friends with delight. Heart-stopping. My housekeeper confirmed that there had been injuries to children in the Abu Sir area and the local omda did try, although unsuccessfully, to stop the spread of the illegal bounty at the beginning of the siege. But there were simply too many to collect and they were already too widespread. One would truly wish that when the police do something for the public good, it really would be for the public good. Frankly, it would have been better to send those trucks on their way than to spread these things around the villages the way they did. Unfortunately, until a child is injured, the fireworks are seen as being relatively harmless by most parents who grew up with their use.

copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Some Women's Issues

I don't like to discuss politics in general, not the faceless issues that so often populate the news. I'm not sure that they need discussion and they often don't really touch individuals directly. Recently, however, I read an Associated Press article online about a grassroots movement to convince Egyptian women that female circumcision is a bad idea. "Grass-roots effort in Egypt fights 'cutting' girls" written by Anna Johnson is an excellent piece that looks at a reasonable local approach to a very emotional issue. Every women's organisation in the world seems to be against FGM (female genital mutilation) and I am totally in agreement with all the objections. It is a pointless practice that causes much pain to young girls and later to women when many of them have problems with childbirth and pregnancy due to the rather haphazard surgeries performed. What I have trouble with is the strident demands that "they HAVE to be made to stop it!" without any background in the social complexities involved.

I was talking to my housekeeper about the issue the other day. Like most women in the villages here, she was circumcised as a child. She has five children of her own, the oldest two being girls and a couple of daughters younger. When I asked if they had been cut, she told me that her mother had come by one day while she was at work, taken the two older girls and had it done. She wasn't entirely comfortable with the fact and was rather embarrassed to tell me. This is where a good part of the problem lies. The older women who have been raised with the tradition have a vested interest in continuing tradition that validates their experience, no matter how unpleasant the experience might have been. In fact, in some cases, the more unpleasant, the more they want to see it continue so that they don't have to feel that they suffered for nothing. It's a variety of the old argument that perpetuates the British habit of sending children off to boarding schools at early ages...no one liked it but "if I survived and thrived, you will too".

One of my neighbours here managed to convince her housekeeper not to cut her daughters using an extremely ingenious argument. Most of the families here are very religious and she pointed out quite correctly that circumcision is not a Muslim tradition at all. This information came as quite a surprise to her housekeeper as it did to mine when we were talking. FGM is an ancient African tradition and is not supported anywhere in Islam, and at least in Egypt using this religious argument could be quite successful. The trick with it, as is the case with so many things of a religious nature, regardless of religion, is the fact that religion and tradition can become so totally entangled that they are hard to separate. There are quite likely figures who might argue that the surgery supports female chastity...but you can make the same argument for medieval chastity belts. I'm going to follow this grassroots movement and be cheering on the sidelines.

A Google link took me to a new blog today The Hijablog. This is a fashion blog for young women who wear hijab and I find it a real breath of fresh air. Hijab, the wearing of a scarf to cover your hair and often the neck and shoulders, is something that most westerners have a problem with. I could never even bring myself to wear a hat in the depths of a Canadian winter, often coming back into the house after shoveling the driveway with frozen hair after my morning shower (I mean how extreme a hatophobe can you get?) and I only wear a riding helmet because I promised my kids that I would for safety and I don't like to break a promise. So the likelihood of my ever being hijab is minimal to say the least, but I have also long been a an admirer of the women who turn their use of scarves and veiling into interesting and attractive outfits. Some might say that this negates the purpose of hijab, because it's almost impossible not to notice these striking young women, but I have to admit that I see the veiling issue as a combination of a social and a fashion choice.

My daughter used to wear a scarf over her vibrant auburn curls while in Cairo, partly to escape the need to do anything with them (they have a total life of their own!) and partly to deal with the reactions of young men in Cairo, who quite frankly need to be taught to deal with women on a much more comfortable and polite basis. It was never a religious thing for her, although it is for many young women. The way I see things, women have a multitude of manners in which to present themselves, hijab being just one. And I get a kick out of young women who are interested in exploring the fashion aspect of it. Good for you, Basbousa.




copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbanien

The Second Day on the River

The next morning we had breakfast at Kom Ombo and then set sail for Edu. This was my favourite part of the trip, heading down the Nile with the northwind in our faces. We passed farms much like those of my area, and fishermen working their boats in the river while their children played on sandbars nearby. Mango, orange, and banana orchards lined the river, but the date palms here in the south were not as well-trimmed as those in our neighourhood.

We weren't the only ship on the river. In addition to the fishing skiffs, there were some smaller motor craft for travel or cargo and, of course, other cruise boats. Since we were all supposed to be going through the locks at Esna that evening, sometimes things looked like an old fashioned river boat race. The weather had warmed up quite a bit, but most of us were looking abit askance at some of the travelers on other boats who were sunbathing on the top deck. Maybe our boat was colder on the topdeck or something but we were quite happy in tshirts.

When we got to Edfu we were told that we would take a horse-drawn carriage to the temple and back. To my delight, the majority of the horses presenting themselves to us at the riverside were in excellent condition. As a horse owner and someone who works with horses, I really can't tolerate working abused horses. The Brooke Hospital group have been working really hard in Upper Egypt constructing shades where the horses can rest and visiting veterinary services.

The temple at Edfu is amazing. It is wonderfully preserved temple that was constructed for the most part during Greco-Roman times and was buried in sand until the 1800's. I remember being incredibly impressed with its halls and decoration years ago. Many of the halls are stained with soot near the ceilings from people taking shelter in them many centuries ago.

After Edfu, we set sail once again, heading for the locks at Esna. At times we could see desert on one side or another, and there were some beautiful buildings along the river. One sand coloured house in the traditional Nubian style particularly caught my eye. The way that it blended into the surrounding desert hills was lovely.

Finally, as the sun was setting, we came to Esna where we moored with a number of other boats while waiting our turn to pass through the locks. South of Esna the river is significantly higher than it is below Esna. Nile cruisers traveling south from Luxor wait in pairs to enter the lock, have about 4 metres of water pumped in to raise them to the southern level, and then after the southbound boats leave the lock, the northbound boats, like ours, enter to have the lock pumped out to lower us to the northern level. From Esna we traveled north to Luxor to find ourselves moored at the corniche in Luxor the next morning.
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

New Life For Old Weeds

To the untrained eye, water hyacinth is very pretty. Its big round leaves give way to lovely pale violet flowers that look for all the world like the hyacinths that used to bloom early in spring in my garden in Canada. They don't have the lovely scent as far as I know, but then leaning over a canal to smell a flower isn't the best idea at the best of times. Most of the canals here have the plant growing in them and periodically they are dragged out and left at the sides of the canals for wandering goats and sheep to eat. Besides being pretty, I've been told that the plant also takes up heavy metals in the water, which probably doesn't make it the best animal feed in the world. To be honest, the goats seem to only nibble on the freshest leaves and then only if there isn't anything better to be had.

The downside of water hyacinth is that a lot of water is lost to evaporation from the leaves and it clogs the channels of the canals so that the water doesn't flow freely. Beautiful or not, it is a weed. This morning I found an odd little item from the Shanhai Daily, a newspaper in China (bless Google News) that talks about a Chinese company coming to Egypt to manufacture furniture from the water hyacinth that grows in our canals. Apparently the weed itself is of superior quality in Egypt and the labour costs are low enough to make the investment a good thing. I must confess to being a bit stunned at the idea that a Chinese company thought that Egypt would be a nice cheap place to manufacture something. My second thought was to hope that someone puts some environmental safeguards on such a factory, not that Egypt is notoriously strict in that department, but China appears to be much worse. According to the article the manufacture of water hyacinth board does not involve the formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals that fiber board and plywood do. I'd want to do a bit more research before I take anyone's word on that, but if true, this all sounds terrific. We get rid of our weeds and have a new supply of wood for building furniture. One of the problems for furniture makers here is the fact that we have to import all of the wood, since we have no forests. It all sounds, on the surface, like a nice fit. Now let's hope the reality lives up to the press...but that's always the problem, isn't it?

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

A Soggy Horse Tale

The Nile Valley is crisscrossed by irrigation canals distributing water to the farmlands of Egypt. These canals sometimes extend through urban areas where pipes have been laid to contain a canal under a roadbed as well. Near the farm where I live, the canals have trails alongside them, making them a favourite place to ride my horses. Yesterday was Friday and I took the morning to go riding with a group of friends through the desert to the northern end of Sakkara village and then home through the farmland to the farm. The ride down in the desert was lovely. A light breeze kept us all cool and my young gelding Fagr was behaving beautifully, keeping up with the older horses and not trying to run off in the vastness of the Sahara.

As we moved into the farmland on our way home, we kept up a brisk pace to be back at the farm in a good time for my friend Cris to be home on time. Our track took us past families in the fields, most of them harvesting forage for cows and donkeys so that they could relax at home on the first day of the feast after Ramadan, which is today. The horses were happy moving down the trail that wound along a deep canal about midway between the two main roads in this area. We were in the middle of nowhere and delighted to be there.

Suddenly, we came around a bend and found that one of the farmers had placed a diesel pump on one side of the trail with the intake hose extending across the trail to the canal on our left. There was room to pass and two of my older horses being ridden by friends hopped the hose and passed safely. When it was my turn with Fagr (aka, Figgy), however, his left hind foot slipped on the edge of the canal and he slid into the 2 metre deep canal. Although I launched myself out of the saddle towards the path as I felt him slipping, I didn't make it and ended up submerged in enough murky water that I couldn't feel the bottom, not that I'd want to anyway. I discovered that Fagr is a very strong swimmer, strong enough to pull me along the canal until I got smart and dropped the reins.
The farmer whose pump had been parked at the trailside reached down and helped to haul me out of the muck and then we had to call to Fagr who was swimming in some bewilderment along the canal. He turned and emerged from the water slightly downstream and on the other bank. Another farmer took the reins and led him along the path to a point just down the trail about 150 metres. We were reunited, dripping and filthy, and I realised that my digital camera and my mobile phone were both in the saddle pack attached to Fagr's saddle. As he'd spent rather longer in the water than I had, I was not optimistic about their survival.

As it turned out, my pessimism was well-founded. Both the Nokia and the Lumix were willing to turn on after about 18 hours sitting and drying out, but their behaviour is very erratic. The Nokia won't dial things and keeps beeping at me randomly, while the Lumix opens the lens and then shuts it over and over. Very sad. And I'd just gotten the Lumix back from being serviced on Wednesday night. Panasonic took over a month to replace two motors inside that had been damaged by dust. Well, at least dust isn't the problem now but I'm hoping that I can convince them to work a bit faster this time.

So for a while, my blogs will either be accompanied by photos I've already taken and stored or they will be photo-less. That is the point of the shaggy horse story, and Cris was late as well.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Listening To The Silence

My camera has been having some dust issues lately. What a surprise considering that it gets tossed into my bag anywhere I go whether on foot, horseback or in the car. I take it everywhere and there's dust everywhere in Egypt. After two years any digital camera would get a little sticky, so I took it into Panasonic in Nasr City, where, of course, the camera opened and closed perfectly. The guy at the service desk handed it back, saying that it was fine and was rather bemused when I suggested that it might need...GASP!...service. I walked out with a receipt for my beloved Lumix and a promise that it would cost between 50 and 500 LE and would be finished in ten days. Unfortunately but as usual, that was a month ago, and today when I called and totally lost it with the service department they told me that I would, inshallah, have it tomorrow. All of this is to explain the scarcity of visual aids. The pictures here are either older or were taken with my Nokia.

We are over halfway through Ramadan, well past the first part of the month when the general population of Cairo is going around the bend from caffeine and nicotine withdrawal. After a week or so their bodies are used to the idea that they will get their fix after sunset, but the late nights and the sugar highs from Ramadan deserts ae beginning to take their toll.

Today I had to do something that I try not to do during Ramadan. I drove myself into Maadi to take care of some urgent errands. The traffic wasn't really as bad as I'd imagined it might be, but it was bad enough. Between the Monib Bridge and the Autostrad, the flow slowed to a trickle and as I crawled along I could see the cause. A large truck was blocking the left lane (not necessarily the fast lane in Egypt) and behind it I could see a small car was rather smooshed against the concrete guard rail. People were standing around discussing the situation and there seemed to be no causualties, which was a relief. Just ahead of the truck was another car that had somehow been involved in the mess as well.

I don't know if anyone collects the statistics, but based on reports by friends of mine who don't have the option of holing up on a farm and just going places on horseback on dirt tracks, I'd be willing to bet that the accident rate goes way up during Ramadan. The temperatures have been in the low to mid 30's C (low to mid 90's roughly by that other measure), so dehydration is a real issue. Blood sugar rates that are scraping along the asphalt during the day skyrocket after iftar...as do the speeds of many cars. It really is not much of a surprise when people tell me how just in our neighbourhood there have been two hit and runs and one major head on collision in just the last ten days. I don't like to drive during Ramadan. I'd rather stay home.

One of my informants about traffic conditions came out to ride with me this evening. She's military, an fighter jet mechanic, and does a lot of driving between the base and Maadi where she comes on her days off. She rides as much as possible while she's here. I guess it's a good antidote for all that mechanical stuff. I suggested that she come out and ride with me over the iftar period to hear the silence of the countryside, so she came out about half an hour before iftar. The guys got our horses ready while I finished a riding lesson with a couple of small girls and we set out for the trail while they set out for iftar.

Iftar, the breaking of the fast, takes place just after the call to prayer at dusk. Half an hour before the call, there were still a few farmers working in their fields and a few stragglers urging their livestock homeward, but most of the fields were empty. Wonderful smells of garlic, onions and tomato drifted from the houses we passed and children were rushing in from playing outdoors. You never realise how much ambient noise a place has until it goes away, and the quietest time in Egypt is during iftar. It's one of the few times when you can be out in the countryside and truly be alone as long as you are not near someone's home. We ambled along enjoying the birdsong and waiting for the moment when we would stop hearing the trucks on the Mariouteya Road nearby. This is one of the major routes south and the steady rumble of trucks, buses and cars on it becomes a kind of white noise that you don't really notice until it goes away. Eventually that time comes when even the slowpokes have either arrived home or given up and the white noise is gone.

The call to prayer echoed from the mosques of the area and gradually a deep silence fell over the fields and canals. We were the only people out on the trail and every family we passed invited them to join them for iftar. We thanked them and continued our ride. The sky darkened and the palms became black outlines against the horizon. Closer to the farm a few cars were beginning to move about as families left their homes to visit friends. We were passed by one large blue dump truck full of kids who shouted greetings. I guess if the family vehicle is a dump truck, that's what you use. We did, however, decide to prudently avoid the larger village on the main road by the country club and the smaller one just past the entrance to the farm because of another fine Ramadan tradition that really doesn't go that well with horses...cherry bombs and bottle rockets. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

Getting Creative

While my hands were healing from spider bites, it was pretty hard to ride horses, so thoughts turned to other projects that we wanted to pursue. One of the things that I'm wanting to get for the farm is a donkey cart that is built for driving with just two passengers. It would be so much more practical for local trips in the neighbourhood, along with being, most importantly, a lot of fun. I'd been told that an ironworker at a local art centre could probably help me make a cart based on a photo of one that I'd downloaded from the net, so I set off with my trusty Mohamed Said to make his acquaintance.

Not far from the farm on the Mariouteya Road is a place commonly called Fagnoon, after two Arabic words: Fanan or artist, and Magnoon or crazy. The crazy artist who established this wonderful place is otherwise known as Mohamed Allam. He decided that the children of Cairo needed a place where they could let their imaginations run riot...and in the process created a marvelous space where their bodies could be free as well.

The centre itself is a creature of constant growth. Platforms, balconies, walkways, and bridges connect spaces where children of all ages can paint, draw, work in wood or fabric in shade and sunlight. The meandering walkways invite exploration and an obviously handmade bridge curves over the canal to a garden where pottery wheels stand under shades and a pen of goats watch the activities with interest. Papyrus has been planted in the canal so that papermaking activities can also be pursued. This is one of the few places that you will see the plant that was so much a part of Egypt's history growing. The day we came, workers were constructing a third level to some of the centre, giving visiting chilren many metres of wall to paint and decorate.

With so many of Cairo's children living in apartments, a space where not just spirits but bodies can run free is a joy. In one area a net of multicolored fabric hangs from the ceiling ending in a slide down which children can slither onto a pad of mattress springs also wound in fabric. The center is full of objects that can be climbed over, into and under.

Adult art activities are also encouraged here. The hadad, or iron worker, that I'd come to see has created animal statues that are found randomly around the centre. A goat stands in a teepee framed in wood and woven from dried bullrushes from the canal. A vividly imagined pair of ducks and some ducklings gather in a shady corner near a column that is constructed of natural wood in the shape of a tree. While we were chatting with the hadad and the centre's owner, a group of college aged students ran about on an upper level pelting each other with water balloons. Paint streaks on tshirts and jeans showed that having a water balloon fight wasn't the only activity of the day. These young adults have been coming here since the time that they were school children being brought on excursions from the classroom. My grad student daughter is one of Fagnoon's biggest fans and was fond of spending an afternoon out there.

Mohamed Allam is a good director for such a centre, being an artist himself who creates beautiful and interesting work. A gallery for his work is part of the complex and his handiwork is everywhere, in statues scattered about, iron wall hangings and beautiful and innovative furniture created in wrought iron and wood,fabric or other materials.

A trip to Fagnoon should be compulsory for Cairo residents. Parents can relax under a tree if an artistic endeavour is not on the menu, kids can run amok happily, and resident bakers offer refreshments such as fateer, a flaky bread eaten with sweet toppings such as clotted cream, nuts and honey or with savoury such as cheese. There are even outdoor taps and showers to clean off all the grubby little Van Goghs after a day creating. Just recently another branch of the centre, Fagnoon Fellah, has been opened even closer to the farm. This centre offers space for camping overnight near the village of Abu Sir on the Mansoureya Road, within hiking distance of the original centre. The centerpiece of the new establishment is an enormous net hung from the trees, providing enticing spaces for climbing or just settling in with a good book. More information can be had by contacting them at fagnoon@fagnoon.net or phoning 3815-1633.

copyright 2007 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani