The Egyptian People

Once, while having coffee at the Shepherd´s Hotel in Cairo, I was told that Egypt had never had more than 2-3 million people until the early 20th century when the population exploded reaching the 80-90 million people of today. Disease and child mortality had kept Um Eddunya (¨The Mother of the World¨) to an organic size until modern sanitation and medicine arrived from the West, bringing with them longer and healthier lives and a massive population explosion.

Cairo, and other places in Egypt, are a testament today to this overpopulation. High density streets, noise pollution, miasmic air, more suggestive of a gas chamber than an atmosphere, and a murky Nile all speak to this reality. And yet, a walk through Cairo remains a window onto the unique beauty of the Egyptian people, despite their vast and considerable tribulations.

A cripple with crutches clambers on to a Vespa and putters off into the crowded streets. A stranger helps two ladies, old and young, cross the maniacal traffic (the way they relate suggests long term intimacy rather than the distance common to strangers in the West's public space). Taxi drivers outside the Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel dance to Arabic tunes beside their empty cars even though tourism and their revenues are very much down.

The Egyptian people demonstate warmth, humour and resilience where many others would be be wallowing in a somber depression. There is also a sense that all individual Egyptians belong to one human organism stretching from Alexandria to Aswan. From Nasser´s state socialism, to Sadat´s private sector experiments, to Mubarak´s oligarchy, to today´s amateurish rise of the Muslim Brothers, Egyptians have not been well served by their governments. Differences of economic class and political views now abound, especially after the Pandora´s box was opened through the revolution. But the hand -  and what is in it - remains outstretched from Egyptian to Egyptian, helping all manage from day to day.

Of course, this is also partly the problem. The country needs a long term economic plan and new social mechanisms to compete and thrive in the 21st century, not just this organic form of care. Poverty, ignorance, and many archaic and oppressive norms continue to plague the country and thwart new development.

Despite this harsh reality, there remain lessons to be learned for the rest of us. Unlike in the West, and even in some Middle Eastern countries, many basic emotional needs are met in Egypt day-to-day. The once-powerful civilization has also left its distant imprint in the sense of belonging to greater context, and to each other. These are two golden strands of human potential amidst Cairo´s brown and dusty chaos. Somehow it still seems more fundamentally human than the cold towers and technological efficiencies of more modern realms.  

Studio Kerop

Several years ago, while doing research for a project on 20th century Egyptian photographers, I paid a visit to Studio Kerop - the last of the old portrait studios of downtown Cairo. The venue, located on Emad al-Din Street, was established by Hagop Keropian, one of a number of Armenians who together dominated the profession of photography in Egypt starting in the early 20th century.

At the time of my visit, the studio, with its ancient large format camera and slightly morose air of decay, was still being run by an aging Nubar Keropian, Hagop's son. The place was more of a monument and nostalgic throwback to a lost era than a functioning studio. Nubar admitted as much. But he was still very much in his element and quite happy to entertain visitors. 

I bought some old prints of Cairo taken by the elder Keropian in the 1940s and 1950s. The above shot shows the bar in the old Shepheard's Hotel - a popular haunt for foreigners and the Egyptian elite until the hotel's destruction by fire in 1952. 

Since my last visit to Cairo a few years ago, I've been wondering what happened to Kerop and his studio, as well as some other familiar venues located along the protest-battered avenues that branch out from Tahrir Square like the tentacles of an octopus.

Nubar, it seems, is still around. 

An American photographer who shot the recent protests to mark the 2nd anniversary of Hosni Mubarak's ouster, captured an image of Nubar standing in the fray with his camera (the photo is the first of the series). 

It's probably hard to appreciate how surreal the events of recent years must be for a man whose life and work are tied to images and memories of Cairo which are so far removed from today.

A Walk through Medieval Cairo

"From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan, to Qutuz the Mamluk, who fled to escape our swords: You should think of what happened to other countries and submit to us....We have conquered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of our armies. Where can you flee? What road will you use to escape us? Our horses are swift, our arrows are sharp, our swords like thunderbolts, our hearts as hard as mountains, our soldiers as numerous as the sand."

These are the words that Hulagu the Mongol sent to the ruler of Cairo, Qutuz the Mamluk, after sacking Damascus. The Mongol horde had swept through Central Asia and Persia, destroyed Baghdad, and threatened the 600 year old Islamic civilization with annihilation.

Qutuz responded by cutting the Mongol emissaries in half, and hanging their bodies from Bab al Zuweila, one of the southern gates of Medieval Cairo. He went on to join forces with Baibars the Turk and defeat the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in eastern Galilee, saving the Muslim world from utter destruction.

Bab Al Zuweila is one of the remaining gates of Fatimid and Medieval Cairo. It was named after a Berber tribe from the western desert that fought with the rulers of the city. It, along with the walls of the city, were built by Badr Al Jamali in 1092. Two other remaining northern gates are Bab Al Futuh, and Bab Al Nasr.

The latter is inscribed with the customary ´shahadatain´ of Islam (¨There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is the Messenger of God¨), but it also includes the Shia statement that Ali has the right to succeed the prophet, echoing its Fatimid (i.e. Shia and Ismaili) origin. The Fatimids had also built Al Azhar, an irony given that it is today the most renowned and prestigious centre of Sunni learning.

Today, these remaining gates of medieval Cairo offer the opportunity to experience Cairo at its most enriching. A walk from Bab Al Futuh or Bab Al Nasr to Bab Al Zuweila will take you through a maze of shops and food stalls, and an enviably vast collection of medieval buildings ranging from mosques to madrasas and sabils.

The experience is one of the living sedimentation of history and the surging humanity of Cairo, trading, eating, debating and sleeping through revolutions, epochs and the rise and fall of kings and queens. Here are some images of what one can see on this interesting walk.

Nasser in Tahrir

Cairo's Manial Palace

Located a few kilometers from downtown Cairo, on a lush plot of land on Roda Island, sits one of Egypt’s little known architectural treasures. The walled complex, known as Manial Palace, is an ornate monument to Egypt’s belle époque period built by a crown prince of the country’s former royal family.

Prince Mohamed Ali Tewfik, the younger brother of Egypt’s Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, and uncle of King Farouk, made the palace his pet project and lifelong obsession. It was built and furnished in successive stages during first 30 years of the 20th century.

After attending school in Europe and traveling the world, the young prince returned to Cairo and decided to construct his own quarters away from prying eyes. His mother suggested 15 acres of gardens filled with banyan trees on Roda Island, off the East Bank of the Nile. In 1901, the 26 year-old Tewfik began construction on his saray-cum-island-retreat, naming it after a Mameluke nobleman who once resided on the island.

For Tewfik, the project allowed him to pursue another passion that ran in parallel – the world of Islamic art and motifs. The prince scoured the world for objects, sending his agents far and wide to look for rare pieces of art. He hired some of the most skilled professionals in Egypt at the time - including Mohamed Afifi and Antonio Lasciac - to design and furnish the various chambers in elegant Ottoman, Mameluke, Moroccan, Persian and Moorish styles. Cairo’s Ilhami School of Crafts-Making, a waqf, or religious trust patronized by Tewfik, also contributed works to the palace. A Rabat-style Moroccan lookout tower and stables for Arabian horses would also grace the property.

“He always meant the palace to be a museum where young people could come and learn,” said his grandnephew. “If they could not travel, they could come here and see all the styles.”

As the Manial Palace flowered into mature elegance, it became a gathering spot for all manner of foreign and domestic personalities at the time including writers, poets, journalists, musicians and diplomats. The compound became a world of high society interactions combining tea parties, evening galas, and private impromptu meetings of members of Egypt’s royal family.

After the 1952 revolution that overthrew the country’s monarchy, the compound and all its furnishing were confiscated by the Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. The Manial Palace is now an art and botanical museum open to the public.

Sheikh Ali

For conservative Egyptians, this bar, located on a side-road off Saad Zaghloul Street in Alexandria, adds a certain insult to injury with its unorthodox appelation. Seldom has an establishment selling alcohol in the Middle East found itself with a name better suited to a mosque, a holy shrine, or a person of religious piety. But then again, Alexandrians have always had the reputation of being a little more open-minded about things.

This famous watering hole, which opened circa 1900, was called Cap D’Or (not to be confused with its notorious imposter on Abdel Khalik Tharwat Street in downtown Cairo). Two Greeks and a Frenchman were the proprietors of the bar - one of a cluster of venues in the neighbourhood catering to the city’s cosmopolitan socialites. Egyptian aristocrats, politicos, foreign expatriates, businesspeople, and artists all flocked there to eat, drink and make merry.

When the 1952 socialist revolution took place, the foreign owners of the bar, like many others, decided to pack up and leave the country. Before departing, they sold Cap D’or to a local man named “Ali”.

But unlike subsequent owners of the bar, Ali decided to close on Fridays (the Muslim sabbath). So when clients came to the bar that day, only to find its doors shut, they began to refer to him as “al Sheikh Ali” - the "sheikh" being an honorific designating piety, respectability and knowledge, especially of a religious type. And like all nicknames of genius, it stuck like glue.

Ali’s son now runs the joint. It retains its art nouveau décor and is one of the most popular old-school drinking shacks in the country. The bar has its own regulars and has a bit of a cliquey, clubhouse feel to it. Henry Kissinger is said to have made a stop here in the 1970s, between his diplomatic hobnobbing, to have a cold Stella.

Perspective

Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean by night as seen from the International Space Station.

Mahmoud Marai, Desert Adventurer and Explorer

Located off a busy Cairo square, in the bucolic and tree-lined district of Maadi, is a small and inconspicuous basement-level office space. At first glance, the room looks no different than most of the dusty and austere apartments that sometimes double for offices in Africa’s largest city. But upon closer inspection, an entire universe spanning eons, opens up.

Found along the office shelves, on its walls and in its corners are curiosities that speak to a succession of bygone eras of natural history: old topographical maps North Africa, prehistoric stone tools, alien-looking rocks and crystals, ancient tribal artifacts, colonial-era regalia, and dusty old journals and academic periodicals.

This veritable storehouse of treasures, flying stealthily below anybody’s radar, is the headquarters and personal sanctuary of Egypt’s youngest Saharan explorer, Mahmoud Marai.

For more than a decade, Marai, age 35, has been at the forefront of deep desert exploration in Egypt. His journeys have taken him to the furthest and most inaccessible corners of the country.

A high-school chemistry teacher by trade, he has spearheaded dozens of journeys to the Gilf Kebir and Jebel Uweinat regions of the Western Desert (also known as the Libyan Desert) – a still somewhat unexplored wasteland of over 700,000 square kilometers known for its cave paintings, prehistoric relics and concealed wadis.

“People say Egypt is ‘The Gift of the Nile’,” says Marai. “But Egypt is also the gift of the desert.”

Undaunted by his lack of experience or training, this self-taught adventurer started by making solo expeditions in a single vehicle between 1998 and 2003 – an almost unheard of (and some would argue foolhardy) - undertaking that nonetheless earned him the respect of other desert guides. After staking out his own claim to the Western Desert, he began work as a professional guide, desert outfitter and explorer-for-hire in 2004.

Unlike other guides, Marai has become known for his preferred method of doing trips into the desert, either largely - or entirely - on foot.

“You can’t find anything by car,” says Marai. It’s totally useless. Most people who travel into this area bypass a lot of rock art and artifacts because much of it needs to be seen on foot.”

During his short career, he has crossed the Great Sand Sea numerous times, has walked hundreds of kilometres overland to the Gilf Kebir, and has explored most of the hidden wadis of the majestic Jebel Uweinat.

His experiences don’t end there. While at Karkur Talkh at Uweinat, he was abducted and held, along with two others, for weeks by a rogue North Darfur paramilitary organization operating along the porous Sudanese-Egyptian-Libyan frontier. The experience, which was life-threatening, shook Marai to the core. But he nevertheless, intrepidly, went back to explore the desert he loved.

In late 2007, Marai, along with Maltese adventurer Mark Borda, stumbled upon Neolithic cave paintings in the Uweinat Desert, some seven hundred kilometres west of the Nile Valley, near the twin massifs of Peter and Paul. Then, at another nearby location, the two surveyors found engravings on a large rock consisting of hieroglyphic writing: a Pharaonic cartouche, an image of a king and other ancient Egyptian iconography.

The implications of the discovery appeared to be significant. The consensus among Egyptologists up until then was that the ancient Egyptians did not penetrate the Western Desert any further than around 80km southwest of Dakhla Oasis – an area of sandstone hills containing hieroglyphs discovered by German explorer Carlo Bergmann. Marai and Borda’s discovery seemed to indicate that the Ancient Egyptians had in fact penetrated much, much, further into the desert than had previously been believed - all the way to the area near the Libyan border.

“The ancient Egyptians had the means, the methods and knowledge to undergo very long journeys in the desert,” says Marai.

Photos of the inscriptions, whose location has been a tightly held secret, were taken to the UK to be looked at by a hieroglyphics specialist. A preliminary translation determined that the hieroglyphs mention the name of a region where they may have been carved – the fabled Land of Yam: one of the most mysterious nations that the Ancient Egyptians traded with in Old Kingdom times.

Marai and Borda both believe that Yam, which has never been positively identified, lay somewhere in the area where they found the inscription.

Despite his best efforts to get the academic and Egyptology community as a whole to recognize his discovery, there has been relatively little interest in the Yam inscriptions. This due perhaps to a lack of willingness to budge an iota from the accepted historical narrative, which sits heavily in text books with the weight of dogma.

Because of the worldwide recession of the last few years, there has been far less of an appetite for internationally sponsored desert expeditions, and much less demand for Marai’s skills. He has since fallen back on teaching high-school chemistry.

But ever the dreamer, Marai looks ahead to the day when he can pick up where he left off and perhaps contribute in his own way to the story of history, which, he maintains, will continue to be re-written, despite of the intransigence of the “experts”.

The Real 'Da Vinci Code'

"Those who know all, but are lacking in themselves, are utterly lacking."

- Jesus of Nazareth in The Gospel of Thomas

*

In December 1945, a peasant farmer from Upper Egypt named Mohammed Ali Samman made a most unusual discovery.

Digging near some limestone caves, Samman came upon a large earthenware jar. He knew that he had found something out of the ordinary and proceeded to smash the jar open, hoping to find buried treasure. He did indeed find a treasure, but not the sort that he had expected: contained within were some 12 leather-bound papyrus books written in the Coptic language.

This collection of books, which have since been translated, are known today as the Nag Hammadi Library or Nag Hammadi Codices - so named because of the proximity of their discovery to the town of Nag Hammadi in southern Egypt.

The books include fifty-two early Christian treatises that date back to around the 3rd or 4th century AD. The writings themselves are thought to be of an earlier origin.

It is believed that the books may have belonged to a nearby Christian monastery, which hastily buried the texts in order to save them from destruction at the hands of the church, which condemned the use of unsanctioned religious texts in 367 AD.

Among the more interesting and notable of the writings is a text called The Gospel of Thomas. This document is a list of sayings attributed to Jesus.

Stripped of context, and in many instances bordering on the indecipherable, these sayings give a very different impression of the Jesus we know in the New Testament gospels - all of which underwent considerable editing over the ages.

Certainly what comes across in the Gospel of Thomas is a Jesus somewhat removed from the more simplistic and didactic Jesus of the New Testament gospels. And as such it may be that the Gospel of Thomas is a more genuine and accurate representation of the historical Jesus.

The early Gnostics maintain that Jesus was not just a religious pep-talker or teacher of morals, but was a man who had a certain practical knowledge to impart.

The word Gnostic derives from the Greek word gnosis meaning "knowledge" or the "act of knowing.”

The Gnostics held "the conviction that direct, personal and absolute knowledge of the authentic truths of existence is accessible to human beings, and, moreover, that the attainment of such knowledge must always constitute the supreme achievement of human life.”

To the ancient Gnostics, Jesus was part of such a tradition and the Nag Hammadi Codices contain writings that view Christianity in the light of that very tradition.

The Islamic faith, which has its own traditions of Jesus (who Muslims view as a prophet and teacher), depict him similarly.

The Nag Hammadi Codices had a convoluted trajectory, passing through the hands of numerous people including historians, antique dealers, monks, and in the case of one of the books: the Carl Jung Institute in Zurich, before finding their way to the Coptic Museum in Cairo where they are housed today.

The texts were rejected outright by the ruling authorities of Christianity and remain heretical.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Text and photo copyright (c) John Zada and John Bell 2009

“My whole life was preparation for this job,” says Ismail Serageldin, as he sprouts a wry smile and gazes out of his 5th story office window overlooking the Alexandria corniche.

What might otherwise seem like an unusual comment coming from a man who gave up a sparkling career in international development to return to Egypt to take up a job as the head of a library, begins to make sense as the scale of the enterprise to which he heads comes into focus.

Serageldin, a former Vice President of the World Bank and longtime socio-developmental guru is today commandeering of one of Egypt's most ambitious projects: he is the Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a gargantuan library-cum-cultural centre inspired by Alexandria's ancient library of antiquity.

The $220 million brainchild of Alexandria historian, Mustafa al-Abbadi, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (meaning “Library of Alexandria” in Latin), is the modern incarnation of one of the most esteemed institutions of learning and knowledge in history. The Bibliotheca, whose ancient predecessor vanished under dubious circumstances in the late Roman period, took several years to build and first opened its doors to the public in October 2002. In addition to providing Alexandria University with a top-notch research facility, the library was undertaken as part of a larger effort to reinvigorate Egypt's second city by recapturing the same spirit of learning that once made Alexandria one of the epicenters of knowledge in the ancient world..

To read this article in its entirety click here.

Taha Hussein

Photo by Van-Leo

Taha Hussein (b. 1889, d. 1973), a man of letters who got into considerable trouble for publishing a book entitled "On Pre-Islamic Poetry" that stated that this often raucous literary form was in fact written after, not before, the Quran.

The Egyptian Tin Tin - 1970-1981

Farafra Oasis

All text and photos in this post copyright (c) John Zada and John Bell

The last thing anyone would expect to find in one of the most isolated outposts of humanity is a famous man.

Meeting “Mr. Socks” - or “Dr. Socks” as he prefers to be called - at the edge of a palm grove in Egypt’s smallest and most remote desert oasis was a lesson that the affliction of human fame can even extend to those places shrouded in virtual obscurity.

“Everybody knows me,” says Gaafar Abdullah, the 39 year-old Bedouin who earned his catchy “Socks” nickname by virtue of his longstanding business of knitting and selling camel wool apparel - socks, scarves, gloves, and hats. “My name is on the Internet and in the guidebooks. I am a very famous man.”

He is, as it turns out, a kind of local celebrity and claims that he is also known to many people worldwide who, by some whim or chance have happened upon a tiny swath of green, found deep in an ocean of desolation.

Located in a depression several hundred kilometers southwest of Cairo, and at the center of Egypt’s unforgiving Western Desert, is Farafra Oasis – one of the smallest, most isolated and least visited parts of inhabited Egypt. Palm forests, sulfurous hot springs, Bedouin farmers and an enchanting air of calm, bordering on inertia, characterizes this patchwork of cultivated lands. Farafra is one of a string of desert oases linked by road that fan in an arc westward from the Nile, part of what Egyptian officials began referring to in the 1950’s as “The New Valley.”


Situated closer to Libya than to the Nile Valley, Farafra is considered by many Egyptians - most of whom have never been there - as the proverbial end-of-the-line. Even local desert aficionados express dismay at Farafra’s bewilderingly small size and isolation, to the point where some of them speak of the oasis a virtual non-entity.

But in spite of its puny size and position, Farafra has always played an important role in the history of the Western Desert. Its life-giving wells, located further west than all others, have made the oasis a necessary way station for caravans and travellers criss-crossing the waterless wastes of the Sahara. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the Lost Army of the Persian King Cambyses departed from near Farafra on its famous and ill-fated march across the Great Sand Sea to distant Siwa Oasis in the 6th century BC. The Persians were later followed by the Romans and Byzantines who both occupied distant outposts here. In 19th and 20th centuries, desert explorers - including an elite unit of the British Special Forces during World War Two - used the oasis as a platform in which to launch expeditions and raids deep into the Sahara.

With its long history and periodic entanglements in the affairs of empires, Farafra has surprisingly little to show in terms of relics or material culture. Its main archaeological vestige is the centuries-old and highly dilapidated mud town of “Qasr al-Farafra”, which remains today partially inhabited and surrounded by a sleepy and lackluster village of small concrete tenements of the same name. Dust-blown and exuding an air of abandonment, Farafra’s main town resides in another dimension, located somewhere between the outskirts of modernity and the metaphysical void. But therein resides part of its charm.


Flanking the old town to its immediate south and west is one of several large tracts of cultivated land in Farafra bursting with crops and towering date palms – the real heart and soul of the oasis. One can lose themselves for hours exploring these idyllic blooms of green that locals refer to in English as “the gardens”. The area teems with plants, insects, animals, and thermal springs, and is caressed by draughts of desert air that play to a stillness that runs very deep. The almost total dearth of human activity here, save for the odd farmer or hot springs bather, gives the area a sense of timelessness found in few other places.

Farafra’s calm and simplicity are profoundly soothing. And for residents of the oasis, despite the isolation and material deprivations that they must endure, it makes life virtually impossible for them anywhere else.

“I can’t be away for more than a few days,” says Dr. Socks, as he stops to wash his hands and face at a hot spring. “Even going to the other oases is a very big trip for me. I don’t feel at ease in these places.”

Stepping out of the palm groves and into the surrounding desert, one is reminded of the extent of Farafra’s isolation. A short journey in any direction from the oasis will bring one into contact with some of the most pristine, dramatic and sometimes unusual desert landscapes on the planet. Farafra sits at the cusp of several unique and converging desertscapes, including the White Desert, the Black Desert and the Great Sand Sea - one of the largest sand dune fields on Earth. Because of this, Farafra remains one of the preferred embarkation points for travelers looking to explore the far recesses of the Egyptian Sahara.

The oasis itself, however, tends to be overlooked by visitors, who, with a little extra time and effort, might discover for themselves a hidden hot spring, a tranquil palm grove, or even a famous man.

A version of this article appeared in the March 7, 2009 edition of The National.

Desert Virtuoso

All text and images in this post copyright (c) John Zada and John Bell 2009

Ask Retired Colonel Ahmed al-Mestakawy - a man so obviously the product of a certain destiny - the “hows” and “whys” of it all, and he’ll just grin and shrug his shoulders in a gesture of amused bewilderment.

“At one moment you are moving in one direction, the next moment you are somewhere else entirely,” says the 56 year-old native of Alexandria. “How or why I got to where I am today, I have no idea.”

Al-Mestakawy is talking about his lifelong love-affair with the desert, which began without warning, when, after graduating officer school in 1977, it was decided that out of all the possible roads for a military man in Egypt, his should be with the Border Intelligence Forces along the Libyan frontier.


For 18 years al-Mestakawy, became the most feared and respected border patrol officer in Egypt’s Western Desert – one of the most treacherous and inhospitable regions on earth. It is an area known, among a few other things, for its smugglers and drug traffickers who risk life and limb moving their illicit cargo across well worn paths in the no man’s land between Libya and the Nile.

For al-Mestakawy, spectacular drug busts, surveillance missions and border skirmishes, some of which come straight out of fiction, all paled in comparison to his one true love - the desert. A man of action, he took the opportunity during his time in the army to learn the desert’s deepest secrets from three semi-legendary masters - all close friends - who would impart their entire lexicons of knowldge to him:

Samir Lama, an eccentric Egyptian-Jewish cinema actor and desert enthusiast, today regarded as one of the great contemporary Egyptian Western Desert explorers, fine tuned al-Mestakawy’s desert driving skills, and instilled in him a thirst for desert exploration. Suleiman Silmy, a Red Sea Bedouin tracker and soldier, imparted knowledge about camels, flora, tracking, and desert survival. Ghenewa Abu Balooza, a Bedouin guide and camel caravaneer from Sidi Abdel Rahman taught al-Mestakawy about principles and conduct in the desert.

“All these men today live inside of me,” he says. “They taught me everything there is to know about the desert. They live in my heart.”

But his life’s path would continue to meander. After turning down - with difficulty - consecutive work offers which he refers to as “the three big crossroads”, including a career as a diplomat, a political intelligence officer, and an army general, al-Mestakawy decided in the mid-1990's to pursue his dream of becoming a desert guide. Since then, in addition to organizing trips into the desert, he has helped plan and has partaken in desert race rallies, and has discovered a cave with prehistoric rock art – one of the largest in Africa - that was recently named after him.

“In retrospect, it was one of the best decisions that I ever made,” he says. “Had I not taken this path, I would probably now be a general. And generals do NOT go on patrols and travel into the desert.”

Today, al-Mestakawy works full-time as the co-owner and manager of Zarzora Expeditions, an Egyptian outfitter that takes travelers by jeep to the furthest reaches of the Western Desert. Here al-Mestakawy combines and employs all of his various skills and talents culled from three decades of desert work.

“The desert is like his bride,” says al-Mestakawy’s business partner and desert conservationist, Wael Abed. ”Getting to see him in action is like watching him in a beautiful and passionate dance with her. He is brilliant at what he does.”

And he is a pleasure to watch. Decked out in army fatigues, a beige keffiyah and Bolle’ sunglases, he can predict the weather simply by looking at the glare of the morning sun, can read tracks in the sand and tell you who or what made them, and can plot a course and drive through dune fields so menacing that they would overturn or swallow any other vehicle - all the while managing a crack team of driver-mechanic-cooks that preside over every aspect of the trip. His commanding physical presence and primal instinct for survival are softened by his French educated, gentlemanly manner reminiscent of characters from old Egyptian cinema.

“The desert is my home, my second home,” he says. “It’s the place where I found myself and discovered who I am.”

Al-Mestakawy’s website is www.zarzora.com

Cairo's Friday Market (al-souq al-goma'a)

All photos in this post copyright John Zada and John Bell 2009

In Cairo's Sayeda Aisha district, people flock in droves to take part in the weekly al-souq al-gomaa (the Friday market). This souq, one of the largest, busiest and most frenzied in the Middle East is a fusion of flea market, junk market, antiques market, animal market and textile market, and runs directly underneath a long highway overpass that bisects the city's southern cemetery.

The souq commences at the crack of dawn and is thronged by countless thousands of people who come early to find the best deals in anything and everything imaginable - from pairs of jeans, to new shoes, to pigeons, snakes, dogs and goldfish, new toilets, kitchen ceramics, and replacement carborators or spark plugs for one's car. Ad hoc gambling stands featuring forms of the 'three shell game' can be found here for those apt to trying their luck against seasoned shysters. Mounds of random junk, culled from households all across Cairo gather in the souq and remain in situ sometimes for years, or even longer..