We only have a half day today, as we're due to go back to Cairo this afternoon. This is the end of the work party part - it seems like it was far too short... As it turns out, not actually too disappointed to have just a half day. Bit under the weather, but not ready to state I need a pullover.... We go round to a space where a house used to be, to help dig foundations. Today is "mosque day" ie for Moslems its kind of like Sunday - lie in and then mosque at 12o'clock. The Christians on the other hand are hard at work on the foundations.... Two trenches are already nearly 1m deep (the Sherif-mandated depth to be in firm clay) so we start on ones that are marked out but not started. Very hard, hot work! The first layer is packed soil and rubble from the demolished house, that was packed down to raise the ground level to be above the street level. This means we're trying to dig through all sorts of rubbish, bricks, etc without even a pickaxe! Basic tool is a sort of adze like thing.... not very efficient at cutting thru rubble. We rotate digging and carting away rubble as its too hot to keep at it for more than 5 mins at a time. The house will be for 5 families(!) so there's no shortage of labour...
I show round my photos of home - especially of digging the trench in front of our house to install a damp membrame which gets a lot of interest! The photos disappear rapidly round the neighbourhood! They all come back though.... People like Alexander's name - Eskander (sp?) the Great is a of course a well known figure in Egypt.
We stop at lunchtime, totally worn out. Our trenches are down to the old house floor level, so there's still a lot for them to do....
Back at the local office, we go off to the orthodox church with the priest. We get sung at by the assembled sunday school (which happens on Friday...) and then shown round. They have a 6th century baptistry.... and a sort of rock bowl used for foot washing on Maundy Thursday (I think!) While we were hard at work, Richard, Joan, Hugh and Wendy were off meeting the local bishop, and got presents! For BibleLands theres a historical bible stand and 2 icons, and we all get a presentation card with a papyrus painting signed by the bishop - pretty good! We offer our felt tip pens etc for the sunday school in a Sainsburys bag..... Hmmm.... The priest puts on a brave face though!
We take our leave to go back to the hotel - it feels like we were here for a lot longer!
After a washup and some lunch, we pile everything into the bus and head for Cairo. On the way, we stop at a monastry which they assure us has walls made by bees from wax over the last umpteen centuries.... A certain amount of sceptism is felt... When we get there, it turns out to be (approximately) true! In fact, its a type of wasp that glues together 'cells' from clay and sand to put its eggs into. These wasps have been doing this on the walls of the monastry for the last 1000 or so years, so in places the result is anything up to 2m thick! The mixture ends up like concrete, so its not actually wax.... The monastry also has the preserved arms/hands of a 3rd century martyr in a case - can't decide if thats interesting or horrid.... The neon icon of Mary/child is certainly interesting though, and the WW2 ex-army generator wagon in the courtyard has a certain style (well, I liked it anyway). Only 2 monks in the place now - at its height there were 5000.... kind of sad....
In Cairo we're back in the Baron hotel, which is very nice! (although it seems like cheating somehow).
posted by brian.wyld @ 2:01 AM
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