More Photos

Here are some additional photos - still faces of Egypt - later I'll post landscape and architecture pictures.

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I arrived back to Montana 24 hours after leaving Cairo.  My flight left at 3:25 a.m. and I got off the plane in Missoula at 7:38 p.m. - all in the same day.    I have a mere 1,100 photos which I need to pare down to a reasonable number to show people.  Some of my best memories are of the Egyptian people - so here are some "Faces of Egypt".

Below is the body of an email that I received from Warren a few minutes ago...

I had another amazing day and now I am sitting in my room with the window open listening to the 8 PM call to prayer.  It is a man singing-I imagine some kind of prayer - he has a fine voice and there is no mistaking this for Kansas.  We left Cairo this morning at 6:30 and headed north towards the city of Alexandria - famous from Greek and Roman times.  We turned into the countryside sometime before the city and Mediterranean Sea.  We found the beekeeper and he directed us down this incredibly beatup street.  We stopped by a 3 story concrete house and were invited in.  We sat in this narrow concrete balcony and got to know each other.  A young man 32 with 2 kids, Bismulliah (age 4) and Mohamed (age 1) His wife (failed to write her name), his parents, and younger brother (19).  All lived somewhere in the house.  The father is my age - lots more white hair.  Then they asked me if I wanted a breakfast.  It was flatbread, homemade olives a kind of lunchmeat, 2 kinds cheese, Egyptian beans (fool)  The price of being a good ambassador may be playing digestive roulette.  When we returned, we were served in tall gilt tipped wine type glasses a strawberry drink.  I could not refuse so prayed to the cipro god and enjoyed - when I tried to put back the glass with an inch or so of drink still in it that if a drink is returned half drunk, the host's daughter will not get married.  We went to the apiary (in a citrus grove) with an entourage:  a PhD researcher in bees from the local university at Damanhour where we are sleeping tonight, a pretty young woman of 27 who is finishing her masters in plant and fruit production, plans to continue to her Doctorate and keeps 25 hives of bees.  She was nicely dressed including her head covering, but did not mind being photographed and shook my hand and sat and talked with me, there was another beekeeper,the father, younger brother, the 4 year old daughter Bismullah, and a non-beekeeping video cameraman.  We went through a number of hives.  They were much stronger than in south Egypt, but still in only one box and only 4-5 frames of brood.

We then went back to the house for more talk, I showed the powerpoint, the brothers downloaded all my 800 photos on the chip including the dozens we shot today.  Lunch was overwhelming, Pita style bread, homemade olives, a chicken broth soup with small pastas, delicious beef koftas, a plate of fried chicken, a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers, much rice fixed with small pasta threads, and the father and brother kept piling food on my plate - I tried valiently, but had to give up.  As our driver was agitating to go, I took several kitchen photos - the wife was fixing more strawberries for another smoothie drink, this time with added sliced bananas, so what could I do?

My host then wante me to ride with him in their old small stationwagon through the bombed out street, to the roadway. I am not sure what that was all about, but the driver and interpreter caught up with me and we said another round of goodbyes and headed for Damanhour.

My Tea Host and Sons

Drinking Tea

Here is the Great Pyramid

Tahrir Square, Cairo

Mohamed Ali Mosque in Cairo

Statue Outside Cairo Museum

Two Libyan Women I met

Garbage is a Problem in Cairo

Modern Mosaic at Coptic Church

Hi Everyone - Warren has been able to send one photo at a time attached to multiple emails - he had time off this weekend and visited the center of Cairo including Tahrir Square.  Here are some of the photos. 

Hi Everyone - Warren's wifi access has been a little thin, so he hasn't been able to post.  He did send a photo via email today. I am assuming that this man is one of the amazing villagers Warren has met.  His first week was amazing - meeting beekeepers and farmers in small villages south of Cairo.  He has shared sugared tea and meals with many different people.  He and another volunteer were hoping to tour the pyramids on Friday.  With any luck there will be more photos!

As I (Peggy) write this, Warren is on the second leg of his travels to Egypt - flying Air France and about 2 hours away from landing in Paris - after a layover at Charles DeGaulle Airport, he'll have a 4+ hour flight to Cairo.  The above photo is how he looked at the beginning of his day in Missoula at the airport - hopefully someone will take a photo of him when he arrives in Cairo!

The night before he left, I organized a birthday/going away party for him at the Signal Grill - it was a great gathering of friends and a wonderful excuse to get together with everyone.  We are so fortunate to have such good friends - Warren was so happy to see everyone before he left.

Hopefully, the next post will be one that he enters from Egypt!!

Hi Everyone,
   I will be leaving for Egypt in two days.   I have been tending the bees and wondering how they can manage without me for 2 weeks.  They do not have similar concerns.  Packing as usual is reserved for that panic time at midnight before departure day.  The garden, house and related projects are on hold.  Of course the most anxiety will be accorded toward using this little computer which seems to function well when Stephen or Peggy are near.  When they are thousands of miles away, who knows.