blog from 2009

Boats garbage and dead fish. this blog is from the  era of Mubarak regime. 2009.

as are all  my nilelfe .blogspot.com

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All day we had this  dust cloud  the only time I saw the sun was early morning   when on my walk to the west bank of luxor, made for some silhouettes of  pied kingfishers on the front of one of the dahabia cruise boats

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the Nile is very low I have never seen it so low and the farmers have been told to stop pumping direct from the Nile to water the land, they  can only use canal water that gets filled from the council pumps out of the Nile 

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the farmers pump is in the middle of the  stanchions

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this pump was moved nearer the nile water with 40 ft of makeshift pipe and it is still 20ft from the water.

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one fishing boat on the what should be the winters normal flood line.

this one is 2 metres high on the summers flood line. it still has its fish nets

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kingfishers on the guide ropes I counted 14 birds  this morning.

 

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sail boats high and dry winter is a good time to paint and repair the smaller craft that use the Nile

the jetty in the background is the drinking water pipe pumped out of the Nile to the filtration plant,

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the Nile is getting overcrowded  and these large cruisers are moored on the west bank while the other boats do a shuffle for places,   on crossing the ferry this dawn there was 14 abreast  half way across the Nile,

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the garbage boat boys keeping warm on this foggy day 

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even the rust bucket teba star has been moved from its moorings, 

read story on here http://bloodylyingbastards.blogspot.com/2010/08/even-coptics-get-to-swindle.html .

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one of the garbage boats full to the brim will have to find its way around the cruisers doing their routine ballet dance on the nile.

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early morning flight of the ibis heading for the feeding grounds.

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a balloon in the mist

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sun coming up its about 6.00

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Grey heron does not like the guy with the camera getting too close

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on my way home at 9.30 the tier had 12 boats the others are in the river shuffle.

can you imagine the walk the paying guest has to do through 12/14 boats, always the boat leaving on a cruise down river to Aswan is moored at the end.

and why is there so much change in the mooring of the cruisers?

 http://nilelife5.blogspot.com/2010/12/ban-ki-moonsuzanne-mubarak.html

this past week we have had Mrs Suzane Mubarek Egypts first lady, came to listen at a two hour orchestra live, then Ban Ki-moon came he is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, 

then today and the next couple of days there is a conference held in the old winter palace,

I was hoping it was on Nile polution , but its on the roll of ladies etc in the Egyptian community??.

even though the new moorings are built upstream the Nile is too low for the these boats as several already on the moorings are stuck on the bottom.  excellent planning on behalf of the luxor and district governor.

in their quest to spend millions of aid money. at this time  and for the next 3 years the existing moorings have no fuel supplies including sewage . due to lowering the prom by three meters.

the work is well under way, see,

http://nilelife5.blogspot.com/2010/12/common-bulbul-pycnonotus-barbatus.html

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some of the 3 tiers of cruise boats looking  upstream.

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these boats are 2 man vessels one rowing and one handling the nets. rod fishing is done off the bank.

so I waited to see why are there 3 in this boat,  I had heard about this way of catching fish  and the  reason I do not buy fish from the local market,

even the canals are getting low on water. these are the naughty lazy fishermen they go for the dead fish in the canal.

the ones that die from pollution. they sell  cheap to the locals.

 not surprising people have dysentery this fish will  no doubt end up on the tourists menu 

The pole the one guy has a net on the end  when fish leave the water they struggle,  the 4 fish I saw put in the container where already dead

see .http://bloodylyingbastards.blogspot.com/2010/12/butchers-who-were-caught-selling.html.

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one of the river fishermen getting his catch from the net.

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fishermen of the Nile 

click here to see all the Nile life5 blog http://www.nilelife5.blogspot.com/

My first visit to Egypt

THE EGYPTIAN  PASSPORT OFFICE IN TEL AVIV ISRAEL .

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Some youngsters  who worked on the kibbutz farms  that had to leave Israel when the red flag went up.. I met them  on leaving Israel  during the 2003 Iraq conflict, the young lady was from the uk the red haired guy was from Mexico  and a canadian. the empty seat belonged to our guide spent three days in Cairo before they went home  and I to work on the Eye ear And throat clinic in Daraw , Daraw is between Aswan and Comombo in the upper delta of Egypt. here I worked as a volunteer for 5 months.

A young fisher boy on the Nile  in Daraw

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Not what it seems!!  this was the meanest animal I ever had the pleasure of sitting on for a few minutes only,. 

the new reception area this i competed in 3 weeks  with two labourers doing all the cement  mixing by hand,

The high ceilings  were built before electricity was used to cool the rooms down.

the old building dated back to 1900 the whole of the lower floor I re plastered  and built a new eye operating room for the clinic

Dr Samira  with the first patient in the finished  new clinic

Sister Christa and Ahmed entertaining the girls family  not unusual for all the family to turn up when one of them is ill

water buffalo and felluca's are all part of the Nile scenery

A donkey caravan heading for the Valley of the Kings

The flight from Cairo to Aswan the flight path is mainly along the Nile river.

The damaged wall this damage was caused when we put steel  H  girders in to support the upstairs floors.

Building the nod stairs  old style  mud with corn chaff

Mud bricks I used for the rebuilding of part of the clinic

This story on how we had a police Escort to re visit the clinic in daraw is quite hilarious, on our first holiday back in egypt We stayed in the oberoi hotel in Aswan  this is the posh hotel on the Elephantine Island,  back in 2003  one had to have a police escort to travel from one district to another , on my second visit to Aswan after spending 5 months previously  traveling the 40 kilometre to Daraw each way 5 days a week by local microbus,  thought we could just hire a taxi.  easy enough getting  a taxi for four people  lots of Peugeot 505 about they can carry eight person plus the driver,  a price was agreed for a days outing to visit the camel market and the clinic I spent 5 months rebuilding plus a visit to  Sobic the crocodile god  temple in Com-ombo, but we had to go through a road block  here we had to explain  how I knew the area  as I once worked in Daraw for the Germannaya hospital. Ah I was informed  I had to phone the hospital to confirm that indeed I knew the people there.  I handed the phone to the captain on the post to who was Dr Gamil. on putting the phone down,, I was addressed as doctor. we have A special policeman to come with you. he said a few words to the driver and he was on the understanding I and my party were special people  who have a free police escort to Daraw no stopping on any other checkpoint  like every other vehicle including  the local bus taxi service,  not until we got to the clinic  after visiting the camel market did we get to know what was going on. Sister Christa  the german nurse who runs the clinic  and speaks fluent arabic  explained that they have been told to make sure you are ok  we also know now after the revolution of 28/1/2011  how this country runs on lies and corruption. anyway  we were very well looked after by the driver with the odd name of moo moo. not so odd really when one knows that almost all muslims in Egypt have the name Mohamed somewhere in their name .  the party in the clinic garden  Hassan who runs the admin of this busy free clinic, Mrs  Roberts , Karin  , moo moo, our kalashnicov carrying secret policeman mohamed, and Klause  who sold up here on my hometown in wales and now lives in
Alexandria

in the camel market Daraw

 Giza pyramids and the sphinx2003