Garbage, a Church and a Mosque

Friday, first day of our weekend and it was a beautiful day, I spent the morning on the golf course and from the elevated tees the pyramids could clearly been seen, first time thats happened! Afternoon we took boys plus friends down town to City Stars where they had a great time bowling and eating. Never seen such little traffic on the road, maybe everyone was down at Tahrir protesting.

Saturday I went out with Ahmed again with my camera, intent on goint to a couple of spots that have been on my list for a while, St Simians Church in Muqattum Hills and al Hakim Mosque in Islamic Cairo. I also wanted to try a new photographic technique (new to me at least) called High Dynamic Range photography or HDR.

Using google earth I had found St Simians the Tanner Monastry and Church. Its in one of the poorest areas of Cairo called garbage city. Around town you can see rubbish collectors assembling huge bags of rubbish for later recycling and sorting, Muqattum is where they end up and a whole neighbourhood processes them.

Entrance into Garbage City

You could see the bags on the roof tops from a distance and there is rather less than piney fresh smell in the air. We made our way into the neighbourhood along the road we shared with overlain rubbish trucks bring the days assortment in. Every nook, crany, little doorway, alley was crammed full of rubbish, they were even dragging the bags up to the roof as we drove under. Just as I thought there "must be a lot of rats in here" a poodle-size rodent ran alongside the car and up an alley. This was not typical tourist Cairo, and there were not many white faces around, but its is the only way to the church. Like all neighbourhoods though the basics of life go on, bread shops, mechanics, and of course coffee shops all doing good business. Eventually we found the turn, after asking a few people "welcome Mr, shamal, shamal" we were directed up the hill through even narrower streets stacked high with cardboard either side eventually coming out at the church entrance arch, and the single tourist police man, making sure we signed in “Wahid Ingelise” and we were allowed to drive up to the church.

The saying is there was a miracle here (the miracle being how the busses ever bring the faithful). Muqattum is built at the base of the Muqattum cliff and the church is located along and in the cliff face and its natural ampitheatres. Its pretty spectacular, as a venue, and takes about 15 000 people apparently though that look a bit much, although it had about 50 when we were there. The cliff walls are carved with various iconology and biblical phrases which are pretty impressive. Its named after a chap called Saint Simon the Tanner or shoemaker who lived towards the end of the tenth century. Story goes at the time the muslim ruler used to invite different religious leaders to debate in his presence. During one of the debates the jewish side quoted Matthew, 17:20 “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to the mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move, nothing will be impossible for you”.

The muslim caliph demanded that this very miracle be performed by or else he and all the Copts would be killed, seems perfectly reasonable. One morning the Holy Virgin told the Jewish chap to go to the market to find a one-eyed man carrying on his shoulder a jar full of water. The man whom the Virgin spoke of was Simeon the tanner. As an aside being a shoe maker Simieon, who obviously takes things literally, had once lustfully looked a ladies ankle, so he promptly who had plucked out his eye because of a passage from the bible which said: If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away (Matthew 5:29-30). Anyhow back to the story. Simeone told everyone to shout O Lord, have mercy three times, “and the mountain was lifted” – i.e there was an earthquake and everyone was saved. Interestingly there are plenty of faults in the area (perhaps Simeon was a geologist) and there have been numerous earthquakes (this is a fault zone) since and many poor people have been killed due to landsides, rock falls and poor building standards.

The church in a cave

The citadel and Muqattam
Driving out through the narrow streets
Rubbish on the "main road"
Bags everywhere

Dragging a couple of bags to the roof

After taking a few photos, unfortunately the sun was behind the hill, we headed down to Islamic Cairo and Bab Fatouh. I wanted to explore a mosque I previously took a nice photo of the entrance. The Al Hakim mosque or Alabaster mosque made a cool visit in the increasing heat. The mosque dates from 985 and is on Muizz Street, my favourite. A small Shia sect performed a "pimp my mosque" in 1980 and really did a nice job refurbishing the place, however the original Minarets stand proud in the background behind the white alabaster.

Through the Bab in the old city walls

Sun through the palms and Al Hakim minaret

Al Hakim mosque in stark black and white.....

Drink containers of Tamarind juice I think

A Khoshari - real working mans food
Ahmed getting a juice from the bar

I got a few nice ones there we walked a little bit down Muizz Street, I was trying to find a copper Hilal (top of a Minaret) for the garden in the UK but the shop I know was not open. So we stopped at a juice bar for a fresh OJ and came back to Kattameya.

Ill post my first attempt at HDR soon. Basically with a tripod you take a normal exposure photo, one under and one over, and then smash them together using some computer-jiggery pokery, and then play around with the final product. The photos are super definition, and by changing the parameters you can get many different styles of photos and atmospheres. Will see what I can do (when I have time!