25 January 2015 – 4th anniversary

Instead of repeating again what has gone wrong, I would like to publish a photo:

It shows the uproar of 25^th January 2011, the demand for bread, freedom and justice. I discovered this copper plate during my visit at The Urban Centre forWomen in Luxor.

Many have lost all hope; some continue fighting for their basic human rights.

The lost people II

(posted on my German blog 19 July 2014)

In May I posted an appeal for help. It was about helping the Bedouins living in the Red Sea Mountains after they had lost all their belongings due to the torrential rains in March. Thanks to all of you who contacted Robby Schropp and to all my friends for their confidence and support.

Off the lorry tracks, Robby and the Bedouins built a market place between 2009 and 2011. Here, producers from the interior met with purchasers from the coast who sold cheese, eggs, meat and wool. A huge water reservoir stored the most precious good in the desert.

Before choosing the site, the council of elders was contacted and none of them remembered having seen deluge of water in this area. The site was considered as safe – however, nature decided differently.

Please have a look of what has become the market place:

Whether the site can be rebuilt any time in the future is unclear for lack of funds. If you wish to help, please get in touch with Robby or with me.

The small difference: to act or to look away

Hundreds of Millions of people are watching on TV these days, how 22 men are scrapping over a ball. The event is called World Football Championship and is a huge money factory orchestrated by the media. With the half-finals at the latest, even those fall for it that usually don’t care about this ball game. Everybody watches.

The lost people – appeal for help

(posted on my German blog on 13 April 2014)

In March, it was raining all over Egypt, but mainly in the South. Pictures in internet showed streets washed away and cars enabled to continue. Water was streaming down on the walls inside of newly built houses. As everybody else, I first thought about myself and my belongings stored in a basement – I still can’t believe that they shouldn’t have got soaked just there. I read the reports of Europeans and the damages on their properties. Until Maged, an Egyptian friend reminded me of all those, that do NOT own property! I felt ashamed… and imagined how the cardboard houses would look like after the rain.

credit: Hurghada-Cairo road by Luc Latif

A German friend of mine who has been living in Egypt for almost 40 years, doesn’t talk but does act. One month has already passed since the deluge, the media focuses on El Sisi and the terrorists, and the property owners are repairing the damages. Everything else seems to be forgotten.

Some of the lost people are Egyptian Bedouins. They anyway don’t possess a lot, live in the barren desert with their cattle herds and some families make some extra income thanks to tourism – which is rare these days. My friend – Robby Schropp – knows them. The Bedouins are his friends and partners. When they need help, they turn to him for they can’t count on the government.

If it rains in the mountains, the floods wash away everything on their way: rocks, vegetation, cattle, people, cars and camps. The water rolls as a torrent towards the coast and concentrates in huge puddles and gradually evaporates – it doesn’t drain off anywhere. 

During the last rainfall in March, many Bedouins have lost the little they owned – except for what they were wearing on their body. They need medicine, medical help, cloths, blankets, food, building material, cattle and much more. Just today, Robby rushed into the desert together with a doctor – at his own expense.

I’d like to support Robby’s actions and ask you to help me. We can already buy some medicine for as little as 10 Euro and several blankets with 50 Euro. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t trust Robby.  Have a look at the pictures of a camp after the rain… 

credit: all photos by Robby Schropp

Those who want may contact Robby here: http://www.iq-ontour.com/home.html or get in touch with me.   

Your donation doesn’t disappear in administration, certification and advertising of a well- known charity organization, but is used directly there where it helps immediately.

Thanks to all of you, who feel addressed and wish to help with a small amount.

Yours,

El Qamar

Sexual Harassment

(posted on my German blog on 19 February 2014)

Several times, I wanted to write about this issue. Why I didn’t? Since in Egypt, it’s an omnipresent issue that the media addresses continuously. So why do I finally write about it? Well, because I’ve been affected myself. Many foreign ladies, who live here in Egypt, read my blog and I beg you: don’t be silent anymore when you’ve been harassed! React, contact harassmap or other organisations! In addition, I call on the men to discourage harassers, to rebuke and to lecture them! Set a good example!

Definition of sexual harassment

The blue moon: a place for those in need (part II)

Clinic
The clinic is actually a gallery. Monica is a painter and her husband is a stone carver. Yet now, the operating theatre is in the gallery and the workshop serves as office and working room. Everywhere, handicrafts of the two artists are deployed, hung up and I literally step on them: even the floor’s tiles are inscribed and painted with saws in different languages. However, there’s hardly any time left for art, whereas animals get operated here inside and – what is known all over Hurghada – street animals get castrated for free. For many years, Monica has been the driving force to stop poisoning the wild cats and dogs and instead to have them castrated for free. HEPCA and other animal protection advocates supported her.

From home and workshop to an animal shelter
How did all begin?
“There was a cat meowing in front of our front door.” Her husband took her inside, they nursed her and one day she disappeared. “Thereby, we never ever had any business with animals!” Soon after that, her husband turned up with two budgies in a basket. Hence, they built an aviary on their workshop’s veranda. Since birds don’t like to live alone according to the information from internet – this is where she got her knowledge initially – they bought three more birds. While buying fodder in Cairo, they acquired a cat, since the other one had run away. The “street matador” made sure to produce some offspring and soon, Monica and her husband found themselves in the middle of a flock of kitten. They ought to be castrated and hence, they went to see a veterinary. Yet he killed them while castrating them. As compensation, they wanted a dog. However, he brought two friends along with him and so they also had become castrated. The result of the castration was the same as with the cats.

The blue moon: a place for those in need (part I)

An animal shelter in the middle of the desert, built with much blood, sweat and tears

Hurghada has more to offer than only sun, sea and cheap alcohol and the related sex tourism. Now and there, thanks to personal efforts, private organisations and opportunities arise that do not focus on short term profit. However, they seek to improve unsupportable situations for a better future. The “Bluemoon” is one of those and I’m going to talk about it in this blog.

“Bluemoon“ is not the name of a cosy country inn, but the name for an animal shelter amidst the desert. At the middle ring road, Monica is waiting for me, sitting in her bright red Volkswagen Beetle. We are jolting over a dirt road for another 500 m into the desert. Getting off the car, we are actually standing in the heart of the animal shelter. A white puppy is greeting us waving its tail, cats are sniffing at me curiously and are stroking around my legs while I’m looking around. There’s a huge table surrounded by a dozen of chairs, behind it there are two sofas, covered with hand woven rugs, beside it there are a kitchen table, a bench, a water pipe. Further to the right, I see a big stone table on brick-built pedestals. Cats and dogs are everywhere. Walls and pillars are made of building rubble and broken stones from the desert, palm leaves and straw provide shade. The floor: sand. Of course! All made from nature. Bays in the pillars give space to art work. Immediately, I feel fine. The half open construction leaves the view open towards the corrals.

The corrals – an empire for each animal
“Let’s first have a tour of the place”, Monica suggests and shows me the young plants of her mini nursery. Here, succulents are grown and sold at the markets. “What are succulents?” I ask. These are plants that retain water“ is her answer, which I consider as logical as I feel ignorant. Right beside, birds twitter in an aviary. I peek through the narrow mesh and discover light blue and white canary birds perching on bamboo sticks and rocking. For an instant, I remember my childhood… my grandpa.. yellow canary birds… 

Yet Monica’s voice brings me back to the here and now. She marches out into the blazing nine o’clock sun. Stroking a donkey she recounts that even the government brings her abused donkeys that they have confiscated from burglars. Just the government! Ironically, she and her husband Salah were accused by exactly this government of stealing water from the pipeline and they have been sentenced to one year in prison.