Modern Egypt - sundry posts

Made in Egypt
Al Ahram Weekly (Amira Al-Noshokaty)

"This is the entrance of Akhmim," points Mariam Azmi at her art work, as she ushers me in to Al-Kawsar district's sizeable garden. "On Sham Al-Neseem -- Easter -- everybody, Muslims and Copts, go there to spend the day and enjoy the greenery."

At the premises of the Upper Egypt Association for Education and Development (AUEED), the walls are covered with vivid textiles -- some with portraits depicting daily rituals that capture the core of pastoral life -- reflecting the ingenuous stitches and motifs of the Upper Egyptian artisans of Akhmim: that little village stitched into the heart of Sohag governorate in Upper Egypt. On the tables are numerous skillfully carved wooden ornaments, with typical Pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic motifs, only found in the small village of Hegaza in Qena governorate, where all the tenants are carpenters. It is the annual market for products of AUEED.

Restoring Cairo Zoo
Al Ahram Weekly (Dena Rashid)

The clamour of the streets surrounding the Giza Zoo in Cairo and the voices of the thousands of visitors who each day visit it disappear once one enters the historic citadel hills, also known as the royal hills, at the zoo's heart. These artificial hills, built in 1867, have now been renovated and reopened to the public, allowing a respite from the maddening noise outside. Their newly renovated condition is a sign of things to come and part of an ambitious scheme to restore the zoo's international standing after years of neglect.

The Giza Zoo, originally opened to the public in 1891, developed over the later decades of the 19th century from being the gardens of the Khedive Ismail to a major public park and attraction for Egyptians of all classes. The uniqueness of the zoo lay not only in its possession of rare animal species and plants, but also in its lay-out and design. Gustave Eiffel, the engineer behind the Eiffel Tower in Paris, built a metal suspension bridge in the grounds that allows visitors a view of the animals from the top of artificial hills. The old fences, pathways, lakes and many of the original animal houses also reflect the dedication put into the original design of the zoo.

Farouk Hosny: The Energy of Abstraction
New Times, Broward-Palm Beach

Hosny’s not just a cultural critic, he’s also an abstract artist. So maybe you can pick up on his true motivations in the swirls of desert oranges and violets that grace his paintings, appearing now through April 15 at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale (One E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale). General Admission costs $10. Call 954-525-5500, or visit www.moafl.org.

City of the Dead
Ancient Egypt and Pop Culture (Brittany Sovran)

I went to Egypt when I was nine and the one thing I will never forget is driving through Cairo with my uncle and peering out the window at the City of the Dead - a four mile long cemetery on the eastern side of Cairo where ancient rulers used to bury the dead. We talk so much about ancient Egypt and the wonder of the architecture, history and customs of old that rarely we realize what Egypt is like today. The City of the Dead, formally known as the Qarafa cemetery, is a massive cemetery with little “tomb rooms” above the thousands of graves. Today, massive overpopulation and a severe housing shortage in Cairo has forced as many as five million civilians to call these cemetery tomb rooms home. Among these cemeteries (5 in total) lives a community of Cairo’s urban poor; forming an illegal but tolerated separate society.

The people who live in these “tomb rooms” have tried to make them as practical as possible. They use grave markers as desks and shelves, hang string between gravestones for laundry to dry, and brought in electricity wire from a nearby mosque. The poor of Cairo have flocked to the cities of the dead, as they are already built and far better than living on the streets, despite the cockroaches, mosquitoes, and flies that abound.