As part of our farewell tour Mary went to Sharkeya, the fertile district in the Delta to the northeast of Cairo. In a small village in that area Mary’s friend Helga is living. She is an elderly German lady who married an Egyptian a long time ago. He passed away and she continued living on their farm with one of her daughters. Helga’s farm is also the place were our horses Adham and Mirinda came from, and stable manager Sayed regularly visits to look for (read: rescue) new horses in the area. Helga used to run her house as a guesthouse, but now only receives friends. It is all a bit run down; Helga struggles to make a living and to take good care of her horses; they are well fed with mediocre food, and generally tied to a rope, with little exercise or grooming. And this is still one of the bettter places!
Monday morning Mary picked up Sayed somewhere along the Ring Road (the Egyptian way) and drove with our little car to Helga’s, a three-hour trip. On arrival Mary and Sayed did their regular horse maintenance: deworming, washing and brushing. This was followed by a meal, a bottle of wine and an overnight stay. As there is very little happening a visit generally means that the whole family turns up as well (attracted by the sound of a cork popping from a bottle!). The following day Helga came back with Mary and Sayed to the stable at Saqqara, a place she never visited before! Here 4 of her former horses are housed, trained and ridden regularly and cared for by Sayed and Reda, and they are in excellent shape. It was difficult for Helga to recognise some of her horses. In the mean time also Paula, Dorien and Els had turned up for their regular Tuesday afternoon lesson. After dinner at Sayed's Helga stayed overnight at our house. The next morning they returned to the Saqqara stable, where she was picked up by her driver and daughters with her Peugeot 504. In the end this was a major excursion for them, as it had been several years since Helga had been in Cairo, but this might have been her last chance to see the stable.
Helga getting out of her car
Helga's granddaughter Dudi with one of their buffalo's
Sayed and Mary in Sharkeya
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