Today’s walk through the fields of Ghurayib village north of #Fayoum city! ❤️
I saw farmers threshing what looked like wheat, so I walked closer out of curiosity. Surprisingly, it wasn’t wheat at all…it was Sudan grass (a type of sorghum fodder) being processed for its seeds before planting it again in summer as animal feed, a seasonal alternative to clover or barseem برسيم. The farmers told me that just 50–100 kg of these seeds can grow an entire acre of land.
Further along the canals, I found kids catching crayfish, calling the big size of it as Doksh دوكش 😂. I continued walking along Biahmu canal until Biahmu village then I cycled back to Fayoum city. #Egypt
A walk and a bike ride along the beautiful Bahr El Gharak from its start near Azab Monsatery south of Fayoum to Ezbet Qalamshah in Itsa near Archangel Ghabriel Monsatery! ❤️ #Fayoum #Egypt
Today’s find!
I was just walking not looking for anything special just like another walk in the farmlands of #Fayoum then this appeared…A pigeon house but not the kind I expected!!
Traditional pigeon houses in Fayoum are usually built of stepped, multi-tiered mudbrick, but they tend to be square or rectangular in shape. This one, however is fully circular, rising in rounded tiers, which makes it very different from the common type.
The pigeon house is made of mudbrick and covered with a rough earthen plaster. Its surface is filled with small circular openings used as nesting spaces for pigeons.
I kept staring at it, trying to understand it… until a man passing by, on his way to the nearby mosque, noticed my curiosity.
I asked him, “How old is this pigeon house?”
He said, “I’m 57… and when I was a child, it was already here.”…. Over a hundred years old he assumed!
The shape instantly reminded me of Ibn Tulun Mosque’s minaret in Cairo and Samarra’s Minaret in Iraq.
I couldn’t help but envy the pigeons living here… part of me wanted to be a fat pigeon, taking over this whole house 😅 #Egypt
I posted photos of the pigeon house on my Explore Fayoum Facebook page, and I received the following clarification from Mr. Ahmed Gomaa, one of the pigeon house’s owners:
“This tower was built in 1870 by my grandfather, may he rest in peace, Abdel Latif Ali Ahmed Abu Anz. He was the one who constructed it in that year, with the help of skilled pottery makers. The tower consists of five ‘lanes’ or tiers, arranged from the widest to the narrowest. It contains more than 25,000 clay nesting pots (qawadis). The construction took approximately 65 days to complete.
The tower has been passed down through generations of the family and remains part of our heritage. However, over time it has not been well maintained. The land surrounding it belongs to the family, and a mosque has been recently built next to it.”
Hello April…Walked through my neighborhood in Madinat Fayoum today to grab some breakfast, after a night of rain and a morning sand storm. the streets were calm, The air was wild, I struggled to breathe,… and I just realized how much I missed my city. #Fayoum #Egypt ❤️
