Nour Bishouty: Walkers Watchers

Sandy Desert: These leather tents are the only homes of the nomadic Arab herdsmen

Extraordinarily tattooed and lined face of Fathiya

Mohammad and me in a tent

skinning a goat for a wedding feast

figure 8
deities of thunder and lightning
as solid as the earth

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“Hens and roosters have lived in domestic partnership with us for 4,000 years or more. Until recently, the domesticated birds lived much as their wild ancestors had—in small flocks with a distinct power hierarchy, or "pecking order," and with a dominant rooster, "the cock of the walk, prevailing over the hens and the immature males.

Aggressive, lusty, strutting, gorgeously feathered especially with their plangent, early-morning cries. It was an ancient belief that because evil spirits are most active in the darkness of night, the cock's crow before sunrise dispelled demons and signaled the welcome arrival of dawn.”

Raami in the ‘high’ chair that Mohammad made; A wonderful adaptation of a western innovation

“Hindu myth tells us that the universe was supported by the legs of a bull, signifying the four directions. The symbolic range of the bull is so encompassing that it is associated with all the four elements, indicating the tremendous power of nature, beyond human control.”

Helpers (nishama) skinning a goat for a wedding feast

On our Wadi Sabra adventure with Ali-f and Raweya

"I am thy mother who formed thy limbs and created thy beauties"
Her entire being radiates the gentleness of a mother's care.
The ultimate provider of riches.

“Her bull calves are the workers of the fields, her manure becomes fertiliser, fuel and building materials for houses; her sinews and bones turn into tools, her hide is used for clothing, her milk the ultimate nourishment, making her a wet nurse for millions of people.

In ancient imaginations, the cow embodied the double transformation mysteries where the mother's blood created or built the young and then changed into milk at birth.”