Cases and cases of dead birds
Today was our last day with our friend visiting from the US, so we decided to take it easy. Again, our “easy” day ended up being pretty rough on us!
We chose to go down the street to the Agricultural Museum which the Lonely Planet says, “may sound dull but is quite fascinating and verges on the bizarre.”
It certainly did not disappoint. The first floor of the large, stone museum is full of lifesize recreations of rural Egyptian life, including a village scene with men weighing stuffed chickens, a marriage procession complete with the bride sitting inside a wooden carriage, and a man sitting on a bench reciting the Koran.
The real show was in the backroom though. The security guard took it upon himself (for a small tip, of course. Which was fine, really, since the admission fee to the museum was only $0.02) to unlock the door and guide us into a room around the corner which displayed life in a typical rural Egyptian home. Lifesize models drinking tea in the kitchen, women dancing in the living room, and a child on the roof feeding the pigeons.
The guard was not satisfied with our oohs and ahhs though – he wanted us to experience the recreations! So, he pulled back the metal chain and showed me how I needed to pose for the camera. I, of course, didn’t want to pose alone:
It wasn’t even a problem when I bumped into the tamborine sitting in a model’s hands – I picked it up off the ground and when I tried to place it back into the scene, he scoffed at me and mimicked that I should shake it!
The first floor recreations were only just a warm up though for the main show on the second floor. Oh yeah, an entire floor of stuffed dead animals, bones and, and cartlidge, including:
– mounted lion head
– mounted rhinoceros head
– stretched python skin
– a wall of gazelle horns
– mounted moose head
– camel skeleton
– whale skeleton
– case of various rodents
– jars of snakes
– mounted giraffe heads
– dried and whithered crocodiles
– mounted hippo head
– cases upon cases of stuffed birds (and a very fascinating case of bird nests – who knew there was such a variety?)
And – saving the best for last – the guard told us to go to another room behind a black curtain. It was a bit suspicious that he didn’t lead the way, as he did with everything else, but we didn’t expect a … stuffed bear! Our friend L even let out a squeak as D pulled back the curtain. Scary!
Photos courtesy of L’s rockin’ new Nikon D80 (and the kick*ss lens it came with)
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December 28th, 2006 at 12:42 am
hello! thank you bunches for all of the posted info. we will be arriving in Cairo on Jan 2, 2007, and you info has eased a few of our worries and also made us aware of some things that we were unaware of.
Thanks again, Peggy
December 28th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Thanks for your comments, Peggy!
I’m mostly just writing this blog to let our friends and family know we are happy and safe, but it’s always exciting to learn that what we post helps other travelers.
I don’t know what your plans are while you are in Cairo, but there is a great exhibit at the Townhouse Gallery until January 13th called “The Maghreb Collection.” It’s mostly video and photography, documenting human migration across North Africa and the Mediterranean. Check out : http://www.thetownhousegallery.com/main7.html