Lights, Camera, Action!

We didn't know he was a butcher's boy (even though I am one too!) when we saw him sitting in a darkened alley in the old, work shop area of Islamic Cairo on the opposite side of the main road from Khan Al Khalili market.

He spotted my mini iPad held, I thought, discreetly between my palm and leg and insisted on a photo...but not where he sat! He ran across the street into a butcher's booth, threw on the light, pulled out a piece of meat from the chill flinging it onto a hook as he grabbed a knife and sprung into position waiting for me to say 'Action'...and all before you could say 'a pun o' mince'!

We arrived in the dusk just after Iftar, the breaking of the fast, and were the only foreigners to be seen during the whole hour and a half of our walk through the alleyways, many of them deserted. I'm tempted to say we were taken back in time seeing mosques and minarets and city gates and stalls and trades in action, as well as smelling the stench of chicken cages and the scents perfume and spices, as well noting the look of people's faces and clothes which haven't changed in centuries...but, of course, today is the 30th June 2014, and this is very much the Cairo of today for the majority of its people.