Al Sorat Farm

 

Trip description:

Al Sorat farm is located in Giza, just off of the Mariotia Road about 4 km NW of the Pyramid of Djoser. Here is a link to a NY Times article about the farm.

Below is a tentative itinerary:

Monday

Introduction to the farm, explanation of why it was built the way that it was, as an area of free interaction among animals. We discuss animal behavior, specifically in reference to interactions with our dogs. We have a working pack of roughly a dozen dogs of various breeds and varieties who live here and supply security at night and companionship during the day. As working dogs, they are trained not to “play” with children, to be well-mannered and obedient, but students who are unaccustomed to dogs need to learn how to speak to them. All of the animals living on the farm are social animals and there will be a discussion of what this means in terms of the birds and mammals on the farm.

 

Goats, sheep and cattle: We raise goats and sheep for breeders to buy to improve their herds. When we have a batch of babies, we have milk from the goats and sheep which is used to make cheese. If we have does or ewes to be milked, students can try it out, but if we don’t have any milk production we will bring some buffalo milk from a local farmer to make cheese.

 

Students visit the gardens to select vegetables for their salad and to learn about the plants we grow, seed harvesting, and so on.

Tuesday

Vet clinic: The farm has been providing free veterinary first aid and nutritional advising to the farmers of our area for about 6 years now. On Tuesday we go out to the farmers in the areas where they live and work, and we treat anything from pigeons to camels. Our means of transportation are a couple of donkey carts and we carry our medications with us. This is also a chance to do some interesting photography.

 

Wednesday

Edible plants, herbs and plant uses and an introduction to horse handling. The gardens around the house are full of plants that one can eat even though they are generally held to be for decoration. As well we grow herbs in the garden each of which has both a culinary and a medicinal use.

 

We will take students to meet the horses in the paddocks and to learn to brush and clean them and to do some walking exercises with them. We will talk about the care and feeding of horses and about why our horses all live in paddocks rather than boxes. We do a walk around the farm leading horses to learn how to communicate with them on the ground.

Thursday

This is the day that everyone looks forward to, horse-back riding. Our horses are rescues in the sense that they will never be sold to anyone. They stay at the farm until they die, and many of them have lived to a good age (About a third of them are 25 to 30+ years old, but they are healthy, happy and still enjoy taking people riding.) They have been carefully trained for trail riding and know how to recognize and assess situations out on the trails and how to deal with them without any panic or fear. They are all completely comfortable with novice riders and understand the need to care for them.

Meals are buffet style and include meat dishes and vegan dishes to cover any food orientation. We recommend that students attending wear comfortable long pants and comfortable shoes, such as sneakers, while attending the farm. Short-sleeved t-shirts are fine but it should be noted that there are flies out in the countryside and some of them bite. Dark colours are less likely to show dirt, sand, or dust.

 

Operator: Al Sorat Farm, Maryanne Stroud (owner)

Program cost:  LE 1,100 (includes lunch as well as daily transport to and from the farm)

Fitness Level: any