Luxor Egypt, Donkey days

mum with her newborn foal

The family portrait.

The donkey and the thief  a story from my  first nilelife,blog

Have to laugh. 

Update on the 29th august09 story. each of the people the police charged in the story got quite a heavy fine, the thief is still around he can have 5 appeals against his sentence. that may take 5 years. in the meantime he may decide to leave Luxor and that will be the end of that for him. but the innocent parties have had to pay the fines. who is the donkey the judge. or the the thief's transport.
The original story

at 1.00 midday I was walking home from Luxor and I had to pass the police station, outside tied to the railings by the police station was a donkey with a load of steel on it's cart. And I thought to myself another donkey has been arrested, last time I passed the station they had a horse and carriage tethered in the same place the carriage had a wheel come loose and it was tied and left there for 2 days in the searing heat. While the owner was in jail for driving a dangerous vehicle used for the transportation of tourists. Was fined and let off after paying the fine.
So maybe the donkey is in the same situation the driver was being charged with over loading the donkey. Not until I got back to my flat did I know the story,

Each night a few bars of steel where taken from the building site behind the Sunshine home.
and hid in a field of maze 100 yards from the site, when there was enough hidden the thief brought his donkey and cart to take the steel away the only way out was down a foot path that people used to get to their homes, at the end of the path there is an open concrete irrigation channel that prevents direct access to the road. And a steep bend past the first house. While trying to get the donkey and cart laden with the steel around the corner the overhanging steel was rubbing against the mud brick wall causing the owner Ahmed my neighbour concern for his property,on going out to investigate he found some of the mud bricks had been dislodged from the corner wall and being the nice guy he is offered the thief some rope to tidy his load of steel up. And stop the overhang so he had no problem turning the corner when the donkey and its load got to the next bend there was a car and some motorbikes parked in the drive way of our block of flats.All of the vehicle owners who come to the coffee shop use this area for parking as the police will take the offending vehicle away if parked on the main road. The thief then starts shouting to get these vehicles moved because they are blocking the getaway path, no one objected as it seems the donkey has the right of way here no matter which way it is travelling or where it is travelling, everybody makes way for the donkeys, not for pedestrians don’t ask why; but that is the way it is here,

On negotiating the next bend the now overhanging steel at the rear of the cart scraped My landlords car that was parked in the building part of the drive, this was parked so there was enough room for a donkey and cart to get through but not the 10ft of overhang of the steel bars. Now my land lord is involved and wants the thief’s name so he can get compensated for the damage to his vehicles tail end, this is when the thief has to make a hurried getaway , but that’s OK because the thief is known to him. And others in the coffee shop. Who witnessed the incident waiting to re park ,
Then the watchman from the site turns up for his usual cup of tea and water pipe. On hearing what all the commotion was about asked why they let him getaway with the steel from the site and started to chase up the road after the thief, then the police were called . Now anyone would think this is the end of the story,

Not here in Egypt, this all happened 2 in the morning, just As I arrived from the west bank after my seeing Sheikh Tayeb, with my problem, and calling the police is the beginning of a problem being made bigger.
My landlord was taken to the police station to make the complaint as to who caused the damage and how the damage was caused. He was asked for his id, that he did not have with him then he was asked for money and 10 pound would have finished the problem but he had no money with him, so he had to write his name down that was taken away and returned with a drugs charge 5 years ago, now he had a big problem.
The watchman who is 75, was charged with letting the thief take the steel, and all this because no one had any money with them. The donkey and thief were arrested last night while passing the police station on his way home.
The charge of drug possession 5 years ago was a plant  so he claims and refused to pay baksheesh to the police,  Machmood got away with it after paying twenty thousand pounds for a top lawyer, but it still left a mark on his record, why ? because of a day like this  more money for the policeman to boost his very low wage packet. .