Kirdassa, Egypt

Close to the pyramids in Giza is an amazing little village called Kirdassa.  More pics here.  It's truly a village--a very rural and countrified kind of place--it's almost like stepping back in time a 100 years or so.  Dokeys abound, children run barefoot in the streets--not just playing but many working as well, selling kleenex and bottled water mostly to tourists or helping out in their families' businesses.  Kirdassa is famous for its women's clothing.  Long dresses, called "galabyas" in bright colors with heavy embroidery which at one time was all done by hand, but now done by computerized sewing machines.  These days women mainly wear galabayas in the house, and abayas outside (see below), but in Kirdassa it's common to see the women walking in their bright dresses outside the home.  This is great for me because I love that local color kinda thing, and also because I have long tired of the oh-so-snobby, fakey-wakey dress code in force here in Egypt.  Clothes highly determine how you are viewed here in Egypt.  There is a horrible class system here, where the locals basically categorize everyone as being chic (these nouveau riche hicks pronounce it "cheeeeeek") or not cheeeeek, and oh rue the day when you are considered not cheeeeek!  You become a social pariah.  Or horror of horrors you are called balady (countrified)!!!  But I digress--which I tend to do here when discussing the hoitey-toitey--and haram--class system here.

So here are some pics of Kirdassa, and my new purchases...enjoy!