?? church and refectory

 I can't remember the name of this church. I should have taken a better picture of this sign but as usual I'm always in a hurry. At work, the pace is frenetic and even when I'm away from work, my movements are fast, my mind works fast, my body moves in tandem and is always fast. It's no different when I'm abroad, I walk fast, I eat fast, I just do everything very rapidly. If and when I stop working to retire, I'll probably need rehab, to slow down and not get withdrawal symptoms. Here I just click once and moved on, not knowing if I got the name of the church... I didn't.

 It's a big complex, church and refectory.

 The frescoes were once very beautiful and unusual..... but now they are in utter ruins, blackened and charred from a fire, I think, was set to destroy these frescoes. There are intolerant and ignorant people in this world. They shouldn't look at it as religion but just as very old and valuable art. I'm  reminded of the constant murder of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Every year, at Christmas, a few Coptic Christians are murdered while celebrating Christmas in their churches, whether in Cairo (last Year 2009) or in Alexandria (2010). Like one Egyptian Christian said, 'Egypt is Coptic and will remain Coptic'. Most people believe that the true descendants of the ancient Egyptians are the Copts. The Muslims in Egypt are descendants of Arab invaders. Like the Patriachate of the Eastern Orthodox church in Istanbul once said, 'we (Orthodox Christians) were here (Turkey) first!'.

Despite being badly charred, one can still make out the details of the frescoes. They are still stunning.

 I think this is graffiti.

 Fips is brave, going boldly into the abyss.....

 I'll go if you'll go.....

Where did Fips go? I'm not going in.

We remember our trip to Cairo and to Coptic area of Cairo. We saw the tourism police all over the place to protect visitors. We remember our trip to Wadi Natrun, some 3 hours outside Cairo, to visit the Coptic monasteries. I remember the Coptic Christians living in the Muqqatum hills, working to dispose the trash of Cairenes. I remember 'Zabaleen' and I'm very proud of what I wrote about 'Zabaleen', in fact, it has a lot of google hits on that piece.