The search for the Alexandria Fire Station

   Rachel was particularly excited to be visiting Alexandria - her Grandmother, Daisy, was born in Alexandria and lived there until her twenties. Daisy's father, Rachel's Great-grandfather, was the chief of the Alexandria Fire Brigade around 1890 to 1910, and Daisy was raised in the fire station itself. Rachel grew up hearing stories from her Grandmother about Egypt, particularly this building and its surrounds.

   So our mission was to find that building, if it still existed. In 2004 Rachel's sister, Angela, had been in Alexandria and had embarked on a similar undertaking, only to be turned away by men with machine guns. Armed with this knowledge, Rachel wrote a letter before we left New Zealand, explaining why she wanted to see the building and the significance it held for her, and had this letter translated into Arabic by a friend (Thanks, Bex).

   We hired the services of a horse drawn buggy and set off towards the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, which we knew was next door to the building we sought. The ride itself was nuts - the driver took us down back streets and then along the main road which was packed with cars, pedestrians, cyclists, other horse-drawn vehicles, all sorts of craziness. He even drove the wrong way down a very busy main road. Insane.

The ride out was in bumper-to-bumper- to-horse-to-bumper traffic.










   After about half an hour we arrived at the site and we then showed the buggy driver the translated letter - but here's where we hit a snag. The driver was puzzled by it and had a chat with the armed guards out front of the amphitheatre, showing them the letter, but they were equally confused. It could be they weren't entirely literate, or that they could read Egyptian but not Arabic, or that the translation made no sense at all. We tried to explain to the three men what we were after but their English vocab was quite limited and Rachel's hastily scribbled picture of a house with flames didn't cut the mustard either. So after 5 minutes of fruitlessly trying to communicate they took us inside the Roman site to speak to 3 women who spoke flawless English and could read the letter. It turns out that the building is still a functional fire station. Then there was a lot of chatting in Arabic back and forth and the driver understood. We hopped back in the buggy and went down the road a short way and came to a big gate with the ubiquitous armed guards. The driver got out and more talking in arabic followed. A minute later we went a little further to the front of the building and the driver hopped out and did his little talk to yet another set of armed guards. Five more minutes went by and then we were ushered into the building and met by Captain Mohamed Sakr who was delighted to see us and welcomed us inside - it turns out this is still Alexandria's main fire station. We were led into the station (Rachel was fighting back tears) and taken into a big plush office to sit and wait. Then along came General Alef Zaky, the head of Alexandria's fire brigade. Suddenly the office was filled with men who were keen to meet us and shake our hands. After much talking in the office Captain Sakr showed us throughout the fire station - we were given the grand tour, including a look an a vintage fire engine, a demonstration of men sliding down the classic brass pole (sadly now out of use), and shown around the grounds.

The Alexandria Fire Station.
























Rach: "I was most excited to see the interior courtyard, as this is a place I often tried to imagine. It was a lot smaller than I imagined. About the size of a couple of tennis courts with a bit of space on the edge."













Captain Mohamed Sakr











While we were in the office one of the assembled officers opened a glass cabinet and pulled out this brass helmet and lamp. Of course Rachel had to try it on.
What we only found out later was that these helmets were still in use until 1941 when a firefighter died from electrification when wearing that helmet - yes, that's right, the helmet Rachel was wearing!









The whole group took pictures of Rachel. General Zaky is the one holding the video camera.








Another relic was pulled out of the cabinet - an old stamp bearing the legend 'Fire Station Municipality Alexandria' in English and Arabic. A fresh inkpad was dragged out, the stamp inked, and our copy of Rachel's letter was stamped.



Captain Sakr pointed out upstairs where the family of the Chief's living quarters would have been.








Captain Sakr and Rachel in the fire station's back yard.









Pointing out where they used to tie up the fire-horses in Rachel's Great-grandfathers day.








As a memento Rachel was given a couple of embroidered station patches & a magazine they issue (it's in Arabic, thankfully it has pictures).













Rach: "Most people went into the desert and saw the pyramids.

I visited a pink building and feel much luckier."