The Monastery with the magical spring

Yesterday I went to El Darb El Ahmar in the tent makers district of Cairo to buy upholstery materials and look at the traditional quilting workshops afterwards. On my way to the quilting workshops, I ventured down a small path and ended up in a dusty plot of land where a building had been torn down. The sun was cutting through us like a razor blade and a few dogs, one of which was suffering from an extreme case of mange, were sitting in filthy puddles. A woman with blond curly hair visible under her headscarf called me:

- Are you looking for the monastery ?

-Is there a monastery here?

-Yes down the road there is monastery which has a fountain of special water if you drink it or do your ritual ablutions with it, it will cure you. (فيها ميه كدة ( لو شربتيها او لو اتوضيتي بيها بتعالج الامراض

She said that the fountain was a gift from the Virgin Mary to the area.

I was expecting normal monastery wares such as jam and cookies not a magic spring so I was intrigued. I asked her if it works for both Christians and Muslims as she had mentioned Muslim ritual ablutions and she said: -It works for everyone, the Virgin Mary doesn’t distinguish.

We walked to the monastery which was closed and but we found this beautiful church nearby. We were welcomed by a man in a wheelchair who seemed to never leave the premises, perhaps waiting for his own miracle.

On my way back, the woman asked me if I was a journalist. I told her that I wasn’t and that one would have to have a death wish to be a journalist in the current Egyptian climate. She told me I looked like a journalist because no one else seemed to care about the special water… .

In perfect Egyptian fashion, I went looking for miracles but instead I found hidden beauty and a sunstroke.