I have lived on my farm in Giza since 2004, when I bought the land and began building a space where the animals I cared for could live in a manner that would not make them ill. Egypt is a very crowded place with people and animals packed in on top of each other, people in apartments and animals in sheds and stables. Neither of these living arrangements are even slightly beneficial to the living beings. Our animals live out of doors in paddocks that offer shelter in inclement weather, but they live in family groups as befits animals that are social animals like human beings are. Initially I had a herd of 20 horses who were working with me in equestrian tourism, but about 2015 the increasing tightness of the military's hold on the deserts, and the predilection of building highways in places where they really shouldn't be made it much harder to do our work.

At this point we had friends joining us to relax at the farm, play with dogs, ride horses, and learn about nature. Some of these friends, being teachers at schools in the Cairo/Giza area began arranging school trips to the farm, which was terrific until the spring of 2020 with the Covid shutdowns. Recently we have taken legal steps to create a space that will continue to be available to schools and families in Egypt hopefully long after I am gone. For a number of reasons there are almost no parks or natural settings in the Cairo/Giza area anymore. We have provided veterinary assistance to the farmers of our area through Rural Wellness Initiative since 2012 at the farm and through mobile clinics. Since 2020 we have a space that houses Nawaya, a non-profit organisation offering classes for village women in food preparation, storage, catering and so on, with garden areas, another floor containing area for conferences, workshops, or lessons, as well as space for people to stay overnight if needed.