Egyptian Super-Heroes!

Written by : Mahmoud Mohamed

Edited by : Maha Tarek

We're inviting you to learn about one of the strangest professions ever existed in the entire history and specially in Egypt "The leg ironer". Well maybe it is coming to a sad end specially that the technology didn't leave anything for people to do manually, but there are a few people in Egypt who still believe that they can do anything manually. To know more about this profession, read this article.

Forgotten professions!

A lot of professions who are thought to be forgotten but a wise man once said "I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do” and we all know about iron man but you didn't know that there is also "Iron woman" in Egypt.

In a tiny lane within the center of Alexandria Ebtesam Mohamed, 45 years old. A single mother and in contrast to the modern iron, Ebtesam still uses her antique metal iron which weighs about 40 kilograms over the clothes pushing it with her foot that is only isolated from the very hot iron with a small piece of wood

Ambitious woman

Ebtesam inherited this job from her mother who in turn inherited it from her father 35 years ago. In an interview with Reuters TV Ebtesam said “I believe that the foot iron is better than the other handheld iron and the steam iron because of its greater pressure and heavier weight on the clothes”

Old but never out of energy!

Another proof that this job has a lot of fans is an old man called "Ahmed" and his nickname "Al-Joon". He’s 66 years old but when you see how much he is active, you might think about people who are half his age and complaining about work!

Talking about his memories that have passed half a century ago, “Al-Joon” says: “I learned this profession when I was 12 years old from my uncle in Kom El-Sheikh Salama, when we were ironing to government companies such as Simon Sidnaoui, Daoud Adas, Banzaion and Shamla, and they used to bring us clothes in a bag, and after we ironed them, they took them and distributed them to companies. It was then that the galabya would be ironed with 3 cents.” He continued, “Today, most of my customers are from tailors and there are customers who come from Heliopolis and Nasr City, and from Mansheya and Al-Studyah, to iron their clothes.”

"Our job is to be healthy... and steam doesn't produce the same result that we are looking for," he added, ... “but unfortunately my shop will close its doors after I die”.

Bravery!

Finally after reading about those courageous people who are not afraid to combat the advanced technology with their hands, we can say that if you are talented with something you have to get the best of it even if the whole world is against you. There is nothing to be afraid of if you're confident and courageous enough. We must all appreciate people who are like Ebtesam and Al Joon.