Wed, Sep 26, 2001 page24

• A job for a man of iron, and this one uses his foot

  MAN'S WORLD A 63-year-old inhabitant of Cairo is continuing a family tradition of men doing the ironing -- with a 160-year-old, 33kg iron chained to his foot

  • DPA
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  In Egypt, taking in ironing for a living is a job for real men -- and in a city famous for colorful characters, one Cairene has really put his foot down.

  Mostafa Mohammed Safiha, 63, uses his left foot to do the ironing. It's a family tradition, he says. He learned to do it that way at his father's knee -- literally so -- when he was only nine.

  The iron itself is at least 160 years old, handed down from one generation of men of iron to another.

  "I was taught by my father who was taught by his father," says Safiha proudly in his modest home in the low-income Cairo district of Bab al-Shaaria. He has no intention of switching to modern equipment and methods of ironing that his contemporaries find convenient.

  "This iron," says Safiha, pointing to the antiquated object under foot, "presses harder and irons better and faster."

  Ironically, as it were, his antiquated technique and rudimentary equipment are what have drawn a lucrative clientele of locals and foreigners, who delight in watching him ply his trade -- by plying his iron over laundry with the speed and grace of a Nile sailing vessel.

  And what an iron it is: an enormous chunk of semi-circular metal weighing a whopping 33kg. That's all there is, except for a crude handle. That's all there is and that's all he needs. Besides a gas stove and a piece of cloth.

  He heats the iron on the stove for about 10 to 15 minutes, removes it and runs rag cloth across the scorching hot bottom side with a practiced hand. He places a strip of wood atop the iron to protect the sole of his foot from the heat.

  And he's all set. With one hand he grasps the handle, while using the other hand deftly to flip and adjust laundry. Actually, he has two irons, using one at a time, while the other sits on the flames of the stove waiting to go into use once the other begins to cool.

  Safiha'a foot drives the iron back and forth with breathtaking speed across caftans and trousers, skirts and shirts which he lays out on a low wooden table covered with sheets.

  To the oohs and ahs of spellbound onlookers he puts on a special demonstration of high-speed foot ironing. Picking up a pair of badly wrinkled trousers, he whips them onto his work table and, left foot clamped firmly on red hot metal, he's off.

  In less than two minutes, he snaps the pristine trousers off the table and proudly shows off a flawlessly crisp pressed seam.

  This is not just a way to make money, it is an art, he insists. And considering the amount of effort involved, Safiha also regards this as a healthy form of physical exercise.

  He has a steady flow of patrons who take particular delight in his old-fashioned methods and keep him busy in his tiny, simmering room 12 hours a day, while mournful Arab music wails in the background from a battered stereo.

  A couple of years ago Safiha raised the price of ironing a shirt or trousers to around half pound or US$0.10 -- in order to keep up with inflation.

  He hopes that his four sons will continue in the footsteps of their forefathers when he retires.

  But they are less than enthusiastic. So his sole daughter is usually on hand to help out any way she can, except for getting involved with actual ironing.

  After all, that's a job for a man -- a man of iron.
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