Romancing the stone

Rumour had it that through the arch of Bab Zuweila, in the heart of the enclosed subcity, there was a strange scene; a whimsical picture torn from the center of a European story book. Yasmine El Rashidi went down to see what all the commotion was about
They look odd, to say the least. Very odd. Black top hats, black tux coats, and beige flared corduroys trimmed with brown leather. Not to mention the piercings and tattoos sprinkled generously between them. Within the context of their surroundings -- the Sam Ibn Nuh Mosque nestled behind Bab Zuweila -- Swen Walter and Stefan Bading just don't look right. The entrance to the minute mosque stands sandwiched between markers of a globalising city -- the many clothes shops and gadget stands littered along the alleyways. Within its pressured walls, the feeling of near desolation ensues. Blocks of rough-edged limestone are piled just within the entrance, straw mats, wooden planks and marble columns eat up more space, and through two limestone arches -- the creations of the local galabiya-clad stonemason Ahmed -- blocks of dice-like marble are being chipped and hammered and transformed into bases and capitals. "And here they are," offers Agnieska Dobrowolska, director of the project, gesturing towards the two young German men. It was obvious.
European coloring and peculiar outfits aside, however, Walter and Bading could not fit in better. It began in their last years of school, when deciding what their next career moves would be. Computer Science, business, and all the other high tech stuff was too limiting -- too robotic, and so they both opted, in their respective little home towns, to do apprenticeships in stonemasonry. They are 23 and 24, and they already know for certain that stones will continue to be the essence of their lives. And no, they don't find it odd at all. "We have had normal lives," Walter laughs. "We went to a normal school and had normal friends" he continues to humor. Fiddling with a near-empty packet of Cleopatra cigarettes, Bading takes over. "I wanted to work with my hands," he says. "I wanted to create something -- something I could see when I finished." The seeming peculiarity to their passion may not, upon second thought, stem so much from their chosen craft, as it does from their adoption of the ritualistic core elements of the Medieval stonemasons: leaving their hometowns for three years and a day, and not changing out of their trademark outfits until they return home. The journeymen travel from city to city and country to country learning about the craft, the different techniques and tools, and spreading their knowledge to others. The pay: work for food and shelter, and when they really need it to travel or buy new socks, then they take the money. "It's the school of life," explains Bading "Those who are very serious about the craft take the journey. It's part of the old tradition." It is a tradition which has been passed on by word of mouth, and one which the young craftsmen are initiated into by their senior counterparts. "On your first day of the journey an experienced journeyman comes with you," Walter says. "He walks with you out of your hometown and spends the first day with you. If you want to do the journey, you need to find others who have done it before. That's how you learn about the tricks of surviving with little or no money, where to go, and what to do when you go to a new country or city." "If you really want to do the journey you begin to see them everywhere. You can tell from their clothes," Walter explains. "But you have to really want it." He has a point.
The journey begins with a theoretical 50km walk out of their hometowns -- the one part of the ritual most stonemasons choose to ignore. It is a grandly solemn exit given that they will not be back home again for another 1156 days; returning once they have completed the unspoken passage to stonemason manhood; the graduation from apprentice to journeyman to master. It is this journey -- the traveling from country, and the passing of the craft only by word of mouth, which is thought to be the foundation of today's highly secretive Freemasonry. "You learn only from other journeymen," Walter says. "They are everywhere," he laughs. There are only an estimated 600 journeymen around the world. Somehow, the duo have managed to bump into many. That is how they found each other. "We met in Munich," Bading continues. "Six months ago. I'd been traveling about 15 months, and Swen 13. I'd already been to Berlin, Glasgow, UK, all across Germany, many places. Swen too. We traveled around Italy for a few months, then we went to Tunis, and then we came here." They wanted, of course, to see the first works in stone.
"It's unbelievable," Walter says shaking his head, dazed, awe-struck.
The magnitude of the Pharaonic structures is as remarkable as is the depth of their journey. "Three years is really not very long," says Walter. "But at the same time, it is a very, very long time." It is long in that people grow, change, and move on in three years. People change friends, change cities, and change lifestyles. "You come back, and you find your friends married with kids. They can't do all the things they used to with you," he adds. "But some of them haven't changed at all. They are doing exactly the same thing, and so you go back and they tell you that you haven't missed anything." Anything except weddings, births, and deaths, that is.
"My best friend died on the street," Walter shares. "He was hit by a car. Seven hours before his wedding. Losing people close to you is a risk you must take." If not, they both point out, then they would just stay at home their whole lives.
"Like I said, it's really a journey of life," Bading stresses. "Yes, you must travel for the sake of the craft, but you must also be traveling for yourself. You learn much about yourself when you are away from home and on the road." Things like insecurities and hang-ups, passions and priorities. Material possessions are no longer an issue. "You travel only with what you need. Your outfits and maybe a few other things. Nothing is very important any more." Nothing, that is, except their lives.
"People sometimes shout at us, or throw stones. They find us scary," Walter half laughs. That was the welcome they received on their first night in Cairo, when they trekked the streets in search of their bedding for the night. After a showering of stones by a group of young men, they settled on a grandiose night spot under the guarding eyes of four lions; Kasr El Nil bridge. It didn't take them long to find their saving grace Dobrowolska.
"Our first stop wherever we go is always the embassy. They know if other stonemasons have come this way, and they can point us in the direction of work," Walter explains. In this case, the embassy led to an archeologist, who in turn led to Dobrowloska.
"The first day they came," she recalls, "one of the supervisors came to me and asked if I needed assistance," she laughs. "He wasn't sure what to make of them. They were perfect for the job though, and now they fit in beautifully." Zooming out of the tight space within the arches, the scene is definitely complete. Each craftsman occupies a constrained cube of space; the German stonemasons chipping delicately at their marble blocks, and the Egyptian craftsmen chiseling away at their limestone. "It's very interesting to see them work," says Bading. "The techniques and tools they use here, well, it's very interesting. No-one in Europe would do it this way. The tool and techniques here are from the Middle Ages," he laughs. The two of them have tried the shakush (hammer) on the limestone, but their techniques are not quite right. "The ground rules are different. How they hold the tools, how to hit and chisel -- the angles and techniques. They're dealing with a very different kind of stone of course. We've learnt a lot from them." Not just about Egyptian stonecutting, but also about Egyptian life. "We get to go inside ad see what tourists don't," says Bading. "Like we know that many families don't have dining tables and that they eat on the floor with their hands. This was very strange for us."
Almost as strange as were their outfits to the locals.
Bading and Walter have traveled far within their heads and souls over the two years or so that they have been on the road. "You learn that it's very difficult to be lonely. You must really want it," Bading says. "Yes you have days when you are down, but they don't last long. They can't. There are too many things to see and people to talk to." They have met many along the way, and have been invited to dine and sleep both in mansions with pools and servants and limos, as well as under bridges in the cardboard confines which make up some people's homes. It is all about living and learning, seeking those with the knowledge they desire and the skills they want to learn. And of course, it is about making mistakes.
"Learning is about making mistakes," Bading continues. "New mistakes."
They have made many, they say, the embarkment on the journey certainly not being one of them.
"This journey goes on," they share. "Who says you have to stop after the three years and a day? Some journeymen have been doing it for 25 or 30 years. Who knows." What they do know, is that next they will touch base in Germany -- a periodic 'checking in' they individually do to confer with other journeymen. Beyond that, there are just two days they have in their minds: 16 April, and 20 July, 2002 -- the days they can finally go home. "I'll go home for a week at least," Bading says. "Then I don't know. The world is too big, too interesting, and time goes by too fast." More importantly, though, there are many mistakes to be made.
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