Sitting on a low wooden chair, Saeed Hegazy warps and wefts on a loom, duplicating a complicated motif from the drawing in front of him. This is what Hegazy has been doing for 43 years, since the age of 10, when he became a young apprentice in Egypt’s then-thriving handwoven carpets industry.
Hegazy prefers the good old days, when work was hard but the cost of living was more affordable and more people bought handwoven carpets.