Soaking yarn by hand is the ancient method
this dyehouse has been using for over a century.
It's one of the last in Egypt,
a country long known for its textile industry.
Salama Salem has been the one keeping the vats full
and the fires burning since 1975,
even as industrial competition
and the global pandemic have threatened his livelihood.
We first visited the workshop in 2019,
and came back to see how it's weathering the pandemic.
Through it all, one man's love for the craft
has kept this tradition still standing.
Salama begins a batch by prepping the yarn.
He separates the white threads into sections.
Then his sons mix dye with water
that's just the right temperature.
The hotter the water, the brighter the color.
It takes two people to dunk the yarn
into the 40-year-old stone basin
and drag it through the dye.
Once the threads are completely saturated,
it's time to ring them out using a spinning machine.
At about 15 years old,
it's the only modern piece of equipment in the workshop.
After a few minutes, the yarn is hung out to dry
on the roof of the workshop for about two hours.
Then it's packaged and shipped to customers
all over the world.
It's a family operation that often involves Salama's
12 children and many of his more than 40 grandchildren.
Salama has tried out a handful of professions,
and he even served in the military for nine years
before settling on dyeing.
Now he's been running the dyehouse for 45 years.
Today, business has been slower than usual since the spread
of COVID-19, but it doesn't stop Salama
from putting in the work.
The workshop's small-scale operation has made it hard
to keep up with mass manufacturers.
Most textile dyeing in Egypt
and around the world today
happens at larger, industrial-scale factories.
About 70 miles west of Salama's workshop,
Chinese investors announced in 2019 the construction
of what would be one of the largest textiles zones
in the country.
The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed the project,
but once in full swing, investors expected to bring in
more than $8.5 billion a year.
Meanwhile, Salama's sales have been dropping
for more than a decade.
They fell nearly 60% in 2011
after the Arab Spring protests rocked the Egyptian economy.
Today, fuel prices are still too high for Salama's margins,
so he cuts costs by using wood instead of gasoline
to make fire and heat his dye vats.
Though it might be more physically taxing,
he takes pride in this traditional method.
Salama's ancient techniques are what keep
many of his customers loyal.
But his regular clients that usually put in orders
every month have dropped off to every two or three months
since the start of the pandemic.
Still, Salama is determined to keep this business alive
for as long as he possibly can.