shopping at a souq

On December 1st sister, Kathy, arrived home from work at 3:30, changed shoes and we headed out to the fabric souq. What a riot!

Our cab driver dropped us off at a filthy, teeming curbside with dozens of storefronts, each hardly wide enough for two customers to stand back to back to look over the floor to ceiling rolls of fabric. The stores were well organized and spotless with workers standing outside ready to attract you into their store, "Madame, come in! Half price! Beautiful for you!"

We went to a store Kathy had visited before and found beautiful upholstery fabric for the equivalent of less than $10 a yard! We left the fabric there to pick up later and headed into the heart of the souq looking for Egyptian cotton, a rare commodity around here. With the heat, one would think that women would flock to cool cotton, but instead they tend to wear synthetic fabrics for their neck to toe galabiyyas. Those famous Egyptian cotton sheets are produced elsewhere.

We were in an open-space outdoor market that functioned like a controlled riot. There were dozens of lanes running off each other, each with fabric that looked much the same. Each had enticements outdoors with long narrow indoor spaces with fabric stacked to the ceiling. Some specialized in fancy fabric, others suiting, or canvas, cotton, upholstery, or drapery fabrics. And then there were the clothing sellers; underwear, children's, jeans, ladies and on and on and on. People clearly make decisions based on price and salesmanship because there were hundreds of shops selling essentially the same things.

Walking slowly one can see people dickering over price and sellers working hard to ingraciate themselves. What a show!

The evening before, Kathy and I headed to the Khan al-Khalili, the enormous outdoor market near Islamic Cairo. Because it was Sunday evening - still a workday - Kathy assured me that it was quiet. I was struck by the immediate assault on all my senses. Shouting, jammed shops squeezed into amazingly small spaces, Arabic music and dickering, spicy smells and cats, people and displays to be navigated around. I loved it!!

We wandered around stopping at a bead shop Kathy had been trying to find for weeks, resting at a lovely little restaurant serving messas and drinks. As we were working our way out of the maze, I spotted a nice cotton galabiyya and stopped. I liked the guy's stuff, so the bargaining started. He wanted 120 LE for one, I offered half that. He looked pained, so I said, "Will buy many!" He countered, "How many?" I said, "5 if you have nice ones I like." He said, "I show you." at which point he led me up three flights of narrow stairs to his storage area. We picked out 8 beauties and the bargaining heated up. He said, "75." Kathy countered "65." He looked like he was about to cry as he countered, "But one very expensive, 250LE downtown!" So we countered, "70." and he brightened up and wrote up the bill. I was exhausted. This is not your neighborhood WalMart!!