Shopping Tales: The Khan

I’ve made a few excursions to the Kahn since we’ve been here, following Ron’s initial introduction. Our friend Lisa has introduced us to a guy who sells hand-blown glass works, gallibayas and t-shirts. The photo of his glass shop didn’t come out too well, but it’s really amazing stuff and he’ll do custom orders too (everyone here, who actually makes the item and isn’t just selling it, will take custom orders – it’s a great feature!).

We’ve also visited Gouzlans, who is known for gold jewelry, and has a few shops throughout Cairo, including one on Road 9 in Maadi. They have beautiful necklaces, bracelets and earrings and really good prices on gold, and make cartouche pendants (a name in hieroglyphics) in a variety of sizes and styles.

Crazy Brothers, that Ron took me to on our first visit is located in a second-floor collection of iron makers, brass sellers, and everything in between. I ended up buying a brass trash can from them last time and they made a big deal about giving me the “embassy price,” which I’m sure meant a 40% mark-up. Oh well, I liked it. Up near Crazy Brothers, we got to see men hand-making the wood and pearl inlay coasters and boxes that are for sale all over the place. I love the all wood inlay boxes and treated myself to one from a store in Maadi that sits on my desk. I also have images of a table or a mirror in our future.

On one of my last Khan excursions, we got out of the cab intending to walk under the busy street through the pedestrian tunnel but I wandered over to a stall first as I thought he was selling small rugs (we need one for the foyer and kitchen). He wasn’t, but suggested we go down to the oldest spice market in Cairo where they also sell linens, rugs, etc. At the sound of this spice market possibility, I perked up and we headed down the road. The merchant, of course, started to lead us there. We kept saying that we didn’t need a guide and he kept insisting that he didn’t need baksheesh. He told us he had recently finished his degree in English (his English was really good, actually) and was entering the army soon. He led us through this great stone archway into a labyrinth of booths and stalls with comforters and blankets draped everywhere, stacks of t-shirts and bras for sale, linens, and spices! He was definitely leading us to a specific stall (it’s all about who you know here) as we followed him through the twisting alleys. We’d passed a few spice stalls and I finally just stopped and told him that we were going to just wander on our own and shop. He was a bit dismayed, but we were insistent – you have to be.

I finally had my spice shop experience and since it had taken me months to find this I figured I had to buy something. They’re always pushing saffron here, but I have to figure out what to do with it (new to this cooking thing), so for now I just bought cumin and coriander. I wedged myself in the small store with the local Egyptian women and pretended I knew what I was doing. I managed to walk out with two little bags of spice – mighty pleased with myself, too. And I have to say, those spices are potent! I have them double-bagged at home and had to move them to another cabinet as they were tainting the corn flakes.

Following the successful spice purchase, we continued on through the alley of comforters. Back here the alley was narrower and the blankets and thick comforters hung down all around us. It was kind of like a very narrow hedge maze made out of satin, embroidery, brightly colored, flannel, faux fur walls. At one point, Kristen suggested we stop going forward as we had been walking a while and just take the next available left, so we did and managed to make it back out the main area. On our way out of the market, we passed by a fez-maker’s shop – apparently he is the last remaining fez maker in all of Egypt. Well, whether it’s true or not, it’s interesting. Oh, and there were some specialty carts along the way too, selling tea, or bread, or maybe just prickly pears, but the one that boggles my mind is the loofah cart. It just seems an odd item to specialize in and rely one’s livelihood on. And yet I see them all over the city. Personally, I’d opt for bread or tea, something people need to buy more than once every six months, a year, or even a lifetime (I mean, how many loofahs can one person buy?).

We crossed the road over to the Kahn-proper and meandered through. In addition to tourist trappings, there are beautiful jewelry shops, gallibayas galore, lamp shops, brass-ware, alabaster, and just piles of antique/old/just-dirty things. One store was chock full of seemingly every estate sale left-over, including some of the largest chandeliers I’ve ever seen. We asked the man if they worked, he said yes, and yet made no movement to show us their brilliance. He probably guessed we weren’t there to buy, just oogle.

Photos

So we are (or rather, I am) at the stage of tweaking the organization of our place. It took me quite a while to figure out where to place things in the kitchen, dragging in metal shelves, then dragging them out again. I think I’ve finally figured it out, but I need to tweak the food cabinets and they’re a bit hodge-podge. We have a separate storage area too, that I’ve put items in I don’t foresee us needing for a long time (or odd things that we’ll never use – like two mop-heads I bought for the mop that we sent to storage, or one metal foot to Ron’s old bed that we sent to storage – I’m assuming the other three feet are with the bedframe, but we’ll see). I did carefully wrap everything that went to storage in either tarps or large trash bags and then sealed and labeled with duct tape. I’d been forewarned that the dust/dirt will be overwhelming for non-covered items. Figuring out the uses for all our closets (we have 8, including a pantry) has been a continual musical-chairs-like event, too. But again, I think I’m getting there. Thank goodness I have a well-honed organizational gene (and for those inevitable items which just can’t seem to find a home, there are lots of cabinets and drawers, too).

You’ll see that we have a large living/dining area, that I have also placed a small desk/office area for me in, as well as an oddly placed dresser under the window (disguised as a dresser, but really a cat bench – we will eventually find a less-obtrusive cat-bench but it does the job for now). The majority of furniture (other than couches, curved bookcases, Ron’s desk and our bed) is provided by the embassy.

Our guest room is cleared of stuff (finally – as the primary dumping ground it was the last tackled). It is ready for visitors, and we can get a queen bed in as well, so don’t worry about bringing sleeping bags.

Ron’s office is fairly tidy, though I can’t vouch for the tidiness-duration.

Our bedroom needs a little more art work, but otherwise is very comfortable (thanks in large part to us transferring out of the Arctic Zone).

Settling, Unpacking, and Creating a Home

So, essentially I think we’re settled in Zamalek. We’ve gotten the major things done, painting, electricity issues, furniture swap outs, and glee of glees, we finally have our own DSL line! It took two weeks of Ron sending emails and waiting to hear that the line for our house was finally “released” and we could go open our account.

Mini adventure in that task. After work one day, with the “released notification” in hand, Ron and I walked across Zamalek (it’s narrow), across the bridge over to Mohandiseen where we kept walking, and walking, and finally saw the “TE Data” building. We crossed a very busy street, with Ron kindly holding my hand and placing himself in the position of being the impact-person. As I was racing in front of one car, then pausing as another one whoosed in front of me, then racing off again, I realized that my body has started to instinctually react to crossing Cairo streets. When stepping off a buns-of-steel curb, immediately my toes curl under in a protective stance and I balance on the balls of my feet. I just cannot get past the fear that my toes are going to be run over at any minute. I wonder what the toe-casualty rate is here in Cairo?

Considering what we had heard from others who had attempted to get DSL and cable set up, we were both emotionally prepared for this not to work. We thought we were ready for any problem, hassle, hurdle or whatever they could throw at us. However, we were not prepared for what actually happened. We got an account set up, paid for, our router thingy activated and were told that by the time we got back home, it would be operational. And they were right!! Ron noted that it was the largest collection of Egyptian nerds he’d seen, and I noted that other than one or two women who came in, paid a bill and left, I was the only female there. I actually think it was far easier than dealing with Verizon back home. We did the appropriate happy dance for an operational DSL line – apparently it’s similar to an impromptu haven’t-practiced-in-ten-months foxtrot. Now the next stage is setting up our Vonage phone so we can call and be called from our old 301 (Maryland) number. One hindrance to this is that apparently we didn’t bring any phones with us. Smart.

I know I’ve blamed our lack of clear thinking throughout the pack-out process for many things, and sadly, our forgetting to bring a phone is not the only evidence of this. Now, I have to say, that I’m not completely convinced that all of the issues were caused by us. I do think that some things that were labeled “Cairo” went to “Storage” instead. Or they’re sitting in a box on the side of 495 in Virginia. Either way, we’re missing an odd assortment of items, such as: trash cans, a pasta strainer (now, why would I have selected that for storage?), blankets, most serving dishes, and some basic chach-ka (like Ron’s beautiful Moroccan tea set). So we’ve been making some varied purchases from Amazon and I’ve been making a list of things to acquire when I head back to the states, probably in October. In addition, I’ve been exploring Zamalek looking for replacements, and often ending up heading to Maadi where I know the stores better.

In contrast, Ron has made fun of some of the things I did pack and that managed to get here, including several hundred cotton balls, Q-tips, Tums, and vats of shampoo and conditioner (and he still brings up the cupcake wrappers). However, we must also point out that we have two brick-like structures made up of dozens of Irish Spring bars, which are not for me. So to each his own. Basically I just didn’t know what we would be able to get here and how easily (and delightfully) accessible Amazon would be – thanks solely to our access to the APO.

Moving into a new place always creates a need for, or an excess of, certain items. We went from a one-bathroom place to three bathrooms, so inevitably we needed bathmats. I could never have guessed it would be so difficult to find bathmats in Cairo. They do have them, but they’re either towel-like, which just won’t stand up to Ron’s use and typically end up balled up in the corner, or they’re sets of matching bath mat, toilet cover and toilet wrap-around, and they’re made in the USA and cost over $60 (not to mention they’re ugly)! So, after a week of looking everywhere, we relented and bought some through JCPenney.com. We got our bathmats the other day and I was far more excited about receiving them than anything “fun,” but then again, I have been climbing out of the shower with great care, not wanting to slip, fall and have to exclaim in Arabic, “I’ve fallen and can’t get up.” The other item we are unable to find is a kitchen trash can. Maybe my desire for a tall, metal, step-can, is just too extravagant, but the few that we have found are outrageously expensive or plastic. I think we’re going to have to rely on the wonders of Amazon for that one, too.

Oh, and in that same vein of figuring out a new home, after sleeping in the Arctic Zone for the first two weeks as we awaited delivery of our vent-deflectors (thank you, Amazon merchant), upon receipt Ron was told by someone in the office that the vents could be adjusted by hand. So that night, with the deflectors in their newly arrived box, we dragged the ladder from room to room and manually adjusted all the vents. Eventually we’ll figure it all out. And in the meantime, we’ll rely on the kindness of Amazon merchants’ return policies.

Shopping Tales: Rugs? You Want Rugs?

During past excursions, Ron has managed to acquire a “rug guy.” Mohammad has a store in Maadi and sells, in addition to rugs, all manner of Egyptian goods, including pottery, mashrabiya, wood and pearl inlay, pashminas, gallibayas, and an odd assortment of lamps, brass goods, metal flasks, tins, boxes and chach-ka. He proudly states that he sells nothing from China, it’s all Egyptian, Kazakhstanian, Palestinian, Iranian, etc.

We visited him a few months ago and purchased a wonderful unique metal desk lamp and some gift items. We went back again last weekend looking for some pashminas for the living room (to match ones Ron had from prior visits) and to look for a small entryway rug, in addition to checking out his rug assortment for some people back home who have expressed interest in getting one. He took us through the back of the store and into another large room where stacks upon stacks of rugs are kept. He and his wife pulled out rug after rug after rug and I just kept snapping pictures. He told us where each one came from, but I lost count after a while. The sizes are varied, the styles, colors and designs are all varied. It’s a fantastic collection and the prices are very good (compared to back home). Here are just some of the rugs we saw:

Shopping Tales: Commissaries and vegetable souks

I’m learning how lucky we are to have access to the commissary here. Not that we couldn’t fulfill all our needs on the local economy, but it’s a great comfort to be able to buy Kelloggs cereals, Prego, Wheat Thins, and Oodles of Noodles, not to mention tofu pups, Amy’s frozen vegetarian dinners, Morningstar soy-meat crumbles and burgers, and Silk soy milk. On top of that, the prices at the commissary are actually better than what we spend at home: Kelloggs’ cereals for $2.50 each (I can’t remember the last time they were that low back home); a jar of minced garlic for $0.85; a liter of EVOO for $5.00. Great benefit!

The sign out front says “Cairo Commissary, Where your dreams come true.” We joke about that, but I can guarantee you that almost everybody has done a little happy-dance when they spotted their own personal “Morningstar Crumbles” and had that internal squeal of delight.

On the local economy, we have some chain grocery stores, like Metro and Alfa Market, and we’ve found that they certainly carry a wide variety of products, have relatively good vegetable and fruit selections, and as a plus include a lot of products from Europe and, to my utter delight, a lot of English chocolates and biscuits. If I so chose, I could now relive my childhood glee at receiving a box of Quality Street or Rose’s assorted chocolates from my British Nana at Christmas, every day! I have not done so, though there have been days I’ve seriously considered it.

The stores get smaller as we go down from the Metros and Alfa Markets (which are very westernized, including Amy Grant and Phil Collins blaring from the sound system), to the local Egyptian groceries which tend to be smaller, and remind me of groceries in NYC, with their narrow aisles, boxes stacked to the ceiling and colorful local characters, to the individual stores and stalls selling fruit and veg, or bread goods, or the local butcher with carcasses hanging out to “lure” you in, I guess. Finally, we have the vegetable markets, or souks, with their carts and wares spread out for all to pick and choose from.

I ventured over to the vegetable souk on Road 7 in Maadi a few weeks ago. I’d had great luck at buying a delicious watermelon from Metro the week before, and thought I’d try it even more locally, and include some veggies for a stir-fry I wanted to try. Possibly moreso than any other place I’ve visited so far, walking into this market was like entering another world. The market I’d seen was set up under the fly-over bridge, but as I walked through I saw that it continued down around the street and up a narrower street/alley. Each cart or booth was selling relatively the same things, with stacks of onions, lemons (they’re often green here, and are the size of golf balls), potatoes, green beans, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, some things I didn’t recognize, and watermelons, apples, mangos, kiwis, and grapes (covered in very happy flies and bees, I might add), to merely mention some. I thought it best to wander for a while before making my purchases, plus I’d heard there was a spice store down here somewhere. I came upon a small, dark store that I thought sold spices due to the smell, but part of my desire to buy spices is to see them piled high in their containers, displaying all their vibrant colors and scents to the world, and this was just dark and dingy, so I moved on. It was definitely becoming an alley at this point, narrow, sometimes crowded, and then I came upon a group of men sitting around small tables drinking tea and relaxing. And just behind them wuffling around in the dirt was a little herd of beautiful long-haired goats. I paused for half-a-second when I saw them as my alarm bells went off and I looked around to also see stacks of tiny wooden crates crammed with live chickens (just like the battery cages in the states) and pigeons sitting on stops of cages (I know they eat them here and I’m sure their wings have been clipped to prevent them flying away). Having a flash of a headline in the local paper, “Crazed expat attempts to liberate animals from 200-year-old souk, while wearing Safari hat,” I opted instead to promptly turn around and head back to the fruits and vegetables and try to forget what I’d seen.

My attempt at buying a watermelon was unsuccessful, but mainly because I wanted a small watermelon (it is only me and Ron, after all) and all she had was large ones weighing about 10 kilos (everything here is in kilos, so I simply must learn what that means in relation to buying a kilo of potatoes or peppers, as currently I use the number method, “3 potatoes, please”). At one point when I was trying to communicate with her, I was holding a 20-pound note, but really only wanted to spend 10-pounds. Suddenly I noticed that she was holding the 20-pound note so I casually pulled it out of her hand and tried to dig up the word for ‘small’ in my Arabic. I realized later than I was not asking for a small watermelon, I was asking for a short watermelon, but I figure my hand gesture of something shrinking got my intent across, despite my words. During this belabored impromptu language class, the brown blanket that looked like it was draped over a pile of watermelons in the back shifted, and a man emerged who spoke some English. At this point, I realized that they didn’t really have any smaller ones, as I could see what was there, so I thanked them both and slunk off.

I next attempted to buy a few vegetables. I think most people tend to buy kilos or half kilos (pr. “noss kilo”) of items, so my interest in three green peppers, four little zucchini, and one lemon, was merely an annoyance to the seller. But I took his bag and chose my items, paid my LE 3 ($0.60) and walked home feeling that I’d at least accomplished something. I would like to get to the point where we’re buying a lot of stuff locally, but we’ll see what my explorations of Zamalek uncover.

Aside from the live animals, I loved the experience of the vegetable market. The flurry of activity, buyers perusing, sellers hawking, young boys trying to get you to come to another stall, noisy and active, with the smells of fresh fruit and vegetables assaulting you at every turn. It’s obviously a good place for me to practice my Arabic too, although my watermelon failure was not my only blunder for the day, although I didn’t know it at the time.

My walk home, back over the pedestrian fly-over was hampered slightly by the verbal assaults of a very insistent two-year-old who would not leave me alone. I had seen him and his mother sitting on the stairs when I came over, but returning I was right in his sights and he just followed and chattered away. Cute as he was, I had my veggies, didn’t want to purchase a child at the time, and really don’t want to encourage the begging (though I really haven’t figured out how to handle these interactions to my moral/ethical satisfaction, as they are frequent), so I just ignored him and walked faster.

A few days later when I made my stir-fry (first attempt, I might add, too), I found that when I tasted one of the waterchestnuts from the stir-fry it made my lips a little tingly. I thought it was odd, but continued on. I stir-fried together tofu, waterchestnuts, canned mushrooms, fresh green peppers, zucchini and onion. As Ron and I were eating we both found something to be very hot and spicy. It took a little testing, but we figured out it was the green peppers, which we promptly removed. Apparently I’d purchased either large jalapenos or small (new-to-me) spicy green peppers. So now I will go to the souk armed with the Arabic word for spicy, to ensure that doesn’t happen again.