Vendors save a tourist’s camera in Cairo’s great bazaar
Posted on Sunday, August 27, 2006
I’m glad I finally got to Egypt.
The lure has been there since we all started learning about the Land of the Pharaohs in grade school. Seeing the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, the mummified pharaohs in the Egyptian Museum is as phenomenal as any teacher ever suggested.
What our teachers never could have anticipated, though, was the enthusiastic welcome we received from the Egyptians.
“Thank you for coming to Egypt,” people said, walking up to us on the street.
There were so few Westerners there, it surprised me. And now — with Lebanon and Israel breaking out in fullscale warfare the very day we arrived — people in shops told us they feared tourism would dry up even more as travelers tend to erroneously associate Egypt with its tumultuous neighbors.
And yet it is not the Egyptian people themselves who deserve this. With their eager welcomes, hospitality and mastery of tourist English, travelers have a sense of being protected. Driveways to hotels are blocked and guarded, vehicles checked for bombs and entryways have security gates and X-ray machines.
I only felt nervous in the wildly unchanneled Cairo traffic, where every driver makes his own lane, and the pedestrian crosswalk is a rarity, making street-crossing a game of chicken that involves wading out into traffic and putting your hand up.
Otherwise, I never felt danger to my personage or property — and, well, let me tell you a story.
One afternoon my husband and I went to Khan al-Khalili, a bazaar that dates to medieval times. This fascinating labyrinth of alleyways and dense passageways sells everything from silks to spices, antiques, papyrus paintings and handcrafted gold and silver jewelry.
Frankly, I was going for the gold.
Numerous small shops sell lovely stuff, but there’s a process of getting there that involves running the gantlet of salesmen trying to pull you into their shop. “Come inside, take a look,” they beckon if you stop even for a nanosecond. Walk away and they lament your departure volubly, calling after you that you are missing the best bargains.
You have to adjust your mind-set to this peskiness. The art of soft-sell just isn’t in the repertoire.
When we did go into one jewelry shop we found the owner intently watching a broadcast of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. We watched TV with him a while, sharing our sickened feelings. This man’s English was good, and he expressed his fears that Egypt would be deeply affected by this conflict.
After shaking our heads sorrowfully and discussing the Middle East, we turned our attention to some beautiful gold necklaces. They were stunning but out of my price range, so we thanked him and left.
We wandered farther down passageways, ending up at another jeweler, this one a more substantial shop. By this point my thoughts had turned more to bathrooms than scoring great jewelry, so I looked at some necklaces, and then asked for the WC.
They had one, and it was very clean. An older man who spoke no English pointed the way.
Then we left and made our way through a back door passageway, thanks to vendors who by now recognized us and directed us through the shortcut leading to the mosque on the square. It seemed crazy and perhaps dangerous as we wended right, left, right, down a dark stairway — and finally — to our surprise, emerged by the mosque on the square. It was beautiful, and I reached in my purse for the digital camera to shoot some photos.
But, no camera.
I dug and dug into the depths of my purse — but no. My husband and I had that sinking feeling — we would never see that camera again.
We were exhausted from our day’s touring and the Egyptian heat at this point, and who knew which of the stalls or shops I might have set my camera down in ? But it was worth a try to recover it. I insisted we make our way back through the maze and visit the two jewelry shops where I had tried on necklaces.
Back we went, vendors greeting us with, “Ah, you are back — now would you like to see my beautiful scarves ?” I scowled and said, “I’m in a very bad mood. I’ve lost my camera.”
Instantly, the sales pitches stopped. Suddenly we had enlisted the aid of these shopkeepers — one by one they said turn this way, turn that way — redirecting us on a return route that would take us to the two jewelry stores I had tried on necklaces in, and what I thought to be the most probable places I had set the camera down.
We stopped first at the shop where we had watched televised war, but the shop owner shook his head — no, I had not left my camera there. I believed him.
Then as we stepped into the last store, the old man who had shown me to the bathroom greeted us at the door with a huge grin. He tapped his chest, pointed to me, and tapped his chest again — grinning and grinning.
“You have my camera !” I exclaimed.
Indeed, they did. The owner stepped from the backroom and handed it to me. I had left it on the shelf in the bathroom.
Then we told him how helpful the other vendors had been in directing us back to his shop. He shrugged. “We are an association in Khan al-Khalili. If someone does something wrong — cheating customers, stealing — they lose their place here.” In fact, shop owners have owned these shops for hundreds of years — handing down the stores and stalls to the next generation. Khan al-Khalili is a tight organization that looks out for itself. The jeweler in this shop was president of the jewelers association.
After that, I of course did the right thing. I tried on necklaces until I found a beautiful but simple 18-karat gold choker.
The jeweler served us tea and we chatted while it was being prepared.
And so I got my lovely Egyptian necklace and my good-asgone camera.
When we emerged by the mosque again, it was dusk. The dome seemed to be floating in the air, and the sonorous call to prayer bordered on the ethereal.
My photo didn’t do Egypt justice.
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