Our landlord isn't the most helpful guy on the planet, and has yet to deliver on many of his promises, one of them being bathroom repairs. Today our shower set-up broke. P and I went out in search of a new pipe and shower head, and took the old one with us, since I had no idea what the arabic word was. We went round the corner to the convenience store we frequent - there are three in a row, and they all sell pretty much the same thing, but we always buy our water from the same guy, and he's always happy to see us. After a little game of pointing and a few words of broken arabic, he gave us directions to a shop called "subbak." We walked a couple of minute and nearly missed what was pretty much a locked cabinet on the side of the street, full of pipes, hoses and shower heads. No one was in sight so we kept walking. We asked at a couple more shops but found nothing, but then came upon a gift store with a photocopy service outside (exactly what it sounds like - a copy machine on the sidewalk!) who pointed us to the next "subbak." We walked through a few more alleyways until some lady called out at us, grabbed me by the hand, and unlocked a door in the wall to reveal a whole panel of shower heads. She proceeded to wax eloquent about the Turkish and Chinese-made ones, and $5 later we were all set. I later found out that "subbak" means plumber...
So goes life in Cairo, slowly but surely, with our vocabulary increasing daily. People in our hood still aren't quite used to us. P is as white as they get, and it doesn't help that we're a mixed couple. It always goes like this in a shop we haven't been to before (in Arabic)
Guy: (Looking at P curiously) Where are you from?
Me: He's from Polanda. Bolanda.
Guy: (Huge grin) Ahh!! Holanda, holanda! Football! Good team!
Me: No... no.. Bolanda.
Guy: (Mildly disappointed) Oh... BOLANDAAA. (To me) Are you Egyptian?
Me: No. I'm from India.
Guy: Yes yes! Amitabh Bachchan! Very nice country!
I was wearing a long tunic I picked up in India (sooo useful in Egybt). I guess it had kind of an ethnic print on it... but it elicited a couple of ni-haos from some young girls on the street. There's a first for everything!
We also found a Kushary joint quite close to us: a full meal for 2LE (35 cents!). Giant win!
Showing posts with label agouza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agouza. Show all posts
September 12, 2010
September 08, 2010
Unempty sidewalks
Last night was our first night in the new flat. Of course, like almost every other flat we saw in Cairo, it has chandeliers and looks like it walked out of the 70's.
We woke up starving and went on a food mission, having decided that the baladi supermarket is a cheaper and better bet than the fancy C-mart across the way. While buying some limes from a toothy old guy with a giant prayer bump, we noticed a shop that sold eggs. Not various types of eggs or different kinds of eggs, just one kind of egg. An egg shop. We stood still for a moment among all the beeps and screeches and donkey carts and sooty children running about and just marvelled at it. I'm personally delighted by this and plan to be overzealous in making all kinds of egg breakfasts now.
I'm in love with this neighbourhood. It reminds me of the market streets in the town I grew up in in India. The tailor spins away, old luggage stacked up next to him, while the apprentice at the male coiffeur next door sprawls out alone in the salon on a barbers chair. The faded photo studio with portraits taken in the 90's pinned up outside lies next to a laundry operation; if you peer carefully you can see dark hands moving a heavy old iron on white sheets, the kind that's just a black block of metal with but one switch. The sidewalks give birth as easily to movement as stillness: the photo shop owner sits lazily on a stool far too small for him, cigarette dangling out of one hand, belly drooping over his thighs, the tailors work spills out on to the pavement, three men stand outside yelling into the laundry, one has a leisurely conversation with a man on a rooftop above him, dogs, cats and children dart in between everyone. The dust settles and is swept away with dirty water and a broom made of thin sticks. P and I tiptoe over the sudsy brown muck that flows out of the inside and is left on the street, and duck into our building, hands full of groceries, limes, and a baked sweet potato from a wandering oven-cart.
We woke up starving and went on a food mission, having decided that the baladi supermarket is a cheaper and better bet than the fancy C-mart across the way. While buying some limes from a toothy old guy with a giant prayer bump, we noticed a shop that sold eggs. Not various types of eggs or different kinds of eggs, just one kind of egg. An egg shop. We stood still for a moment among all the beeps and screeches and donkey carts and sooty children running about and just marvelled at it. I'm personally delighted by this and plan to be overzealous in making all kinds of egg breakfasts now.
I'm in love with this neighbourhood. It reminds me of the market streets in the town I grew up in in India. The tailor spins away, old luggage stacked up next to him, while the apprentice at the male coiffeur next door sprawls out alone in the salon on a barbers chair. The faded photo studio with portraits taken in the 90's pinned up outside lies next to a laundry operation; if you peer carefully you can see dark hands moving a heavy old iron on white sheets, the kind that's just a black block of metal with but one switch. The sidewalks give birth as easily to movement as stillness: the photo shop owner sits lazily on a stool far too small for him, cigarette dangling out of one hand, belly drooping over his thighs, the tailors work spills out on to the pavement, three men stand outside yelling into the laundry, one has a leisurely conversation with a man on a rooftop above him, dogs, cats and children dart in between everyone. The dust settles and is swept away with dirty water and a broom made of thin sticks. P and I tiptoe over the sudsy brown muck that flows out of the inside and is left on the street, and duck into our building, hands full of groceries, limes, and a baked sweet potato from a wandering oven-cart.
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