Egypt -- Jim & Donna's Excellent Adventures, Pt. 20, Bartering with the Pros

     We were not due at the Luxor airport until 4:30, so Nagy brought us to a traditional market for one last cultural exposure (and shopping opportunity). Our van pulled up to an alley entrance that appeared dark because the buildings were close together. The alleyway seemed to be covered with fabric although it may just have been that individual stalls were draped. It looked just like the markets you see in the movies except we seemed to be the only customers, which meant shop keepers, eager to sell something, had no one else to approach.

    Eager is one appropriately descriptive word for the merchants. Persistent is another. What the timid North American tourists thought might be an opportunity to see the market and the wares -- to browse, as it were -- quickly become an exercise in trying to say "No, thank you." Then, just "No!" 

    Several merchants approached me straightaway with items in hand saying, "Don't break my heart."

 

 

    [These first two photos and the last are thematic rather than specifically from Luxor on our last afternoon. This street scene is intended to capture donkey cart and the merchant scene is from the Pyramids at Giza.]

    I must confess to feeling more than a bit heartless to turn down every approach despite being told I was breaking hearts. More than once we called to Nagy to step in for help. 

    One merchant was particularly insistent so Nagy told us to wait "over there" while he had what we thought was an animated exchange.We did eventually buy a very nice table cloth, which now adorns our dining room table; somehow Nagy negotiated a workable price for us. 

    Danil and the Friedmans found a few things they had been hunting for, so the market experience was profitable for all of us -- though it may have been tiring for Nagy. 

        My last photo in Egypt is of this drawing we found in a cafe we stopped at on our way to the airport. I thought of Picasso. It was displayed near a row of traditionally dressed men who were sitting against the wall chatting. I thought for a moment of trying to get them in the same frame as the drawing, but decided that would be rude.

    Nagy was prepared to order another lunch for us, but so close to our river cruise lunch we voted for coffee, tea, and soft drinks instead. 

    After this last stop we were dropped at the airport where we said our goodbye's to Nagy, who had become a good and valued friend in the ten days we had known him. Once inside, we underwent three different head-to-toe security screenings -- X-rays of carry-on bags; shoes, belts, coins, phones, laptops, et. al., in little bins on the conveyor belt, and so forth. 

    Before we were able to check our bigger bags I had to open them so an expert in antiquities could check to be sure we were not taking genuinely ancient items out of the country. He ripped open all the tightly wrapped stone objects and the nativity sets, which we then had to re-wrap and repack. So much for the strategic, careful packing we had engineered earlier in the day!

    The antiquities inspector was wearing an ID lanyard that read "Saint Louis Art Museum," so I asked him if he had been in St. Louis. He said he had spent six weeks in St. Louis working with the Egyptian Antiquities Collection housed there. 

    When I asked what he thought of his experience, he said it was "OK." Then he added that St. Louis is as hot as Luxor.

    Air travel back to Toronto for our drive home was, as expected, long and uncomfortable, but full of specific answers to prayer, mostly directed toward border crossings. We arrived in Cairo about 10 p.m. with a layover for the flight to Frankfort at 4:30 a.m. Once in Frankfort we said a quick goodbye to our Canadian team -- Matt, Chandra, and Danil. They had to reconnect in something like 45 minutes, so it was high-fives and run. Our connection was four hours, so we took our time locating our gate, found a place to eat, and tried to stay alert for the boarding call.

    Our specific answers to prayer had everything to do with getting in and out of countries due to enhanced and/or shifting Covid requirements. These never did develop as an issue.

 

    At the US border, which can be a long, tiring experience, we found we were the only car. The Border Agent asked his three obligatory questions -- Where are you coming from? Where are you going to? and Are you bringing anything in that we need to know about? -- and sent us on our way.

    Actually, I am not sure of his exact wording since we had mostly been awake for the last day and a half, and I just wanted enough clarity of mind to drive back to Houghton. That was its own adventure but the major hurdles had all disappeared. Thanks be to God.

China -- Revisited [#14]

Walkabout, Pt 3

Once past the Catholic Church with its Christmas decorations, we walked a loop, heading west through the market, turning south along the river, and then east through a business district. At the end, we found ourselves back at our starting point in front of the Zhangs' building.

As we headed into the traditional market, we encountered folks who stopped Edward's parents to greet them and, briefly, to catch up. Sometimes we were introduced, but often we were just told how this person or that was related. These two boys couldn't take their eyes off of us, but their older sister (with the impressively colorful half-fingered mittens) and their grandmother didn't pay us any direct attention.









Although cars did not travel through this market, bicycles and scooters did, often quite fast. Pedestrians seemed to know when to step aside and when it was safer to let the scooter find a way around them, but those skills did not come naturally.  Several times we were tugged or nudged to the side by our alert hosts.

Here and there little alleyways branched off of the market.  We did not have time to follow them, but on another trip I would love to just wander the neighborhood.

At one point we came out from between buildings into a clearing that turned out to be a school yard.  Faded lines marked out a field of play for several games -- soccer, I assume, and basketball. A pair of hoops without nets stood in this school yard. Boys who had been shooting hoops and other kids who had been running around stopped to look when we appeared.  That was usually a signal for me to stop shooting pictures and act gracious.

Beyond the school we came to the river that ran along the edge of Lehu. The river bank had been improved with stone walls making a channel, on top of which was a new walkway and a new concrete road.

The houses across the road from the river walkway were squat, mostly two story affairs. They struck me as being not necessarily older than the town buildings we had just come through but more rural, more village construction.

For reasons that I can't explain entirely, I find myself drawn to virtually everything in this landscape, from the houses that could be described as boxes set one atop another, to the admittedly mundane color scheme (varied eath tones), to the window lattices, to the roof lines and roof tiles. I am draw to tools, especially traditional tools.  I am drawn to more abstract things too, like colors, shapes, patterns.  I love brickwork. In another life I could see myself as a stone mason.  I love trees, especially when they are twisted or oddly shaped, like this sycamore that had been left to grow through the new sidewalk between street lights.  If I remember right, the tree inhibited foot traffic to the point where we had to walk single file around it or step out into the street.







Here, too, men on bicycles would stop to chat with Edward's father.  He would offer them cigarettes and they would converse while smoking.

Across the river was countryside.  In the low space between the road and the houses was an open space, maybe 150 feet wide, that local residents had planted as gardens. All the gardens were neatly laid out and well tended.  Often we saw people working these gardens. Everywhere we went we saw the same thing, cultivated open space. The houses might be cluttered or in poor repair, but the gardens always looked well-tended.


Then, as I have said, we reached a cross street and turned back into town. 

But that's another story.