Egypto-glyphics

  Egypto-glyphics…?  See photos in Gallery: Egypto-glyphics

We are on the first floor of our hotel and the window overlooks the street below us:

 It is fascinating, intoxicating, unadulterated Egyptian life: Tiny personal-owned stores line the streets:

·         the vegetable grocer displaying his produce in the most inviting and creative way;

·         the butcher’s store, tiled with white porcelain, blood-stained tiles where from the ceiling carcasses of cows, goats or sheep are suspended, neatly wrapped in white linen cloths for fly protection;

·         a sewing store: 2 sewing machines sit out on the street and anything that might need to be fixed or sewed can be taken there;

·         a card making, photo copy store: the photocopy machine stands out in the street and you walk up with your need, hand it over and it is copied right there for a minimal fee;

·         the haberdasher store that sells anything from buttons, thread, accessories for hair, clothes, pins, needles, scissors…anything tiny that you do not think of until you need it and then it you really need it!,

·         fruit grocer;

·          micro-mini supermarket – 3ft x 1 ft: sodas, juice, crisps, candy, chocolate, tea, coffee, cookies, pasta, soup, boxed cheese like feta and goat, yogurt;

·         another micro-mini supermarket and customers are determined by who owns it;

·         dairy store selling fresh milk 2x/day – you bring your own container to be filled; yellow cheese; all kinds of white cheeses; olives, pickled lemons, carrots, peppers, home-made yoghurt, sour milk;

·         cleaning products for the house, bath, kitchen, house, etc;

·         a pharmacy – usually a bigger store that you can go in to; most of the others you buy from the street;

·         tea houses where men sit at tables, drink black, sweet tea while smoking their water pipes, watch the world walk by and talk about the community, Egypt and the world

·         carts pulled by donkeys or horses pass by and stop to sell vegetables; barley feed for donkeys and horses; hills of garlic;

·         cars, motorbikes, little trucks, big trucks, bikes, 3-wheeled motorbikes drive up and down, honking as far as they go;

·         people walk, stand and sit everywhere – in the streets and on the side-walks;

·         Veiled young women walk in groups holding hands, giggling, laughing, talking;

·         older women, usually dressed in black, most of the time heavily veiled or in a full burkha walk around with little children;

·         men with gray, brown, white long robes, many turbaned– business men, owners of the little stores, stand around talking, smoking and discussing…? ;

·         young teenage boys cling to one another, laughing and being silly most of the times 

·         ramshackle street food vendors cooking sausages, schwarmas, falafel, kofta in the street or on the side-walk

·         ice-cream shops 

·         green ice-cold, extremely sweet sugar cane drinks served from beer glasses, rinsed under tap water ready for use by the next customer

·         rainbow colored cell phone stores – color depending on the company: pink – T-mobile; red- Vodafone; orange – Mobilnil…

·         internet cafes

·         fish mongers – (probably my least favorite…because of the smell at the heat of the day)

constant incessant human, animal and automotive activity wrapped in noise that tightropes a Western sanity threshold…noise pollution…all the time – day and night. It wanes during the early morning hours, but never dies down – never, but should it cease for some miraculous reason, then the mosque’s muezzin would fill the gap – 5x/day

It is fascinating, exhilarating, energy-giving, energy-zapping; it is rare, strange, diverse, peculiar, different, and unusual – culture zones removed from what is familiar and comfortable to us