Sunday, November 11, 2007

Arabic and Western culture only a bridge apart

Yesterday we took a taxi over to Road 9 where we crossed the metro tracks and entered the souk (the outdoor market). It is one of the most pungent experiences you’ll have here in Egypt. Fruit, vegetables, nuts, grain, spices, flies, cats, live fowl being weighed and slaughtered on the spot, rabbits in cages, sheesha smoking men, children, turkeys, all between small narrow alleys in the hot sun. “It’s stinks here!” August kept saying, but we enjoy going because the fruit and vegetables are usually nice, you can choose and bargain as you like, and the prices are great. Among other things we bought large, tasty oranges for 3 EGP/kilo. After half an hour of this very Arabic experience; gesticulating, bargaining, touching and smelling fruit, choosing, discussing and several “shukran, massalema”, we crossed the bridge again and found ourselves in front of a KFC, which we entered.

I find the fact that you walk from a souk in Cairo, Egypt and wander straight into an American fast food chain amusing. We don’t really need this convenience, especially in light of the fact that we’ve been living without it for 12 years, but it’s comforting, in a world politics kind of way.
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