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| West Branch of the Nile near Alexandria |
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Old Damietta Adventure
I am having a wonderful time - really and truly. I went into Old Damietta with my driver Muhammed as my guide. I was in search of dinner plates and salad plates for the house. It was my first foray walking the streets of the old city.
The nile runs right through the middle of the city and we had a stroll along it. The "main" streets are continually curving and only wide enough curb-to-curb to fit a row of parked cars and a travel way for the farm tractors, bicycles, motorcycles/scooters (with one/two/three riders wearing sandals or bare-foot), donkey carts, delivery trucks, our Jeep, a few vintage Opels and Plymouths and minivans which are the privately operated mass transit for trips around town or to Cairo or to Port Said or Alexandria.
All of the streets are lined with open (walk-right-in) shops that spill out onto the three foot wide sidewalk and there are people everywhere. The many side streets are almost exclusively pedestrian streets with about eight feet of street from between the curbs. There are fabric stores specializing in drapery, upholstery, dresses, men?s suits and miscellaneous. There are lamp stores, fine china shops and cheap dollar-store Chinese import shops, butchers (sheep, goat, beef, hanging on hooks), produce shops and even seamstress/tailor shops with six people sitting at sewing machines spilling out onto the sidewalk. Most of the shops are about twelve feet wide, so the variety is startling.
We spotted a shop with plates in the window including a beautiful black-and-white pattern. Muhammed left me (the big-money, non-egyptian Iooking guy) outside while he went in to ask the price. They wanted 360 LE (LE is Egyptian Pounds, the local currency) or the made-in-Germany set; that converts to about US$70 and was actually a very good deal. However, I could see that Muhammed would be scandalized at such a profligate purchase, so I scowled and said we had better look further on. The extreme differences in incomes here takes a little getting-used-to, but that is the way it is and really not a problem since our work and relationships are good for each of us in our own way. We did eventually find plates that were fairly good-looking, serviceable and inexpensive (made in China) at a tiny shop that is right across the street from a beautiful, huge white limestone mosque with elegant geometric minarets. Looking up at these stark white, spot-lit spires with the black sky behind was quite a sight. The plates ended up costing me about US$18 for six large dinner plates and six salad plates.
We walked back to the jeep along the wide walkway beside the smooth-running nile. Muhammed, with his handsome grin and thin mustache, enjoyed telling me "that way" is Ras El Barr and the mediteranean Sea and "this way" is Cairo and Luxor and then Aswan and then Sudan!
On the drive back to New Damietta we were remarking the age of the city - more than 3000 years I should think. He asked me if I knew the something-something-something. Well, I wasn't getting the idea and he told me to take out a one egyptian pound note and look at the illustration on the back. OH! The Temple of Karnak. I assured him that everyone in the world knew of his ancient people.
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