Ramadan Excursions

Went to the Kahn for Ramadan tonight. Took us 45 minutes to get there, probably about 30 of it all to navigate the alleyways and find a parking spot. We actually wound up driving down a walk only alley, which was a very interesting experience indeed! No one died, and some nice men cleared a bunch of stuff out of the way to make a parking spot for all of us.
We wandered around and immediately it was like a riot on all my senses. Voices screaming and laughing and chatting, music tinkeling in the background, the crash of vendors who didn’t quite see each other around a corner. You see everything at once. There is every color you can imagine and even ones you cannot dancing in front of you. Scarves wave and sparkle with their beads. Jewelry both real and fake gleams in the bright light created by lanterns hanging from every surface. There is a sent of jasmine (literally the most popular and perhaps only scent of things here in Egypt, though the jury is still out on that one) sticks in the air, tainted by Shisha smoke and that twinge of sweat that only being in a small area with too many people can create.
I could have stood in the same place the whole night and experienced different thing every few minutes. As luck would have it, we did not have to do this, we did some exploring. We were brave little Americans, Canadians, and Australians (but to be fair, he does call himself a kiwi, apparently there was some confusion with Australian and American one day and to make sure people understood, we now refer to him as the Kiwi… wouldn’t want those nasty Americans to claim they are from Australia, now would we!) who ventured out into the insanity that is the Kahn during Ramadan, at night no less.
As a result of our adventuresome spirit, we were the only oddities there. In our two hours of touring the Kahn, I saw NO other non-native adventurers like ourselves. Perhaps this was a clue? If it was, we ignored it. Our crew is pretty good at trying things out, regardless if it is normally done by non-natives. We do however, try to take along at least one person who can speak Arabic and get us out of trouble, should we ever land in it. (knock on wood)
So we ventured further into the Kahn, bombarded by vendors and their runners, pushing their wares in your face like coke dealers. I mean they are intense! The shop keepers say a few things but mostly stop once you tell them thanks, but no thanks. We stopped at a famous café called Fishawi to have tea and sit. We were crammed around a tiny table, 10 of us sipping on drinks and being knocked about by people walking by. The chairs for the café are out in the alleyways, so people are always moving about. The funniest bits of the night occurred during out sit.
Our group was comprised of nine females and our one stand alone male. All the Arabic men kept talking with him and joking with him, though he had no clue what they were saying, they didn’t care. One of the Egyptian women started laughing and Michael asked her what was so funny, she told him to get used to being harassed tonight. When we all asked why it became clear. Since was Michael alone was traveling with all of us, he was in charge of us and therefore if a man wanted to talk to any of the ladies in the group, he had to go through Michael first. I looked at Michael and congratulated him on becoming the gatekeeper. Michael was not too keen on the idea of being responsible for all of our virtues, especially not a young lady’s like mine! Every one gave him crap for being worried and to realize that I was not really a lady, I was a college student and he needs to remember what he was like when he was in University. He felt a bit more comforted at this thought.
While all of this was going on, we also have the runners who are schlepping all this junk (and believe me, it is JUNK), shoving it in your face and talking price at you. The runners are the ones that keep pushing. Unless you use a firm voice and look them in the eyes when you say no, they just keep pushing. You can almost not help but to feel claustrophobic and over stimulated… but in a totally amazing way. I know it’s not for everyone, that this was just too much for some even in our little group. But for me, to see everything and just people watch could take up hours of my time. Never mind if I actually wanted to go out and start bartering.
The Kahn is a huge tourist trap in areas and so the prices on things are laughable. One man said as we walked by “Half off, I give you good price… 100 dollars.” To paint a picture, 100 dollars is a bit over 500 pounds, which is more than some people make in a month here. However, it is so much fun to look at everything and make some small talk with the vendors who don’t come after you like you have the cure for cancer and they have only hours to live.
Being at the Kahn during Ramadan is a totally different experience that I cannot explain properly with words. It is too much for words. Get into roofless 7x10 room with 100 people. All of you must talk at once, half of you must be smoking, a few of you humming, some playing music. There must be things hanging from all the walls. Things like clothes, pipes, pillows, purses, jewelry- all of this on display. There must be lights of all different colors hanging about and all of you must constantly be moving. This is the best way to reenact the intensity of the Kahn at night. I have been during the day, and it’s a feat to navigate your way around then. At night, during Ramadan… don’t even try it. Take a guide and hope for the best!
It was an amazing experience that I am not doing justice to, but I had to try. So for my first official night out for Ramadan (on a school night no less, I am so bad) I have been told that I have been to the craziest spot in town, short of heading to a massive Iftar. I will keep you updated on how crazy might Ramadan gets. Ramadan Kareem!