To the markets!

It is chaos.
It is beautiful.
It is fun.
This is Egypt!

We were going to the markets! 

The traffic was terrible. 

When we finally got to the markets it was overwhelming, as always, but in a good way. From the banter of the sellers to the prayer beads to the smell of Turkish coffee. This is the real Egypt. 

By the time we arrived, my brother was very hungry and starting to get moody, so my mum, brother and I sat on an old stone wall to wait while my dad went off to buy us some fuul and taamiya sandwiches (taamiya is another word for falafel). 

Across from the wall were shops selling sibha, which are prayer beads. They look really cool so I bargained with the guy and bought a few to hang in my room.

The markets are always raging with food and cultural sights. The carpet weavers hang their colourful rugs up and the smell of Turkish coffee and bread is very distinctive. 

We walked through the market, turning every corner to find a marvellous array of carpets, chickens, perfumes, rugs, guitars, ouds, souvenirs and lots of little nicknacks. 

When we walked into the perfume store (owned by my grandfather’s friend), the smell was overwhelming. It smelt like 4 litres of pure perfume was in that room. That was probably about right. Which is impressive, because the store is only 3 metres long! This is the real Egypt!

A great way to start the new year

 
It was a normal Friday morning. Every Friday morning, everybody goes to the mosque to pray. It was New Year's Day so the mosque was especially busy and very crowded. 

Normally my dad, brother and I pray outside but it was very wet because it had rained the night before so we decided to pray inside. To do so, we had to get there especially early to arrive before everyone else. Unfortunately everyone in Heliopolis had the same idea. Luckily, we still ended up inside. Our friend Mohamed followed us to the mosque and he sat with us.

We picked a good spot to pray. We did our first pray, which was only 2 verses long and was just in preparation for the actual pray, which was 4 verses long and was with the sheikh (the man who is reciting the Qur'an). 

During the pray everyone is lined up toe to toe. There are about 20 rows of 30 in the mosque. And that was just that particular day; most of the time on New Year's Day there are even more people, but it was too wet to pray outside. 

After the pray everyone was flooding out of the building. I was in a big rush to get out. 

In front of me was a very old blind man. I could see that he was having trouble getting out, so I held his hand and put his other arm around me and helped him out of the mosque. That was definitely a great way to start the year!!!