Urchined

More shopping ensued, with several surprising turns. One was when we were searching for a shop. Pierre Balmain? we were asking. Where, shop Pierre Balmain? our choppy Arabic said. Then, without fail, they would start jabbering in not nearly so choppy Arabic. We shrugged our shoulders off, but eventually we did get the drift in each of our encounters. But the best one was when we asked a woman in a shop, and we couldn't understand her, and she couldn't make herself understood, so she pulled a car over. In an one-point-three-car-wide alley. The guy started thinking, PierBalmanPierBalmanPierBalmanPierBalman..., then got irritated by the car behind him blowing his horn to pieces. Just a moment, he said, and drove off. A minute later, there he was again, pulling out a pad and a pen, and pointing to the Pierre's position. The cars queueing up behind him were a bit more patient, or rather their drivers were, so the several minutes of his briefing was uninterrupted by random honking. One just has to love these people.

Another twist was one Nina and Nisha pulled. We walk into a shop (or rather climb after a hawker, for it was not on the street but inside, up the stairs, where advertising and sleeve-pulling become necessary), and Nina asks about an article (of a kind that shall remain unnamed, for it prefers to remain anonymous and not spoil the surprise, and it feels irrelevant in this discussion). The shop owner says 4000. Aghast, Nina protests, that's too much! The merchant exhorts the high quality of his goods, then asks what we think we would pay. 500, Nina says. Ooo, no, no, no, comes from his insulted face. Okay then, see ya...

Wait wait madam, okay, 2000! We turn around. But we got one same like this, from another shop, and we paid 500! Nisha complains. Same one?!? asks he. Same one? Yes,answers Nina, and she's not even lying. Much. Okay, it was just similar, not same.

He's thinking, and discussing the business with his colleagues... then, Okay, 1000! We do our shukrans and ma` as-salaams, and he's yelling Okay, 500, take! at our retreating backs. So we did.

A bit later, we saw some cute toys being sold on the streets by the urchins. Wanna buy, sir? Only 100! We compose our sceptic/insulted faces. 2 for 100!... 3 for 100! That did not sound too bad, so we took them.

Ten yards down, another urchin is stopping us. Buy, sir, cheap! We explain that we bought some already, and he goes, How much cost?. We tell him. I give 5 for 100! 6, sir! How can you resist? It's really no money at all, and twice as much trinkets as the last kid offered, so we took them.

He had but two, so he ran off to his base to get us more. We were left standing rather stupidly in the middle of the bustling suq street holding two toys. We started wondering if he'll ever come back, then remembered that he gave us something and we did not yet give him anything. He came back, got his hundred and gave us the four trinkets he brought, so we took them.

Another ten yards, and there was an urchin yanking my arm, kissing my sleeve, and begging me to buy 2 for 25. We had quite enough of the blasted things, and I really did not want his drool on my jacket, so I scooted into the nearest shop as fast as we could.

We went to the suq by car. The drive was uneventful, our senses having been deadened by our street experiences so far. But this time we turned into a parking lot, as the streets were packed full, and there were abs-0-lutely no parking spaces to be found anywhere near. When we inquired at the parking lot gate if there were any vacancies (unlikely as that appeared), a guy said sure, he'll find us some, we should follow him. He took us on a tour of the parking lot, which was trickier to navigate than Moon Lander, with couple of very close shaves. Five meters from the exit a car left and he made us squeeze in there, by inches, in such a place that we believe at least four car owners were cursing us in absentia.

I know, I'm not that good at recounting things in sequence. Think of my blog entries as small temporal puzzles. Every cloud, silver lining, all that.