Day 316 - The Souq

  

Tehran Bazaar
by  kamshots 

I didn't always enjoy shopping in the middle east. In Iran, I made my way through the bazaar often, but I didn't enjoy anything more than looking because in Iran bargaining usually involved trading insults. Bargaining went something like this in Tehran bazaars:

Prospective buyer says, "You want how much for that? You must be joking. It isn't worth half that."

In reply, the seller says, "Your offer is an insult! I wouldn't accept twice that amount. You clearly don't appreciate quality."

Or the salesperson simply grabbed the item out of my hands and put it back on the shelf.

Then there was the fact that my explanations for why I didn't want something were never accepted. "It's too small," I would say to explain why further discussion was not necessary, at which point the seller would lower the price. It took me far too long to realize that pointing out the flaws in the item was a buyer's strategy to get a lower price. I thought it was telling the truth.

But when I got to the other side of the Gulf that has two names, I noticed a different pattern. On the southern side of the Gulf, bargaining was a conversation among friends.  Prospective buyers and sellers got to know one another, usually over a cup of tea or soft drinks, before discussion of prices came up. This was a much more pleasant way to shop.

I enjoyed shopping in the souqs in Doha, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Dubai, Sharjah, Muscat, and Amman before I arrived in Sanaa. But I have never enjoyed shopping in the souqs more than in Yemen.

The souq in Sanaa's Old City is not like anywhere else, although Cairo's Khan el Khalili was impressive, too. The Old City is not just a marketplace. People live in the buildings there. It is a city within a city where getting lost was likely, but always a pleasant adventure.

Badeehi-style pendant

Bowsani-style pendant

Bowsani-style bracelet

Each person who went with me into the souq introduced me to a different aspect of it. Howard brought Alex and me into the souq from a direction it took me months to rediscover. The part of the souq he introduced me to would forever be Howard's souq to me. The public affairs officer, Chris, brought several of us on an tour of the souq in my first week there and introduced us to World Friend, one of the shops where the owner, Kamal Rubaih, made stunning modern jewelry from bits and pieces of traditional jewelry as well as pieces in the style of the traditional Jewish Yemeni silversmiths. I made many trips back to his shop where he also had museum quality pieces of art from pre-Islamic times hidden away in his attic. He brought a couple of them down for me to see once I had shopped there several times. The regional personnel officer from Bahrain, Gilder (who was also in Barbados while we were there) made one of her regional visits and introduced me to several shops in the central area of the souq where some of the shopkeepers pointed out the various styles of Bedouin jewelry - Bowsani, Badeehi, and Mansouri.

Necklace using Hadramaut design elements
by Kamal Rubaih

Necklace of grapes design by Kamal Rubaih

And then Kathy, who had been in Sanaa on TDY when Alex and I visited in 1999 and came back to help out while the financial management officer was in Aden, introduced me to Mohammed whose shop was just off the main alley and who made it possible for Kathy and me to sit in his shop to study Arabic and try out what we learned with him. I told Mohammed how much I enjoyed dancing as I drove down the street in my car. Three years later when I was able to travel again to Yemen, I stopped in Mohammed's shop and he asked me if I was still dancing as I drove. He also insisted that I have lunch at his home with his family. I let him lead the dance with the car as we traveled from his shop in the souq to his home.

  by  dietmut 

Gilder also introduced me to the Kashmiri Shawl shop which was stocked from ceiling to floor with the most colorful of designs, but hid an even more impressive treasure behind a door that didn't look like a door and was so low we had to duck down to get through. Behind it was a smaller room with every possible color and pattern of Pashmina shawls. I started out with basic black. But then I needed one that I could wear with my Yemeni-style evening dress for the Marine Ball. And who could stop there? I needed a red one. Then a black one with a border. Then a black and brown one with alternating squares of intricate patterns. Then a gray one with turquoise in the pattern that was reversible as a turquoise one with a gray pattern.

I spent more time in the souq than in any other place in Sanaa except my house and my office. I never felt threatened or in danger. Wherever I went, I was surrounded by children who asked me for a pen or to take their picture. They offered to carry my bags and when we reached my car, they would go through the motions that they had seen over and over, presumably without realizing what it meant: they would walk around the car, leaning down and looking under it and in the wheel wells, precautions we took whenever we had left our vehicles unattended in a public area to ensure nothing had been planted. One day during Ramadan when I foolishly entered the souq in my car, not thinking about the fact that the alleys would be packed with shoppers since the fast had just been broken, two men walking alongside my car got my attention as they indicated they would fold my side-view mirrors against the car to reduce the width I needed to get through and then they directed other cars and pedestrians to move out of my way so that I could get through. I knew my guardian angel was on duty, and she had lots of help.