My friend Marisol, who I met back this past January at the UNI International Recruiting Fair in Iowa, accompanied me to the Iranian Souk and Friday Market. I hadn’t realized Marisol had been to the Iranian Souk until walking through and seeing how the shop owners recognized and greeted her. I don’t know what I would do without her. I don’t have the best bargaining skills, although to give myself credit just last week I refused to pay the extraordinarily overpriced 4 KD (about 20 USD) fare one taxi driver was trying to get out of me. I was proud of myself, realizing he would not budge for less than 2.5 KD when I only paid half of that to get to my destination, I got out of the taxi and found another one willing to accept my price.
As I was saying, Marisol is very good at bargaining and quickly shoved my arm down as I was reaching for my wallet after hearing an initial price. I did some shopping, not for Christmas mind you, but for Eid which inshAllah I will be celebrating at home either December 8th or 9th. I was able to find the few things I wanted to purchase for my mother, sister, grandmother and aunt that and was able to get them for a very reasonable price. I also purchased a beautiful piece of Islamic artwork that says Alhamdulillah or Praise be to Allah in Arabic calligraphy. It actually says something else after Alhamdulillah and even though I have been practicing and keeping up with my Arabic classes on Thursdays, I can’t quite make out the other words... I’ll blame it on the calligraphy.
After the Iranian Souk, Marisol and I ran across the street to the Friday Market. We first found the animal souk which was filled with hundreds of sheep, in preparation for the upcoming Eid holiday. Although I knew my camera gave me away as a foreigner and tourist, I couldn’t help but snap pictures of the animals. I even spotted one baby mixed into the herd which I also captured on film. After the sheep section we made our way through the poultry part of the souk. Again, with camera in hand, I took some pictures as I walked through and was just fascinated by the variety of birds and number of people buying live poultry. I saw pigeons, chickens, roosters, baby chicks, ducks, turkeys, and a really neat looking quail like bird. I even spotted four guinea pigs running around inside one of the metal cages used to contain the other birds.
After the souks, Marisol and I took a taxi to the Avenues Mall. Our taxi driver dropped us off inside the parking garage and kindly explained his reasoning behind our drop off location. It seems that police cars monitor the top level and he was driving on a suspended license… from our short but scary cab ride, I can’t say I was surprised. Marisol and I had lunch in TGI Fridays and then did a little grocery shopping at Carrefore. I bought some chocolates to take home and vegetables to get me through the week.
I’ve got about 2 hours to relax and then I’m off to my director’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. I am staying busy and haven’t found time to start packing yet. I’m sure I will start to tackle that within the next few days… Countdown update: one week and five hours from right now I’ll be on my way to the airport, inshAllah.
No comments:
Post a Comment