Deep Down in the Delta

This weekend was long, due to the fact we celebrated christmas again, this time due to the Coptic Christmas, which gave us a day off on 7th Jan. Lovely.

We have not been getting very far buying the remaining furniture we need to help fill up the house and stop us rattling around. Arabic furniture tastes are lets just say a little gaudy to the average western eye. There is no arabic translation for minimalist or plain! If they can put gold lacquer and curls, frills, and any other assortment of adornments onto a piece of furniture to make it look like it got rejected from the Palace of Versailles on grounds of being "too over the top", they will.

We had a plan to get past this lack of suitable furniture and this was to go to the source, Damietta. This town in the central Nile delta near the coast and manufactures pretty much all of the furniture in Cairo and much of the arab world beyond. The cunning part of our plan was hatched by Ahmed Da Driver and P.

The plan: Ahmed is getting married soon, and its tradition for El Hombre to provide a house load of furniture for the new Mrs Da Driver. Thus Ahmed Da Driver, being a man who 1) knows a good deal and 2) is from the delta, was then man to take us. In addition the plan included meeting up with Ahmed Da Furnitureman (the man making Ahmed Da Drivers martial furniture) 20km outside Damietta so he could accompany us and advise on quality price etc. etc. Also if we were to get something made then he could do it. Ahmed Da Driver would also invite his uncle, you guessed it, Ahmed Da Uncle, to help negotiate price should he be needed. As with anything and everything in Egypt nothing is straightforward – this is furniture shopping Cairo style, 400km round trip, 3 Ahmeds and a car full of family T, ah for an IKEA.

We set off bright and early and headed down from Kattameya into the smog of the Cairo ring road. Going clockwise past the invisble Giza Pyramids shrouded in the fog we popped out along the Cairo-Alexandria Agricultural Road (no I-95 or A12, proper road names here). Heading north we passed through the industrial and frankly slightly depressing northern suburbs of Cairo. Further out and leaving Smogsville behind we turned off at Banya on the road to Mansura and we started to enter the delta proper.

The soil is remarkably productive, supporting at least 3 crops a year. We passed though areas of orange groves, grapes vines, potato and onion fields, rice paddys, and tomato fields. These were mixed with the regular Stalinist-like building that are apparently chicken farms. The road was clogged with the normal flow, horse and cars, donkey and carts, buffalo and carts. Additionally we met and came into close proximity to tractors, lorries, tuk-tuks, cars, taxis, mini-buses, graders, bicycles. Unfortunately the speed we were travel coupled with the road condition was more condusive to milk-shake making rather than high speed photo taking! We passed an area of brickworks that presumably supply the enormous efforts going on at Kattameya. Id like to go back and do some serious photography. The un-fired bricks were all lined up like some great domino knocking over attempt, now that would have been a good photo....

Roadside fruit stall and typical road scene, watchout for oncoming donkey....

We were following a tributary of the Nile through identical village after village until we stopped at a bridge 20km from Damietta. We called Ahmed Da Furniture, who turned up in 15mins (not bad for an Egyptian), a happy chap with all his fingers (apparently not a common character amoung old furniture makers, Egypt has pretty lax HSE rules when it comes to circular saws!). I love it when a plan comes together! Onto Damietta town.

Roadside butchers - Ahmed say No Good. Nice mosque.

Typical delta scene and high speed fruit and veg delivery.

One of the brick works...those bricks are just asking to be knocked over....

The furniture industry dominates here and as we reached the city more and more small workshops and large wood traders became apparent along the road. Numerous half-finished chairs, bedsteads, coffee tables stand in piles along the side of the road. We stopped at the first shop, a large place with even larger furniture. As suspected huge ornate, beautifully-made pieces on 3 floors. It was like seeing a supersized Coke for the first time in the states - this furniture was just oversized to the point of being made for some other species. Some of the wardrobes were a large as the living room in the house in the UK. We explained to the boys this was not what we wanted and took out the pictures we had for both Ahmeds. Nod, nod. On into Damietta centre, we reached the Nile passing though the busy city and stopped in the large furniture Emporiums along the Nile. Again looked like a close out sale from the Hapsburg family heirlooms or the Romanovs yard sale. Upstairs 4 floors of amazing furniture, a sight to behold, but not in our house, in a palace maybe! "No no, Ahmed". One more store, again 4 floors (this one included a trip to the top floor in a rather under-engineered lift from the 1930 with a slightly absent roof – both Ts looked scared, and so they should.

Umm, nice, do you have it in Silver......

Suggestions for what IKEA would call this bed anyone?

Plan was starting to bend a little so had a talk to the two Ahmeds (similar to the two Ronnies). "Lets cut our losses, head back to Ahmeds workshop and get him to make the furniture". Approving nods.

More and more thrones.....hope they pack our furniture a little better



Scene in Damietta and T picks out an understated desk for his room....

So we headed back to the village 20kms south of Damietta, passed over the bridge into the little town and down a single unpaved (in fact nothing was paved) side street where is located the world headquarters of "Ahmed Da Furniture Incorporated Company Limited". These workshops were full of wood, sawdust, half built furniture and several craftsman and boys beavering away (now thats appropriate pun) at the wood. We got some curious looks, not many white faces turn up here (or for that matter ginger-haired boys). Mrs T was getting admiring stares (I told her they were more like “curious stares”, but she preferred admiring).

Ahmeds workshop and planning discussions with Ahmed Da Driver, how do you say 2 be 4 in Arabic....

The finished articles and more workshops

T and J take a break whilst price negotiations go on.......

The Three Tenors, now the Three Ahmeds.....

Ahmed Da Uncle turns up, an older type Ahmed with a nice leather jacket. a friendly chap we shake hands and swap greetings. We get down to describing the furniture we want made. Between Ahmed Da Drivers poor English, Ps few Arabic numbers and colours, some pages cut of out “Home and Garden” magazine and numerous arm-wavy movements and pointing at things we manage to order about 15 pieces. Who knows what we get back at the end of the day! The three Ahmeds go off and discuss price in a American football-like huddle. Five minutes later Ahmed da Driver announces 11k EGP, but no wait, heated discussion starts, I love Egypt. Da Uncle wades in, Da furniture sucks air through teeth and shakes his head slowly, Da Driver says something about Feb or Jan. and so the conversation starts again. Ten minutes and the deal is done, 9.5k EGP, delivery in 6 weeks. Stonking!, what a deal!, whatever we have order!

Da Uncle invites us back for a drink and a little bit to eat. Now my alarm bells go off. Arab cultures have a tremendous sense of hospitality and sharing. A short visit will inevitable turn into a long one and its getting dark, but heck it will be fun and interesting. Also culturally we could not really say no and Ahmed Da Uncle did just save us a few hundred so what the heck.

We passed though this small town (Kafr Sadr?) along with the tuk tuks, horse and pedestrians, our white faces causing curious stares, suddenly down a small side street and park. Follow Da Uncle down a maze into a “typical” small house. Upstairs to be greeted by Ahmed Da Drivers extended family, it’s a bit of a blur but there were several men (Ahmed Da Cousin, Mohammed Da Cousin, et al.,) and several women (Aunt, wifes other others), and some kids (Little Ahmed, Omar, Selma and Abdul Raham).

Ahmed 'n' Da Boys in the Hood and T leaving the house

Tuk-Tuk slip-streaming a lorry in the village and roads hazards on the way back

As expected and typical Egyptian hospitality they invited us into there small apartment and treated us like long lost relatives. Like last time I was in a similar situation you cannot escape until you have been force fed beautiful food. We had nice rice and tomato-meat combo, another rice dish with meat in that looked like rice pudding, vegetables and beautiful bread, that is only made in Damietta that Aunt made. We then had tea (chai!) and then told them we had to leave. They gave us an enormous bag of bread (we could not get it in the freezer) and we parted saying our marsalams like old friends. Really friends people and a great cultural experience. We hope to send the kids some presents and old clothes when Ahmed Da Driver returns there as some form of thanks.

Back in the car as the sunset over the Nile fields, the traffic was bad, a good 5 hours to return but a successful day on a furniture side as well as a cultural one. Da Cunning plan hatched between a man with little English and another with next to no Arabic has come off. At least we think so till the furniture is delivered!

New and old building along the Nile, followed by sunset