Khan el-Khalili Market

Below are some photos of the less populated sections of the market and a creative writing piece...

<<<
    We are wandering in Islamic Cairo on the Saturday before Ramadan, looking to buy some gold cartouches, when we somehow manage to find ourselves at the epicenter of the Khan al-Khalili market. The vendors here are selling Ramadan decorations. There seem to be hundreds of people pushing in both directions down the narrow, twisted street, shoulder to shoulder, niqabi and hijabi women forgoing personal space and shoving with the rest. I move slowly down the street, hoping the crowd will lessen soon, thinking that this is far worse than Times Square. The crushing force of dozens of people behind me is pushing me forward and the weight of dozens in front of me is keeping me upright. I step on the back of the slipper of the man in front of me and someone steps on the back of my flipflop and I'm stuck for a moment, my other foot slipping on mushed trash, grasping for a foothold before a man hits me with the huge bag of rice on his shoulder and frees me to move again. A cart half the width of the street is coming through behind me and the driver is shouting, slapping his cargo to let people know that he intends to run them over if they don't get out of the way. I hear Kyle yelling, the English words sounding unnatural, metallic, as the man prods him with the sharp front of his cart.
    Three women, clucking their tongues at the cart driver, crowd me to the side trying to get us all out of his path. I'm stuck now in a niche between tables of Ramadan lanterns and I feel a vibrating in my bag. My American cell is ringing. It must be 5:30 in the morning back home I think to myself. Everything starts to feel nonsensical, like the disjointed events in a dream. A teenager reaches through the crowd to poke me in the shoulder with his pointer finger, trying to see whether I'm real, before going past me, laughing at my shock, and I decide to let my phone ring. This is about survival now. I move back into the swirling current of people, knowing I need to go through it to get out and feeling the sweat run down my back under my clothes.  Suddenly, an upturned hand is groping the air in front of my body, a man looking for anything to molest as he gets pushed forward. Recoiling inside, I move to smack his approaching hand, but I'm shoved past him before we touch.
    For a moment, the crush of people lessens and I lose my balance, stumbling to the right. Fear runs down my spine that I'll go down and under. My fall is stopped by the sharp edge of a table covered in Ramadan fireworks, and I get pinned there by the immediate coalescence of bodies, filling into the space like rain water pooling in a ditch. A man is sitting on the table and I look up at him out of my sweat-blurred sunglasses. Halllloooo!!! He yells in my face. Welllcomme! I try to move away as I see the cigarette in his hand ashing on his table of fireworks. I read an article once about a bomb going off in some crowded Pakistani market, the aftermath of exploded tomatoes and the rusty smells of burning and blood rising in the air. The hair raises on my arms and I can feel how it would feel. How time would seem to slow down and the air quiver and heat up before the bulbs on the strings of Ramadan lights would start popping, springing off their tables, table after table, plastic toys flying into the air, barbies and airplanes and tables and people all jumping up in a cloud of smoke till the explosion had ended and still and shock had descended.
    I push the thought away as the people in my line inch down the street, so close that we all seem to be a collection of atoms, each movement setting off a reaction and a counter-reaction, a shove and a counter-shove. I hear screaming behind me and I crane my neck around to see a niqabi woman smacking the head and back of her niqabi daughter with such force I wonder what she possibly could have done and then I'm forced to look forward again as I get caught between the clasped hands of a child and his mother, the child looking up at me with wide eyes and then a smile, the mother whispering a prayer against the crowds.
    Finally, the street widens a bit and I can see the ground again. I stumble into an alley on the side with unsure footing. Slowly, I realize I've been holding my breath, so I inhale, tasting the sweet and bitter smells of gasoline and hot mangoes that seem to float above all of Cairo.
>>>