Into the old city

There are no photos from today. I purposely left my camera at home when my friend Stephanie invited me to go to the older part of the city where the traditional souks (markets) are located. She left hers behind too, and there were a couple of times when we wished we had them. No matter how great they are for future memories, we reminded ourselves that something always gets lost in the present as soon as a camera comes out. Or at least that made us feel better in the moment.

Steph has lived in Kuwait before, so she is a wonderful person to ask questions. She has also lived in Syria and Libya, before being evacuated and forced to leave her whole life behind. I enjoy her company a great deal - she is funny, insightful and wise. We are both about the same age too, which doesn't always matter, but sometimes is the right connection.

To say this is the old part of the city needs to be put in context. Nothing much is truly old as most everything was bombed during the war, but even before that was maybe only in existence for 25 to 50 years. Old seems to refer more to a more traditional way of doing things.

We meandered through hallways with lamb carcasses hanging and bulging fruit displays. I admired rosy red pomegranates the size of grapefruit and oohed over the citrus selection. We talked in our broken Arabic with an Iranian man who gave us a date tasting, pointing out the subtle differences between dates grown in Saudi, Iran, and Kuwait. We bought a kilo for one dinar ($3.50). The figurative icing on the cake was when he brought out his homemade tahini and dipped the matured sweet Iranian dates into it. That was a slice of heaven and so I bought that too. He kept asking us to take his picture. That does not happen much here, eliciting a moment of regret.

We transversed further into the unmarked passages, passing finely woven carpets and colorful prayer beads. Steph explained that if one can afford it, the beads should be amber, that one knows it is the real deal because of the heat the beads create when fingering them, and that there are many different shades ranging from pale yellow to sienna orange to brown. They were out of my price range for today. Also beyond my pocketbook were the gold shops (which may actually always be out of reach)and the custom perfumeries.

We reached the far boundary of the market which spans blocks to find the Afghan quarter, and spent quite a bit of time talking with a Hazara man who sold us some beautiful tapestries. He was glad when we told him we were from America; America had been good to the minority Hazara people. His Pakistani neighbor tempted us with some beaded work. As I will most likely never make it to Afghanistan or Pakistan, these seemed like incredibly good buys. We also found some lovely scarves from Kashmir, much like the pashima shawls found on the streets of Manhatten but with much more depth and interesting patterns.

We broke for a late lunch at a large communal eating area that has several kitchens cooking for particular tables. It is hard to go wrong with kebabs, soft warm bread, hummus and salad. A beer would have been nice too, but not possible.

So many photos filling my head - the colors, smells, people, and music of this wonderful place. It was a good place to practice my Arabic, of which I have a bit lax lately. I think it was one of my favorite afternoons since arriving in Kuwait, one for the environment, but also for the company.