El Andalous - Cabinets

The Carpenter's Workshop

Quite a few of the other owners in El Andalous have gone into Hurghada and asked for items to be hand-made for them by a carpenter. You can just take your design and measurements and you can have anything made for you. Everyone praises this service, it’s also not too expensive, and people keep on telling me I should do this.

This is where I wonder if I’m really cut out for the adventure of living in Egypt. Everyone else seems to go into Hurghada quite happily to get this done with no qualms whatsoever – if anything, they are laughing at the sense of adventure. I just sit here on my sofa thinking about it and feeling rather petrified by the idea. How do you approach the carpenter, how do you communicate, will I be accosted by all the carpenters as I walk down the street, how will I know if they can do what I want, how can you trust them, will I have to bargain over the price, how do you know what’s a reasonable price, are all carpenters good or do you have to find one you can trust and how do you do find the right carpenter? All these questions run through my mind and with all these unknowns I end up feeling quite insecure.

Anyway, it was the new year and I decided to get a grip. If everyone else can do it, then so can I. I needed to look upon it as a fun thing to do. It was 2017 and I was feeling bold.

I took a taxi to El Salam Street, which is the street where all the carpenters and other tradesmen are – these aren’t shops, they are workshops. This in itself already feels quite intimidating to me, since I feel I shouldn’t really be there. Anyway, the taxi took me to El Salam Street and then asked me where exactly did I want to go. I had no idea, of course, so I just said that I wanted a carpenter and asked if he could recommend one. At this point, the conversation was too difficult (I should have looked up the word for carpenter beforehand, but I forgot), so the driver called Esmat.

The phone conversation was quite stressful because Esmat asked me if I couldn’t find a carpenter. I was then saying “Yes, here’s one, but he’s just driven past. Oh, there’s another one, oh, he’s just driven past” and I was getting increasingly uptight. I hadn’t even got there and it was already going horribly wrong! In retrospect, I should have asked the driver to let me off anywhere and I would wander down the street. However, I’d got too sidetracked worrying that I didn’t know what I was doing.

It ended up with Esmat recommending another carpenter that seemed to be miles away from Salam Street and miles away from anywhere. I trust Esmat 100% but it was still a bit disconcerting as I had no idea where I was. The taxi driver got out and started talking in Arabic to the people in the workshop and I stood there like an idiot, feeling that I’d failed miserably in my mission to be an independent explorer.

I handed over my photographs – one of my existing kitchen cabinet that I wanted replicated and then one of an Ikea bathroom cabinet. I’d written out the dimensions I wanted. I tried my best to explain, partly in English, partly in mime, and marginally in Arabic. I thought I’d made myself understood but suddenly I found them asking me to speak to Esmat on the phone, but I didn’t know what they wanted explaining. Since Esmat couldn’t see the photographs, I couldn’t really tell him much. I asked him if he knew whether they would be able to read the numbers I’d written (I’d forgotten to write them in Arabic script), but Esmat didn’t seem to understand what I was asking.

Esmat then spoke to the others and I understood enough of the conversation to realize that he was concerned that they would get the correct colour since it needed to match the kitchen. They explained back that I had brought the colour with me, so it wasn’t a problem. Esmat obviously couldn’t believe this, because they repeated it several times, as well as explaining that they had a picture with measurements (I was quite pleased that I could follow the gist).

They showed me a price and I didn’t even think to bargain; it was in any case the same price or cheaper than Ikea, so I thought it was OK. We agreed and I went away with huge misgivings. I wasn’t totally sure what anyone had really understood.

When I was next in town renewing my visa, Esmat told me to visit the carpenter again because they had some questions. I got there and they asked what colour I wanted the cabinet to be. I explained that I wanted it to be the colour I’d brought along last time. My stress levels rose. Why was this a problem? They showed me what they’d done so far and I corrected the height of the shelf. It seems they thought I’d made a mistake in my calculation. We agreed that I really did mean 32cm and not halfway. I said I’d come back the next day with the colour (why?).

I brought the colour with me again the next day, but it turned out they wanted to show me the cabinet once it had been coloured. Of course, without a direct comparison, I couldn’t really tell, but it looked about right. I explained again that the central panel was to be clouded glass. Of course, I don’t know what “clouded glass” is in Arabic, so what I actually said was “Here, glass. I don’t see here. I don’t see. I see 20%. I see 20%”. He looked at me as if I was crazy for doubting that he understood, but I was still skeptical that any of the communications were getting through.

On the day of collection, I was relieved to see that the cabinet was a pretty good replica of the ones in the kitchen. Miraculously, the clouded glass was exactly the same. As often seems to be the case in Egypt, a bunch of children watched on with interest. The carpenter cleaned the cabinets before handing them over; meanwhile I was worrying if this meant I had to pay a tip as I only had the exact money in my hands. The mirrored bathroom cabinet (I’d had to mime “mirror”) was also looking pretty good. I should have probably inspected the items properly (once the kitchen cabinet was hung up, I realized they’d put the handles on in not quite the right place and that one door was slightly higher than the other), but I was too relieved and petrified all at the same time to do anything other than smile, pay up, and run away!