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Esmat, the taxi driver I used to use, has
opened a kitchen and home shop. It makes sense, since he was previously
focusing on trips round Egypt (Cairo, Luxor, etc) and, of course, these days
there aren’t many tourists due to coronavirus. He said it was always in the
back of his mind to diversify since tourism is so volatile.
He's very enterprising. Well, the Egyptians
in general are enterprising, but Esmat particularly so. He has a FaceBook page
(not sure whether he has a web page, though) and advertises every day on that,
demonstrating items he has. You need that for kitchen stuff as often you see
things and don’t have a clue what they’re for (well, that’s the case for me, at
any rate). He states the price as well, most of the time, which is also good.
As he says, it’s not a bazaar, it’s a proper shop with fixed and fair prices.
It takes quite a bit to start up a shop as
you have to buy all the stock first as well as rent the premises etc. Esmat
goes to Cairo once a week and says he is able to undercut the local big shop
competitor here in Hurghada (I’m not sure which shop that is and I didn’t ask him). He also
claims he is the first one to advertise online and have a physical shop and others are now copying him. It’s good to see him so ambitious and
succeeding.
Anyway, he advertised a shelving set that I
wanted. I’ve been looking for one for a while as I need to sort out one of my
cupboards that has no shelves and could be better organized if it did. However,
his shop is right at the other end of Hurghada and the taxi fare would cost
twice the amount of the shelving. After a bit of back and forth, Esmat agreed
to drop it off for 50LE next time he was sending a taxi to Sahl Hasheesh. I
agreed, but then managed to persuade Kathryn to take me there after the
woodburning workshop. She knows Esmat as well, of course. Everyone knows
everybody.
His mother was serving, so it was
delightful to meet her. The shop was packed full of stuff – waffle makers,
glasses, two-sided tape, shoe racks, cleaning cloths. I bought two of the
shelves and was delighted to find he stocked some solar lamps. My one disappeared
from my balcony some time ago and I quite miss it. It’s useful during power
cuts and also to have some light when it gets dark. This lamp had all the same
functions (including the option to charge items via USB) but was nicer looking
than my old one. Plus it doubles up as a torch. Perfect.
I also bought a fish sieve. It’s the shape
of a long fish with holes in it that you hold over a pan to drain it; it saves
getting the colander out. I never use the colander because it’s too much of a
faff and so I usually use the pan lid to drain. However, I have one pan without
a lid and then I use a strategically-placed knife, but this fish sieve should
be easier than my old methods without taking up the space of a colander. And it
was in the shape of a fish, of course, so what’s not to like!
Between us, Kathryn and I must have spent
coming on to 1000 LE (around 50 GBP), which would have been good takings over
here. So, it was a mutually beneficial transaction, with any luck.
He’s now opened a shoe shop just opposite
as well, but I haven’t visited that yet.
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