cotton sacks
cotton sacks, originally uploaded by anna bananna blog.
I was wandering to the tentmaker’s area in Old Cairo and passed a small shop with piles and piles of cotton sitting outside. I have been wanting to buy some for years, but for some reason have been too shy! I stopped this time and a rather serious young man appeared and seemed surprised that I wanted cotton.
‘How much do you want?’ he asked.
‘Um, about this much.’ I indicated with my hands. All sorts of confusion started. It turned out that cotton is purchased by the kilo. I opted for seven. No particular reason, it just seemed like a good number.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘Follow me.’ Off we went down an alley from an alley and the throngs of people disappeared.
Just long far enough away that I began to wonder if I had made a bit of a mistake, we stopped at a little store on a corner with hundreds of kilos of cotton.
I sat down:
And he weighed the cotton with some help:
Actually, he said they were weighing the cotton, but I’m not sure that is what was happening. I think they just took out about the right amount. He saw me taking pictures and showed me a painting of his grandfather, then indicated that I should take a picture of the painting, so here it is:
And now I have this:
in the sitting room and need to make things with it before Mr S gets fed up of it being here and threatens to throw it out!!
The trouble is, that the more pressurised I feel to make something, the more the dehydrated desert of indecision encroaches and zaaaaaaps those creative juices.
Aaah!
Something will appear here sometime soon though, I promise!
