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Juergen Stryjak
Wekalat Al-Balah
There is no window-shopping in Cairo without passing by
all kinds of spacious displayed fabrics. Whether you walk
through shopping malls, the streets downtown or across
markets, the colorful materials, rich of ornaments and
weaves, leap to your eyes everywhere, and you probably
will regret, if you have no current need and no extra
luggage space for a new cover for that whole upholstered
corner unit at home. Yet, it needs only a little
imagination to find a place where one could use such a
nice, woven souvenir. Your old chair at the veranda, for
example, or your mother-in-law’s bathroom window.
I am not a fabric specialist and therefore cannot
fairly judge the quality or the selection here in town,
but I know that nowhere in the world, except in Cairo, do
I get sudden fits of craving to buy some of these
bewitching and lively examples of woven art. That
certainly speaks for the supply.
 One of
the best and most entertaining places to buy fabric in
Cairo is the Wekalat Al-Balah, a whole neighborhood
dedicated to that stuff – and to spare parts, car
covers, all sorts of new and second hand clothes and
plenty of other goods. Motorbike and power saw chains, for
example. I know tourists normally aren’t very keen on
such things, but a complete alley only for motorbike
chains – that looks very impressive.
A large selection of fabrics, curtains, lace panels is
sold at the Wekalat Al-Balah in numerous little
cubbyholes, outside in the alleys by street vendors and in
large, palace-like shops, often two or three stories high,
supported by beautiful white pillars soaring skyward, a
breath-taking revolt from tasteless clutter.
The Wekalat Al-Balah follows the eternal free market
mechanism. The existence of dozen of similar shops
guarantees low prices. Low prices draw lots of customers,
especially here on Fridays, and lots of customers
guarantee a decent profit, despite of the low prices. At
the end, everybody is happy. In the Wekalat Al-Balah you
can get fabrics for the half of what you have to pay in
single, lonely shops at other places. Heavy furniture
fabric starts at LE 20 ($ 5.50) per meter. Don’t forget
to bargain.
Other shops offer bed linen, garden furniture fabric,
unbelievably inexpensive towels in glowing colors, which
certainly will loose their color after the twentieth wash,
and clothing of all kinds. Seriously, how could you resist
a t-shirt with the imprint »GRLS & FLWRS«, missing
the vowels, obviously because Arabic language, similar to
Hebrew, consists of mostly consonants? How about a yellow
Egyptian workingman’s boiler suit, which certainly
nobody else wears in your techno discotheque at home? Our
son, two and a half years old, is a car maniac. So, we
were very happy to present him after our last visit in the
Wekalat Al-Balah a t-shirt with the picture of a cement
mixer truck.
Wekalat Al-Balah. A market just north of the 15th
May Bridge, where the 26th July Street is
crossing the Nile, 400 meters (1,300 feet) south of the
World Trade Center. Best shopping times: afternoon and
early evening, Sunday closed. Another area with fabric
shops: at the corner 26th July Street/Gomhorriyya
Street, near to the Ezbekiyya Garden, Downtown, Metro
station Al-Ataba. Shops for high-end fabrics to fall in
love with: World Trade Center (Corniche Al-Nil, next to
the Conrad International Hotel) and First Mall (35, Giza
Street, Giza
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