Attention must be paid when the Hakim al-Suq, the Market Judge, spoke. I first met Sudanese camel men at the Imbaba market when I went there on an assignment for school, to interview a man in the street- any man, anywhere- and then report to fellow American students about the real Cairo, as an exercise in colloquial Arabic and cultural communication. I returned to class with my head swimming about what I had seen, what I did not understand, and how it might be possible one day to ride with the drovers on the Darb al-Arba’een.
©David Melody