In Siwa there is a pretty direct relationship between the open marketplace in the middle of town, and the handful of little cafes, which open on to it. What I order at a café will come from the market that surrounds us.
There are handmade cane crates of live pigeons and chickens, which appear daily in the big market square, surrounding the small flocks of goats and sheep. Piles of Nile Valley and local produce await buyers. Even now in early spring knobbly purple-red tomatoes cascade from tables next to giant cauliflowers, leeks which would grace any Welsh garden show and oranges with a dusty bloom sit side by side. There are a few little stalls and shops specializing in some of the local produce – gorgeous dates- claimed as the best in North Africa, home cured olives from local groves, the pickled vegetables so popular everywhere in Egypt, and locally bottled olive oil too. Bags of dried hibiscus blossom called karkade are ready for brewing as a hot or cold tea.
One of the great pleasures of Siwa has been taking part in the lively cafe scene, and watching this marketplace with one eye while keeping the other on activity within the cafes themselves. This market place is really a little bit of Siwa turned inside out. Most of the cafes were apparently put up a few years back when the scheduled coaches from Alexandria and Mersa Matrouh began to bring a regular stream of backpacking travelers and tourists into Siwa. Local hotels were pretty modest in their amenities then, and some entrepreneurial Siwans developed the cafes to cater to these new visitors.
The little cafes are mostly open-air affairs, some palm thatching or a roof to provide some shade and shelter, and maybe a low wall out at the front, but most cafes are extensions on to the front of buildings facing the street. Each has its charms, decoratively or in the menu. The East – West for example offers painted murals of Siwan attractions, a menu which includes Siwan delicacies as well as Italian, Indian and Algerian foods and possibly the world’s best banana lassi. The Alexander is distinguished by the visitor’s book the owner keeps, where he encourages diners to add a favourite recipe to his collection. One has a sort of tandoor oven and savoury kebabs being cooked on the street in front attracting passersby with wonderful smells, Abdou’s has a lively collection of resident cats, brilliant fresh lemonade and ongoing games of risk, chess or backgammon in the middle of the cafe.
Every cafe has its knot of Siwan and Bedouin men intent in discussion over tea. And then there is the “cafe which is not a cafe” as someone described it. A small shop front where a formal arrangement of chairs and tables kept occupied with local meetings. The teapot here is serviced from an adjacent café.
The young men who run most of the cafes keep tea and coffee on the go from early morning ’til as late at night as there are interested customers. The whole experience is fantastically sociable. But the social life involved really cuts several ways. There are the foreign travelers relaxing, writing up journals, and comparing experiences with one another. I overhear some great discussions, like backpackers arguing over where they’ve had the most authentic experiences! Oil company workers are comparing the charms of various oasis communities and desert hot springs they have soaked in and talking geology in guarded tones. Then there are the solitary travelers and writers, who often seem to stay for extended periods of time, and talk mostly to Siwans while studiously avoiding those they see as mere tourists. An American woman collecting Berber vocabulary as a hobby, an English woman who has just finished extended communing with the desert, a Mexican journalist writing about his travels, an Alexandrian businessman who loves Siwa, a scriptwriter working on a screenplay. There are our anthropology students, soaking it all in and amazed to find how little time most visitors are spending in this town they have come to love!
Meals at a Siwan cafe are a leisurely affair, and we have already learned to divide up into small groups so as not to overwhelm the kitchen, to arrive about an hour before we intend to eat, to put our orders in, to relax, have glasses of tea, chat, meet new people, greet acquaintances and to take things as they come on Siwan time. To listen to the call to prayer, watch the sun set over Shali, shelter from the sandstorms, play with the cats, watch the marketplace and let the cooks do the shopping, make things from scratch, pluck chickens, and whatever else needs to be done.
Siwa is continually changing of course, with 40% of the local economy already based on tourism, Siwans are considering what facilities would encourage more people to stay a little longer, and how to attract tourists who are accustomed to a more cushioned traveling experience. Already there are attractive hotel dining rooms at several places, and a new hotel due to open will include a more elaborate rooftop restaurant. At the moment though one of the great charms of Siwa is the friendly interaction with local people and the window on life of the little cafes. Long may they flourish!
-Teri Brewer
March 1998