Saturday, June 22 We woke
Saturday, June 22
We woke up rested and refreshed, and - to our surprise - in plenty of time for the deadline to be out of our rooms. Basilitta and Amadtaed had resolved upon getting hair-cuts that morning, and I had resolved to buy people presents in the market. (’People’ naturally included me. I wanted some scarves, and prints - and all those things which i had gotten last time in Italy and treasured since.)
And so I spent the morning (and indeed, most of the afternoon, as it fell out) wandering around the city and shopping. I went into all the art-leather shops in the art-leather district, looking for a leather jacket for my brother. In some of them I was British, and once French, which tickled me. I felt vaguely bad about all this shopping and looking about and not buying, but it was easier there than in the market itself.
Because I had passed the Mercato Centrale and its environs early that morning, I had a chance to see it being set up, and watching the leather-vendors wheel out their racks of goods from the stores. I wonder what sort of arrangement they have with them?
I thought I was going to buy a skirt, (my pants were still split and still concealed by the touristiche tied shirt!) but instead I ended up buying:
a leather jacket
a pair of leather gloves
two long thin gauzy scarves, one sea-colored, one sunset-colored.
a mint granita
six prints
(Goodness, was that all? It felt like more!) Anyway, by the end of it, I was a bit weary of marketeering. I took my way back to the Internet Cafe with which I had become so familiar since I arrived, and there posted this.
On the street on the way there, (that is, the street by which I found my way since I recognized it) there was a gated-courtyard, in which a homeless man had been waking up in the morning we found our convent, and in the morning today. He was sitting there as I passed on the way to the internet cafe in the afternoon, his blanket folded and set away in a corner, and he sitting calmly on a stone bench reading a newspaper.
He seemed very dear to me.
Oooh, the tie in to the blog entry from that day is lovely.
October 12th, 2002 at 11:31 pm