My guys

Josh and I went on a shopping spree today. He leaves for Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning and there were a few things we needed to buy at the souk before he left.

The key to good souk shopping is to have “a guy.” Everyone has a guy for pashminas, a guy for silver jewelry, a guy for carpets, etc. If you go to the same person over and over again he gives you the “friend and family” price. If you don’t have a guy for a particular thing, the way to get the best price is to go with a friend to visit their guy.

So today was a day where several of us got together to show each other “our guys.” First we went to visit our dishdasha guy. We needed a little boy dishdasha and a friend needed one for her son. While we were there we found that the shop also carried traditional Omani dress for little girls. We needed 2 outfits and then picked one up for Camille as well. When it came time to pay we were quoted a higher price (because our guy wasn’t in the shop) so were about to explain that we weren’t cruise ship people, that we actually live here . . . but then our guy walked in, recognized us, and gave us the reduced price.

From there we wove our way through some back passages of the souk to visit a friend’s abaya tailor. Not only is it better to go with a friend to get the better price, but it’s almost impossible to give directions to these little shops: “Turn left down the alley where the cats are fighting over a fish head, go past the 1001 guys waving incense at you, right before the corridor gets really narrow turn right and you’ll find yourself in the abaya tailoring section. It’s the 8th shop on the right with 3 abayas hanging from the doorway, ask for Mohammed . . .  never mind, I’ll just take you there myself.”

I wasn’t going to get an abaya, but since we’re going to be living in Bahrain I’m sure we’ll be visiting Saudi. Saudi law requires all women to wear an abaya so I figured I should get one now while I have an abaya connection. I looked all around and found the style I liked and the pattern I liked. I figured if I was getting one, I was getting a glammed up one like the Omani women. No plain black Saudi ones for me.

You pick the style, embroidery, rhinestones, and color. Everything can be changed. I liked this one, but it had too much yellow and I wasn’t sure about the big flower right on the boob. 

I ended up ordering one similar to this since it was Josh’s pick and he’s way better at this stuff than I am.  I love the colors of this one so I kept that the same. The only real change I made was to give it a small v-neck with a short zipper in the back instead of a high collar.

The “special price” for this custom made abaya and hijab is approximately $100. If I had less handwork it would be less expensive. While we were in the shop we watched one of the guys applying the rhinestones to the fabric one by one. Tedious.

From there we made our way to a silver/souvenir shop (picked up a pair of silver earrings) and finally to the guy who sells camel bags. Josh has been wanting one of these huge old handmade bags that the Bedouins used to haul their stuff around via camel. They are heavy wool bags with leather seams, handles, and straps. On previous visits the lowest price we could get was 130 OR for the largest bag, but on this trip, because Christie knew the guy, he gave us the “special price” of 100 OR. We snapped it up.   

Our Omani girl sitting on the camel bag

We had the camel bag filled and it makes a great seat/ottoman. We were considering using it to store all of our unused winter clothes, but we don’t have many of those left! 

By that point in our shopping trip we had exhausted all of our funds so we headed home loaded down with our purchases and a whole bunch of new “guys.”