CAIRO: The flat across the dusty alley from Ahmed Naguib Ahmed’s appliqué workshop is a makeshift warehouse filled with unsold work from craftsmen throughout the neighborhood of Al-Khayamiyya Street, “Tent Maker’s Alley, beyond Bab Zuweila.
The walk-up’s largest room is filled with massive rolls of tent and textile fabric that are the namesake of this market, south of the tourist buzz of Khan al-Khalili, below the last remaining southern gate of medieval Cairo.
Shelves hanging over the small available floor space are piled with handmade appliqué work in Lotus, Rumi, and Islamic designs of various sizes, from wall hangings to pillowcases.
The work in this flat is enough to open two shops, Ahmed said, whose father taught him appliqué work 50 years ago like many of the 40 or so “tent-makers still trying to make a living from the fading craft.
“Some pieces take as long as ten days to make. But they sit here in the flat because there are no customers.
As the craftsmen of Tent Maker’s Alley tell it, the past near-decade has been one of annual decline in business as tourists have gravitated to Khan al-Khalili, always packed with tour buses. While global events have limited foreigners’ interest, or ease, in buying from this more local market south of Al-Azhar, long known for its handmade textiles.
“Every year brings less and less business, Ahmed’s nephew Ayman Molokhya said sitting in his shop, just beyond the covered section of Tent Maker’s Alley. “Before, in the 90s, our best customers were Americans. Now it s the opposite.
“The foreigners now are not like they were before, when they would ask any Egyptian in the street, ‘Can you help me find this, I want to buy that,’ Molokhya said.
“Now I think they are scared a little. Now, it s only ‘la shukran’ or ‘leave me alone.’
And yet for Molokhya and his friend Mohammed, who sells carpets in a nearby shop, this shift has been belied by the interest of a smaller group of Khayamiyya enthusiasts, among them the Australian Ambassador, Robert Bowker, and his wife, Jenny, both avid visitors to Tent Maker’s Alley.
Jenny Bowker, a quilt maker and teacher of patchwork, arranged for Molokhya and Ahmed to exhibit their work in Australia in February at the Australian Quilting Convention in Melbourne.
“I had been invited to teach a class on Egyptian textiles, so I asked if they had space for a small exhibit, Bowker said over the telephone. “It’s the biggest quilt convention in the Southern Hemisphere, and to my surprise they gave us 45 meters of exhibition space.
“What enchants me [in Tent Maker’s Alley] is not just the work but the making of it, Bowker said, “using only thread, scissors the size of your head and these long swathes of fabric.
With the sponsorship of an Australian gold mining company based in Egypt, Bowker arranged for Molokhya and Ahmed’s airfare from Cairo to Sydney, with four days at the convention and ten days in total in the country.
“I found there [in Australia] something incredible, Molokhya recalled in his shop. While he sold the work, his uncle attracted crowds for hours as he demonstrated how appliqué was made.
“We brought 173 pieces, Molokhya said. “We sold out in two hours. I started hanging pieces in our exhibition space and the first one people saw, they would say I want that one. I d finish hanging one and immediately someone would want to buy it.
They sold their work for twice the price they do in Egypt, Molokhya said, “and still people were telling me, you need to charge more.’
While Tent Maker’s Alley retains a more local feel than Khan al-Khalili, much of the material is still marketed to foreigners, whether because of its price or because of Bowker’s explanation that “Egyptians don t want the [appliqué work] in their house because it has a link to funerals.
The problem is a decline in demand for the intricate, more expensive pieces among a clientele of foreigners and tourists shrinking in numbers and interest, drawn instead to the crush of Khan al-Khalili.
“If you stay here all day, maybe you will see eight foreigners, but they re only passing through, Molokhya said.
“If I work, work and work but don t sell, what do I do? Mohammed said outside his shop hung with carpets that he designs, but that are made outside Cairo. “There was good business in the time of Clinton, and before the first Gulf War. But after 9/11, so many Americans and other foreigners left.
As Molokhya and Mohammed complained of business staying north of Al-Azhar, they also cited recent side effects of brusque tour groups.
“One tourist came through and asked me ‘What is la shukran?’ Molokhya said. “‘My guide told me to say la shukran [no, thank you], but I don t know what it means.’
Mohammed then pulled out the receipt of an airplane ticket. He is set to travel with Bowker to France in September for the 13th European Patchwork Meeting in Saint Maire Aux Mine, one of Europe’s largest patchwork exhibitions.
Bowker arranged the trip for Mohammed much the same way as she arranged for Ahmed and Molokhya to go to Australia to sell their work.
