In the evening, we walked down to San Stefano in search of a card for a new born baby of one of our staff. Cards are very difficult to find. We searched all throughout the mall and there are no card shops or card displays in any of the stores. Previously we had found some cards in one of the little shops in the neighborhood but those are kind of general cards and are packaged in such a way that you can’t tell what is on the inside. We picked up a couple thinking they were greeting cards and they were actually Christmas cards.
Pat did find a nice outfit and we are going back Saturday to purchase it. A majority of the clerks and sales personnel in stores are male – even in women’s clothing stores. They will have a few women in the stores to help out near the dressing rooms but we found it interesting that most of the workers are men. In the states, many of the mall workers are young people (high school and college age). Here you find few if any young people working in retail – some will be in the food court but again many of the workers in these areas are older as well. Service is so important here and clerks are very courteous to customers when they shop.
We picked up a few items in Metro (the large supermarket in the mall). This store would easily rival HY-Vee or any major grocery chain in the Midwest. It is very clean, with a great selection and large spacious isles. They have a large staff that tries to make the shopping experience very pleasant. All of the employees are male – they will have two people at each checkout – one to guide you to the register and bag and of course the cashier. All of the cashiers are seated at the registers and the counters and register are lower than in the states. American items are usually more expensive (especially food items). We picked up a couple of candy bars (Cadbury) which is very popular here. By price comparison a Nestlé’s Crunch is 10 LE ($1.70) while the same size Cadbury is 3 LE ($0.52). A can of soda (Pepsi, 7 UP, etc) is 1.6 LE ($0.28).
We are posting a picture of a papyrus drawing we purchased a couple of weeks ago in Cairo. One of the workers here has a person who frames paintings and drawings for the staff. We now have this hanging in the hallway as you walk into our apartment.
