A Broad Abroad
One Women’s Journey
By Mandy Rowe
BOOK EXCERPT
Bizarre Bazaars
Riyadh was a city with more than its fair share of markets, shops, souqs and malls,
but the expat community – especially the women – had an insatiable urge for
more shopping. Markets and bazaars popped up at regular intervals in the rec
centres of some of the larger compounds, with customers arriving by the busload
and shopping as if a war was imminent and they needed to stockpile.
The largest bazaar was held on the first Monday of each month at Kingdom
Compound. On the dot of 9.45 the doors would open and a flock of shopaholic
women would flood in and race to their favourite stalls. The poor stall-holders,
generally the more entrepreneurial expats or the enterprising Indians and
Pakistanis, would stand by their wares and brace themselves for the onslaught.
Their tables groaned under the weight of tonnes of merchandise – jewellery,
pashmina scarves, carpets, trinkets, Indian clothing, Turkish cushions, Saudi
diamonds and more perfumes than in a Thai brothel. Business was brisk. No:
business was manic.
I visited the bazaars more out of a need to alleviate my boredom than an objective
need to shop, but I had never considered them as an outlet for my work until I had
the book published. Perhaps a little optimistically, I had ordered an initial print run of
2000: now I had to move them. I was lucky enough to coerce the Jarir bookstore into
taking a consignment of 500, which left me with 1500 copies to flog – and that was
going to be a tough ask. Setting up a stall and acting like an Indian merchant seemed
like an obvious option. So I got on the bazaar circuit roundabout.
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