Business Matters
Trip Start
May 09, 2005
1
25
53
Trip End
Aug 01, 2005
Dahab,
Egypt
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
I think the way in which Mandy has handled the start up of her business is similar to how any of us 'westerners' would do it. She has a budget, detailed floor plans, accounting logs, inventory numbers, etc. All of this apparently has been completely unheard of in these parts. Businesses here are still run very much on the honor system and there isn't all too much planning that goes into it. Still, each shopkeeper keeps his accounting log of how much money others in the community owe him. I often see the vegetable man or the Bedouin fishermen come along with their little notebook and collect money that is due him. In speaking with one of the lawyers here in Dahab, he explained that the bulk of his criminal caseload was to hunt down people who weren't paying on their accounts.
In any case, it's been very interesting to see Mandy's organized business approach clashing with her husband's haphazard approach that is often blurred by his adorable excitement at the opening of the business. The two returned from their one week shopping trip up north of Cairo, in the Delta region which is also the textile capitol of the country. I excitedly asked if they had come up with a name yet. They were going for something short and to the point and that would relate to locals and tourists alike. She said that Ahmed was dying to have the name "toz." But the problem was that she had no idea what it meant. So I began surveying the various english-speaking Egyptians that I know and I received mixed reactions. Literally, toz means "whatever." BUT, in some cases, it can be used in a stronger manner such as "f--k off." Mandy was livid of course and feared alienating a portion of the local community from being potential customers. Again, a clash in which her business sense butted heads with Ahmed's fun spirit surrounding the whole matter.
So a fight ensued and once everyone was calm, I was enlisted to help come up with names. Mandy quite liked "meya meya" which means like really good or 100% and is a term that everyone hears around here all of the time. As a joke I threw out Tora Bora (Bin Laden's hangout in the mountains) and Mandy liked that one as well. At one point, the name was officially changed to meya meya and it seemed everything was settled. Then, at 2am while hanging out at Tota Bar, Ahmed pleaded with me to help come up with names....so again I sat down and just threw out about 10 ideas. One of them was "Fuego" which means fire in Spanish. Well, Ahmed had no idea what it meant but he loved it.
I learned yesterday that the name is indeed to be Fuego at Ahmed's insistence. Mandy is not too happy with me, but is just happy to have her husband happy, go I guess that makes me happy. I never thought he'd actually choose that name...but there you go. So even after I leave Dahab, I shall be remembered through the clothing shop called Fuego!
The other thing Egyptians don't seem to know much about is interior decorating, especially paint. I watched as the painter attempted to mix the color "beige" and constantly added water to dilute it into what turned out being soupy mustard yellow. So Mandy and I set about to mixing the paint properly and came damn close to having beige. Then we had to teach them about taping! Mandy wanted a gold border along the top of the wall near the ceiling and we left thinking things would go okay. Well, we returned to see that the taping wasn't done right and they had tried to use gold spray paint to do the border...without any taping to guide them. What happened was gold paint mist sprayed everywhere and it just looked like shit. Then Ahmed decided that the mustard yellow soup pain must be used somewhere, so he had the painter use it on the outside of the shop! This, of course, to the chagrin of surrounding business owners who I think quite enjoyed the uniformity of the bright white washed walls outside of their shops.
Anyways, it's been great fun watching the birth of a new Dahab business...the Egyptian way. I'm not saying either way is "right", but it's still interesting to see how the start up of a business is treated in other parts of the world!
