more musings on the COMPLEAT GENT!

I took four retired Americans to the bazaar today. It was quite an experience. Me, being the respectful, lover of older people that I am, I gave them every opportunity to back out of this trip. It wasnt that I wasnt looking forward to the bazaar, its my favorite place in the city; its just that I wasnt sure how they would do. A typical bazaar day is bad enough, but Sundays provide an entire new set of challenges. It is the only day that local people dont work, so they ALL go shopping there on Sundays. It is also the day when the local vendors there restock; so the aisles (think more paths between looming metal racks) are crowded with carts and merchandise, with men behind them pushing their way through.
But these four troopers didnt back down. They had decided they were going to the bazaar, so we were going to go to the bazaar, even if it killed us. Well, the first few aisles we went down were fairly tame, my teammate was with me, so he took a younger guy and one of the older women, and I took two of the older people and another guy. We had a good system. Yell, loudly, if you wanted to stop at a stand; otherwise we were pressing on... just trying to make it to the other side. We had some success; I bought a hat and another lady bought one as well. I was maneuvering our way to the main road so that we could leave when the trouble came.
We turned down the main aisle, and all looked okay. It was crowded, but no more so than the other ones we had been down. So my teammate led the charge down the aisle. He was halfway through and we were just starting when the trouble began. This was a main aisle, so it was wider than the others. It was the one that they use for transporting carts full of merchandise from one place to another. It was made to hold maybe two carts plus foot traffic, but in a country where everything that is made is used in a way different than the original intention, it usually holds one extra cart.
Somewhere between our first steps down that aisle and the light at the end of the tunnel, we encountered pure chaos. I now understand the mob mentality. When one person panics, an entire crowd panics. Literally, in less than two minutes, we went from a crowded but manageable place to a place of shear panic and confusion. They were trying to force four carts down the aisle, plus the impatient crowd that had formed was also trying to force its way around the cards. There was just no room. So there I was, with three older people, two of which are women, trying to protect them from thieves, from incoming carts with sharp objects on them, from losing feet or toes to the wheels, and from getting trampled and hurt during this madness. It was crazy; and I'm not sure that I have ever been in a situation that was that out of control. The crowd was completely out of control, fights were breaking out, people were screaming, crying, yelling, pushing, falling... it was stinkin crazy. The entire thing probably lasted about 10 minutes, us finally pushing our way through the madness to finally get to the street. We all made it physically unscathed.
It was incredible though. I was certain that the day was over after this disaster, that there was no way we were going to be able to go anywhere. But was that the case, not at all. They were less affected by the whole thing than I was. So onward we went. Needless to say, we left the main bazaar, but none of their plans were going to be thwarted by our near death experience. It was cool... Paca