In the tangled alleys of Khan al-Khalili, where gold glints beneath fluorescent lights and the scent of cardamom, oud, and old metal clings to the air, a man pulls his cart—slowly, steadily—through the din.
His name is Mahmoud. You won’t find it on any shop sign or guidebook. He is not a vendor, not a seller of spices or silver. He is the man who moves things: crates of brass lamps, boxes of alabaster, stacks of scarves, bundles of leather sandals wrapped in plastic. His hands are the wheels beneath the souq’s ancient machinery.
The cart is wooden, heavy, rimmed with iron and chipped from years of Cairo’s heat and friction. Its wheels rattle loudly over cobblestone, turning heads for a second before people slip back into the flow—tourists haggling in English, shopkeepers beckoning with practiced smiles, the call to prayer echoing faintly above the rooftops.
Mahmoud is middle-aged, though the lines on his face speak of harder years. He wears a loose galabeya rolled to his elbows, a towel slung over one shoulder, sweat glistening at his temples. His breath is deep but even. This is not new to him. This is survival.
“Balak! Balak!” — “Make way!” he calls out, his voice cutting through the crowd with practiced urgency.
Children step aside. Vendors nod in greeting. A few offer him tea from plastic cups, knowing he won’t stop—but he will smile. Just briefly. A half-curved mouth, a flicker of grace.
No one claps for him. No one takes pictures of him the way they do the lanterns or the whirling dervish scarves. But without Mahmoud and men like him, the market doesn’t move. The lights don’t hang. The shelves don’t fill. The treasures don’t find their way to curious hands.
He pulls the cart up a slight incline toward a spice shop where the owner is waiting. He doesn’t complain. Not about the sun, or the weight, or the tourists who bump past him without apology. He’s been doing this since he was seventeen—when his father gave him the cart and said, “The street teaches. Watch it well.”
And he has.
He knows the shortcuts behind the mosques. The times of day when the crowds thicken and thin. He can tell where a customer is from just by their shoes. He has watched fortunes made and stalls closed down. He has seen boys become men, and men fade into shadows.
But still he pulls.
Because the cart must move.
Because the work is his to carry.
Because dignity, in Cairo, is often found not in standing tall—but in walking forward, despite the weight.
As the sun begins to dip and the sky burns dusty orange over the minarets, Mahmoud wipes his brow, rests one foot on the wheel, and breathes deep—just for a moment.
Then he grips the handle again.
And he pulls.
Because the market does not wait.
And neither does he.