JEDDAH, 24 February 2004 — All over Jeddah at traffic lights and roundabouts, groups of people sell anything from water to caged parrots and power tools to motorists. Arab News took to the streets of Jeddah to get an idea what is involved in the trade. After investing SR13 in a carton of 24 small water bottles, I dressed in Pakistani clothing and spent three hours selling water at various intersections on King Fahd (Sitteen) Street.
The first was the Bicycle roundabout. At 3 p.m., there was an elderly Pakistani man with a long white beard and a shaven head. He spotted me selling water at the intersection and approached, speaking rapid Urdu and motioning me away to the other side of the roundabout. All attempts to communicate with him were met with a raised voice and angry gestures. At the same intersection was a 10-year-old Somali girl who spoke some Arabic. She was going car to car begging for money, exposing her damaged right arm. I watched her from a distance as she pulled in an average of at least SR2 each time the light changed, doing considerably better than the elderly man selling the water.
Further down the road at the intersection of Sitteen Street and Tahlia Street were three Bangladeshis. They also proved to be territorial. They said a few aggressive-sounding words in Bengali; their hands raised with three fingers extended indicated to me that they did not want a fourth person encroaching on their patch. However, as a police car arrived, the three disappeared. I walked up and down the row of cars at the intersection offering water to motorists, passing the police car several times, unchallenged by the officers inside. As the light turned green and the police car headed west down Tahlia Street, the three Bangladeshis returned.
At an intersection between Tahlia and Palestine streets were three Yemeni water sellers. Within an hour, unchallenged by the Yemenis already there, I managed to sell eight water bottles. After an hour of encroaching on their patch, I approached one of them, Mohammed Assawi, 37.
Assawi had performed Haj two years ago and stayed in Jeddah. “I usually stand here from noon until 6 p.m.,” he said.
“I manage to sell seven to 10 bottles of water an hour. I don’t like this because it’s risky and not very profitable. I saw one man selling water get knocked down by a car here a few months ago. Fortunately he wasn’t killed, but he was taken to the hospital. I never saw him again. Maybe he was deported. Most of the time I try to find other work, but when I can’t I turn to this,” he added. Assawi has no plans to go home to Yemen any time soon.
While Arab News was at the intersection, a policeman on a motorcycle stopped and set up an impromptu checkpoint. The Yemenis seemed unfazed by his presence and continued selling the water. “Because we are Arabs, I think the police leave us alone. They tend to target the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis,” Assawi said.
Arab News approached the traffic policeman and offered him a bottle of water. He said he didn’t want it. When told it was ice-cold and free for him, he took it and offered me a riyal. I happily took it and turned over the proceeds of the hour to Assawi with an apology for encroaching on his territory. He refused to take it saying,
“What Allah provides for me here is what is rightfully mine. I cannot take away the money that you made. There is enough money to be made here for everyone.”
