Sunday, November 30, 2008

Narmer American College - Christmas Bazaar

Narmer American College is situated in New Cairo. They had advertised their Christmas Bazaar quite heavily, so we thought it may be worth our while to drive all the way across town to check it out.

Big Mistake! We should have realized that, when they charged us Entry fee of 30LE each. (most Xmas bazaars charge 10LE and the few really good ones charge 20LE) My husband who has insider insight, mentioned that if the gate priceis too high, then it means they can't make money off of you on the inside.

There were a lot of stalls, but 90% of them were focused on kids toys and accessories. The only good stall around was The Bookspot run by 2 lovely ladies, but I normally pick up books from their store on Road 9 in Maadi and prefer to browse the wider collection that they have in store.

What was really irritating was that the snow and streamer cans were being sold for about 5LE and badly behaved brats from ages 6 to 14 were running riotously around the place spraying the snow all over the silk and pashmina items in stalls, the books, the food stalls and the live animals stall! Terrible behavior by the kids and complete lack of interest and control and respect for other peoples property by their parents! It was disgraceful!
The better behaved younger kids were occupied with the bouncy castle and slides and the wide open playgrounds while the older ones assaulted our ears with some off key and off beat blaring karaoke!

The senior class boys who were manning the bake stall were much better behaved, compared to the rest of the lot.
Not at all a bazaar I would recommend to anyone unless you had no time to visit toy shops to pick up Chritmas gifts. If the European Embassies Bazaar was a 7.5, this one was a 1.5

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kim, I have to say that your review was inaccurate; ANYONE going to a bazaar would be expecting christmas gifts, and since the bazaar was in a school,toys would definitely be there. There was also Jewelry, home accessories, silverwear..Etc...
Now, I went to that bazaar, and though I am a teen, I still really enjoyed myself. Running around with snow spray chasing kids couldn't have possibly annoyed anyone; we never TOUCHED the crowd. The school is really big, with lots of space that enabled us to run around, and not cause any inconvenience for anyone around. Kim, I am appauled at your use of the words: "Brats and Disgraceful". Reviews must include polite language, so in other words, plesase respect common courtesy.
Karaoke. Karaoke IS a bunch of amateurs, who enjoy singing, they aren't supposed to be proffesionals.
Now, the thirty L.E was mainly because the bazaar was mainly benificiated by the Breast Cancer Foundation of Egypt. That was VERY clearly printed on the ticket, it was a FUNDRAISER, for the Breat Cancer Foundation of Egypt,printed on all the ADVERTISEMENTS you mentioned earlier...Did that explain the thirty L.E?
Overall, it was a fund raiser, as was the previous one, and it was fun. Hooray Narmer American College, keep organizing these bazaars!

Kim said...

Adam, just because you disagree with my review doesn't mean it is inaccurate.

I have no issues with toys being sold at a bazaar. I make the point so that people who aren't interested in Childrens toys know that there isnt much else worth traveling the distance for.

While you (and your friends) may have kept your snow spraying activities away from the crowd, not all the kids did so. Ask the stall owners who had snow sprayed on their merchandise. ask the people who were sitting there to grab a bite and got snow sprayed on their food.

Brats and disgraceful is polite language, Adam. If I wanted to be impolite, there are a lot of other words that I could have used in multiple languages. Being polite does not mean praising or glossing over incorrect behavior.

There were some better behaved kids like the seniors managing the bake stall whom I have acknowledged.

Karaoke can be sung by anyone, yes that is the point of karaoke. But when someone really terrible is performing, the people managing the sound system needs to exercise judicial control over the volume knob. That is what happens at most karaoke performances which are "well" managed.

Almost every bazaar held over the Christmas season was a fund raiser for something or the other.

It is the discretion of the management to decide what they are going to charge for an event.

As a paying customer, I felt the price was too high for this particular event. The Maadi Womens Guild Bazaar also charged 30Le entry. But for the quality of that bazaar, I would even pay 50LE entry. For this one, I will not attend again, even if I am offered free entry.

This is my opinion, and this is my blog where I am free to express my own opinion.

I do believe you have a right to express your own opinion (even if I do nto agree with your opinion), hence I haven't deleted your comment or ignored it, but given you an answer to every point that you raised.

If you only want favourable reviews of your school bazaar, you may want to consider advertorials in the many magazines available in Egypt.

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