THE MERCHANT SCENE                                                                                      We were told that many of the sidewalk vendors pushing their lunchtime delicacies, fruit, pastries, yogurt drinks and other specialties make more than a good living here, taking home the equivalent of over six figures in US dollars. True or not, the amount of business being conducted in the streets and narrow lanes that crisscross the area is amazing. Even with this high degree of chaos, noise and traffic, a strong “sense of neighborhood” is evident, with apartments and even upscale homes intermixed among the commercial buildings, men attending a second-floor mosque, young children playing on rooftops, and laundry visibly drying on lines strung on the upper decks.