Our first stop was Ben Yoeseff School for boys and the associated museum. This is an example of how the boys that were lucky enough to be chosen to live a religious life lived and how they were schooled. 
The taxi driver warned us not to ‘hang around’ where he had to drop us.
“make straight for the school and do NOT stop!”

We are immediately approached by a well educated young man trying to get us to go to the “Tannery” and learn all about leather manufacture. Hmmm…
We tried to loose him by going into the school - but he hung around outside.
The school had small rooms for 2 students each and housed about 132 boys. It was a working school right up until 1956. There was a main courtyard decorated with mosaics and a reflecting pool.

Our friend was still hanging around outside.
We lost him again by going into the Museum.
The museum had only a few items including one large chandelier so couldn’t hide out too long. So like all brave tourists, we tried to sneak out a side doors – locked!
We tried to ignore him and give him the slip again but nope!
He caught us!

We know when we are beaten. We decided to go to the Tannery.
It was only 2 minutes away after all. Cathy had looked at the Lonely Planet Guide. The Tannery was a tourist area showing how the skins are made into leather.
Hmm.. o/k then.
We slouched along – he would wait for us. Damb!

Wow! That area was VERY poor – We are not sure that we should be there. We sneaked a look at our city map but it is confusing.
When we arrived we were given a bunch of mint to hold by our noses.
It was that bad?
There were many concrete pools where the skins were washed and men standing in disgusting water. There were also acid pools all around.  We noticed someone just ‘pulling disgusting looking hair’ away from the.
It’s just disgusting!
Although this man said we would NOT be shown a shop we now being ourselves being hustled to buy something in a shop! Then, when we left they demanded money for their efforts! REAL MONEY and REAL DEMANDING!

We paid up. It was only a few Euros but we were just pleased to see the back of them. After paying up we were loosely told how to get back to the main square – but not before we had paid up!
I dunno. We were pleased to have seen this place, maybe? The experience was NOT nice. It cost us! None of us will ever look at any piece of leather ever again without that awful smell reawakening!  Ugh!

Within 5 minutes we were COMPLETELY lost again. Then a nice young lad offered to show us the way out.
Another hustle!
We gave him a tip but he wanted 100x more! He even pointed out the local ATM we should be using to pay him! He turned out to be NOT such a nice young man.

Safe! We got back to the hotel!

We had an evening dinner show planned.