Syria by Itab Azzam & Dina Mousawi

Author:Itab Azzam & Dina Mousawi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Israa’

Israa’ is a feisty girl of twenty-four from Yarmouk, the Palestinian camp-turned-buzzing Damascus suburb, which was starved into submission by the government in 2014.

Israa’ comes from a conservative family but in her heart she is ‘free as a butterfly and as ambitious as Hillary Clinton’. When we first met her, she took us by surprise with her impressive ability to express herself and her joie de vivre that turns every situation into a party. She loves make-up and fashion, and has written about both online.

When Israa’ turned up in a neon green outfit at rehearsals for our theatre project, the whole place was blown away. She is always in full make-up, has perfectly manicured nails and wears high heels. She was wearing four-inch heels when she was forced to flee Syria – she walked in them for hours and hours on her way out of Yarmouk towards the Lebanese border. Israa’ still keeps those shoes but has never worn them since. ‘They hurt too much,’ she said, ‘psychologically as well as physically.’

But she’s not the dainty food-avoider you’d imagine from her svelte, chic appearance. For Israa’, food is a religion. Driving through Beirut in a taxi, she kept pointing at billboards saying, ‘I wonder how you make that?’, or ‘Yum, that looks delicious’.

We got to talking about food stories from Yarmouk and, as she rifled through her memory bank, she suddenly beamed the broadest smile: ‘Pink fresh cakes!’ she exclaimed. ‘Fresh cakes’ are sinfully calorific, chemically coloured small cakes. Little boys wake up early on a weekend morning and run to the bakery, where they pile huge trays with scores of little square cakes and disperse throughout the alleys of Yarmouk yelling to the residents to come and get ’em. Waking slowly to the shouts of the kids below in the street, followed swiftly by that early morning fresh-baked smell, the first cigarette, the tea brewing on the stove, Israa’s sister would emerge bleary-eyed to join her… Rituals like these live long in the memory.

Israa’ couldn’t tell us how to actually make ‘fresh cakes’ as she doesn’t have all the right chemical colours and flavourings, but she and her mother cooked us something that we think is way more delicious – one of the most traditional Palestinian dishes, Msakhan, accompanied by Mendi, rice with a twist of smokiness.

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