El Messelemiya Higher Secondary School for Boys: # 4

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Supplies and cooks

The women in the kitchen work miracles, and I suspect very hard, using the most basic utensils on charcoal stoves on which to prepare the many dishes that swill suddenly appear from a kitchen that would make anything but a boiled egg a problem for the average London chef used only to the most modern stoves and food mixers.

Whilst staying at the home of a friend recently, his elder sister brought out a silver tray upon which were all manner of dishes that would not have disgraced the table of any restaurant anywhere. There was variety, flavour and colour in plenty, and all cooked in the most austere kitchen imaginable.

The individual ingredients of those meals are sold from upturned dustbin lids or something that looks very like them. The suq (market) seems to have every herb and spice known to man piled on these aluminium discs and the women buy their weekly supplies, carrying them in the folds of their clothes in lieu of baskets.

The suq in El Messelemiya is a hive of activity, and sheep, cattle and goats are sold in front of thronged stalls where the piles of multi-coloured mis-shapes; the ripe mangoes and giant water melons are bought and sold in a furore of noise, dust and friendly chatter.

Barter seems to be the order of the day here, although to date, I have had little success, probably because of my being looked on as the ‘howaja’ (European/white man) with plenty of money to spare; that and my poor Arabic seem the best explanation for my failure.

Robert L. Fielding