ascent

and that my friend, is how you drink the jabana in kassala

an incense burner, a bowl of sugar, a thimble sized coffee cup, a clay coffee pot filled with ginger spiced coffee (jabana), on a plastic stool, on a crazy angle, beautiful granite mountains as the backdrop and a fucking plate of popcorn.

that’s all. 

so did anything happen here during the revolution?

no, not really. i got drunk the night before and was still drunk in the morning when my friends woke me to tell me the news. that mubarak had stood down.

what did you do?

i ran out into the main square screaming obscenities against the government, but everyone told me to go back inside. 

and?

that was it. except that night, a crowd gathered outside one man’s house and they demolished the front of the house.

the front of his house?

the council had wanted to widen a particular road for a very long time, and all the other houses had agreed, so everyone had demolished the front of their own homes. except one man, he wouldn’t agree. 

that night everyone came and demolished the front of the house for him. and now the road is wider. 

that’s what happened here during the revolution.

–

see this, this demolished room? this room we are sitting in?

yes.

the muslims came at night and destroyed it, during the night of the revolution.

why did they destroy it?

they destroyed it because i am the only christian man in this town, and they want me and my family to leave. they thought i wanted to build a church, but i don’t. they thought that they could scare me.

are you scared?

only from god. they don’t scare me, and i won’t leave.

and now, what will you do?

now? 

now.

now, i sell cigarettes from this room.

this demolished room.

tally up

the most badass filter coffee system i’ve ever seen

between the three of them, the baristas operating this beast have more than ninety years experience - at the same cafe. the cashier, operating on another level of speed, explained that he serves more than four thousand customers on a normal evening during ramadan.

hat tip to chedli, faisal, riade, mohammed and cafe tak-tak. and i can’t believe this is my first coffee post. i deeply apologise.

dinner doodles

we went for dinner at this delicious syrian restaurant in rabat and ended up having a doodle competition. i did not win.