Damascus ‘Food Truck’
Damascus, Syria 2010
These food carts were a common sight in Damascus. Some sold corn on the cob. This man sells soup. His rather forbidding expression plus the pace of our little Kurdish guide kept me from going over to investigate. Almost every restaurant has lentil soup as a starter, so I’m thinking this is a cauldron of boiling lentil soup.
For a few pennies, he fills one of those small china cups with hot soup and you’ve got a delicious, healthy lunch on the run.
This street is actually part of the Hamadiya souk. It’s a street of small manufacturing shops. Sometimes I’d look in and there’d be a lone man crouched in front of some kind of machine stamping out metal pieces.
“Hotel California”
These men fashioned aluminum pots. The ‘factory’ was housed in one of the old buildings; most likely it was hundreds of years old . The room was dark and dirty with one fluorescent light that hung from a wire draped along the ceiling. We blundered down the stone steps, blinking in the darkness. We were welcomed by this young man. He began to sing “Hotel California” when he heard our American accents.
Damascus Girl
A beautiful young woman smiles as I point the camera at her. A man was driving the car. It could have been her boyfriend or her brother. He did not object to the photograph. For a Muslim country this is a modern outlook. And she is pleased. Me, too.
I wonder as I look at these photos. Are these people all right? Do they still have a home? What has happened to them during these past 2 1/2 years? I hope the Syrians can settle their problems and return to a happier time.