We managed a walk up the hill once again to the local souq and found Dania's favorite foul restaurant. If you've never had fava beans, this is the ONLY way to try them, foul (pronounced "fool") madamas. It's an Egyptian dish that Arabs eat at breakfast time and that can last a human being ALL day long! It's normally a combo of warmed fava beans, onions, garlic, lemon juice , olive oil, parley and tomatoes served sort of like a soupy stew in a bowl with Arabic bread.
So, the "restaurant" we walked into consisted of 3 tables, maybe 5 chairs, and the kitchen to one side. It looked like a family operation with the father putting everything together, the older son directing the younger son with the cleaning and serving. Dania has been in this fine establishment many times, so she's kind of a regular. But, you'd never know it by the recalcitrant chef who sort of mumbled in asking if we wanted just foul or the heavier version whose name I cannot remember. Of course, he apparently also asked if we wanted tea to which Dania nodded yes and whispered to me that we were getting extra special service! The food arrived, along with a plate of pickles and two loaves of bread and NO napkin. The bread's the napkin sort of.....and then you wash up at the kitchen sink after the tea. They kept looking at me as the "newbie" and I kept watching the food preparation and clean up routine. As we paid and prepared to leave, Dania and the chef had a brief conversation to explain that I'm her "umi" visiting from the U.S. and that her "baba" is from Aleppo. I thanked him for his tasty foul (it was really good) and told him that it was much better than what my husband ever made, something that I think made him feel good, given the fact that there's a major rivalry between Cham (Damascus) and Haleb (Aleppo) people.
If I haven't completely forgotten when we did what we did, that afternoon, we walked all the way to Dima's house that is in the Mezze area of the city. It really wasn't that far, but I guess the traffic made it seem forever. As we neared her home, we stopped at a high point of the city where we could overlook a great deal of Damascus and then headed down hill toward the main road and her house. At one point, Dania stopped to take some photos of the fountains that are part of the landscaping of the stairway that provides easy access down below. Almost immediately, we were stopped by a non-uniformed man who said that she could not take any photos. Dania immediately knew why he was concerned (her position in taking the photo was almost in the same direction - but down - from the presidential "palace," which she knew was definitely off limits for pictures). She showed him all the photos she had taken and he seemed fine at that point. Thank heavens for digital cameras! We thought it was pretty remarkable how he just sort of came out of nowhere the very moment she'd snapped the camera! Dima later informed us that some dignitary was arriving and there were special guards posted throughout the area......She should know, given the fact that he father-in-law is the former Minister of Defense and her husband has some military job, both realities necessitating armed guards at their house and disposal at all times.
We had a nice lunch and visit with Dima (who had retrieved all her web orders earlier), her husband Ali, their daughter whose only name I remember is Dania's nickname, Tito, and their son, who's so young he didn't make much of an appearance and whose name I never saw written so cannot remember. Dima has just finished an online masters program at the University of Manchester in what I think is something to do with the hospitality industry. Her thesis is focused on expanding Syria's tourist industry, a topic that certainly has a lot of potential in Syria if and when there's some kind of settlement with Israel. We headed home, this time by taxi, and had an early evening.
It was on the way home that we saw the first Syrian protest for the Gaza incursion:
The man's poster reads, "BREAK YOUR SILENCE"
A sober end to day 3 in Damascus!
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