Old souk, Tripoli, Lebanon. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Wrinkled fingertips graze the lips of older women, while shrill and unyielding cries pierce through the air — the pitch of the zalagheet (ululation) underscoring their joy. Rice and flower petals at your every step: attacking, welcoming, loving. A sloppy, unhygienic kiss is planted on your cheek from your favorite khalto (aunt), a tug at your dress from the boy you’ve always bought candy for, and your parents’ entire street is lined along your path. It’s a celebration undefined by words, and a love unbound by conditions. “I love you,” “Thank you,” “A’abelik [a phrase said to single people to wish marriage and happiness].”
The khodarje’s (vegetable vendor) calloused, dry, yet somehow warm hands pick out what your mom wrote on an old receipt for today’s tabkha (meal), gently removing the yellowed and the imperfect produce — summarizing 50 years and almost three generations of friendship and respect in giving you the good peppers only. Rice and vermicelli sit against red and green, old white floral ceramic pots and stainless steel. The soft clunk of a plate filled to the brim disturbs the wooden table. The click-clack of the coffee merchant echoes: ceramic against ceramic, cardamom against a century-old cobblestone, and giggles float over shared rakwehs (coffee pot). “I’d like it bitter, please,” “Half-half,” “Save the grounds for me, if you may.”
“Ahla bhal talleh [a welcoming phrase]! Beirut brightens at your presence.” The pouring of a clear, sweet syrup flows. “There’s no way you eat it without ater (sugar syrup). Are you sure? You don’t need the diet, smallah a’alayke [may God protect you]. The sweetness of this knefeh comes from you, not the syrup.” “Here, take this za’atar and zaytoun sandwich wrapped with love.” Customs won’t mind, but I’ll mind your absence more.
Someone yells from the veranda, someone else answers from dekeneh (minimarket) below — a basket tied to a rope dancing in between. “The list and the money are in the basket. Please fill it out, and keep the rest.” The smells from the kitchen swirl upwards, mixing with floral scents.“What have you been using for your laundry? Look at it — so pearly white, and the scent flowing everywhere,” one says from a neighboring building. “Oh, thank you! It’s this detergent, and a new Gardenia bush that my in-laws brought over.”
The prayer beads sway, mosques and churches take turns, the silence during each call and bell ring, and the care at each “pass me this” and “sahten” (bon appétit) over iftars and Christmas dinners. There is always someone home, even if they’re not. An invitation is extended, a thank you, and a kiss on each cheek — left, right, left again — even if you saw them yesterday.
A bowl of foul (beans) is served. Rivers of oil flow between each bite, while tender palms take the bread apart for you. Ma betshabbe3 ella le2mit l em (Only a mother’s food is filling). You were not hungry, but you ate anyway. You weren’t crying, but you teared up anyway. You did not plan on staying long but conversed over a cup of sour carrots and nuts long past sunrise. Our tête-à-têtes range from politics and wars to love and heartbreak, still managing to weave sarcasm and chuckles between each syllable. Bye-byes and au revoirs are said a thousand times at the steps of metal doors, right before launching into another conversation. Stay a bit longer, linger, look back after you wave at me.
Our fridges are never full, but there is always a pot covered with a plate, ready for when someone comes over. You are always someone to feed here, someone to welcome, someone to kiss on the forehead and whisper a small prayer for when you’re going home. You are someone, but your name is no longer your first and last only — you are not just Layla, you are Layla bint Jamila, bint Um Ahmad, bint Maarouf. You descend from those who birthed you, those who raised and loved you as their own — regardless of biology.
The sounds of watermelons being slapped in the summer ring, later cracked open under the silver, full moon. The crackle of plastic-covered sofas, the hiss of soda being poured over ice, the popping of burnt wood for when the kids are begging for s’mores, or for when the adults have dusted off and brought out their hookahs. It’s a bit chilly, isn’t it? Come, there are plenty of jackets and blankets inside. But, a battle ensues between linen and affectionate arms: what warms you faster?
And perhaps that’s what it means to fully preserve a culture — not by safeguarding it in glass boxes and transcribing it down in museums and exhibitions, but by living it; by breathing in every scent and taste and touch it has to offer. No one taught us that this is our heritage; we just knew it. Modernity knocks on our doors with convenience, speed and efficiency, but we answer slowly, warmly, with a pot on the stove and a story on our lips. We are not just adapting; we are translating memory into motion, keeping pace without losing rhythm. We are still here: in the cracks of cobblestones, the weight of names, the laughter that outlives sorrow. And as long as someone still says sahten, still pours ater for you, still ties the rope to the basket and lowers it down, we have not forgotten where we come from. We carry it forward. We wave, we linger, and then we look back.