Tennis players, wigs and Dubai assassinations: Welcome to the Middle East

In the past few weeks, while people in Europe and the USA have been distracted by Colin Firth's BAFTA award, Charlie Sheen's rehab admission or yet another school shoot-out in America, the Middle East has been passionately embroiled in the unfolding and still mysterious drama of the assassination of Hamas' military commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, suffocated in his hotel room at the luxurious Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (source: Getty)

Almost perfectly planned and what seemed to be a successful assassination, now turns out to be a complete failure by Mossad (Israel's intelligence agency), whose plot has not only been completely uncovered, but its 20 or so agents involved, all identified. And to add even more drama to the story, the identities used by the agents were stolen from existing dual European-Israeli citizens, who for the most, have never set foot in the UAE. While Mossad still denies any involvement in the plot, most analysts in the Arab world, recognise Israel's signature. The European countries, in addition to Australia, whose citizens' identities were fraudulently used, have protested in anger to what is clearly a violation of international law.

The most ironic part of this story has to be CCTV footage of two of the agents, leaving the elevator next to Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, minutes before they kill him, dressed in full tennis garb, complete with sweat wrist bans, towels around their neck, a la Roger Federer, tennis balls and new shiny rackets. The British Telegraph newspaper published a few days ago a detailed account of how the Dubai assassination was orchestrated, an interesting read.

While the investigation continues, conspiracy theories abound on Arab TV networks, as is usually the case in a region fraught with suspicion and undercover operations...

To be continued...

Guns, Checkpoints and Pesto: Sense of Taste

The fifth and last sense to be tackled in my series on Guns, Checkpoints and Pesto is

The Sense of Taste

which is probably the most relevant of all senses in our discussion of culinary habits in conflict contexts. Indeed, taste, in my opinion is Mother Nature's most precious gift to us, whereas for the privileged, eating has become an art, rather than simply a means of survival. Food scarcity in some places I have had the chance to work in, has not been an obstacle to people's culinary creativity and their interest in enhancing the taste and aroma of their daily meals. Millions of women living in conflict affected countries toil each day in their kitchens, which for most are either make-shift huts full of smoke or holes in the ground with coal or wood and a metal grill in front of a refugee tent in the many refugee camps scattered around the world.

A few years ago, while distributing food aid in Eastern Congo for an international NGO and in the occupied Palestinian territories (Gaza and West Bank) for the UN World Food Programme, I came to realise how important taste was for both of these populations, despite their many hardships and the obvious struggle for survival. Ensuring that their meals tasted the way they always did, was an important way for them to keep a sense a normalcy and familiarity with their customs and norms, while war ravaged everything around them.

Dried sage leaves (known as maramiyeh in Arabic) which are grown in pots on windowsills in Palestinian houses in Gaza, are added to black tea, as a popular social drink for some Gazan fishermen, who hardly survive on the tiny income they make from the fish trade. They too will receive food aid at some point in their lives, the usual package of which includes chickpeas, oil, sugar and flour. The women soak the chickpeas overnight and then mix the soft chickpeas with tahini, a sesame oil based paste (smuggled through the underground tunnels dug between Gaza and Egypt as the only means to circumvent the Israeli blockade for essential goods), to make hummus.

In 2007, in the Congo, the UN agency assisting refugees, the UNHCR, distributed food parcels mainly to Congolese refugees returning from Zambia and other neighbouring countries, having fled their villages in South Kivu during the fighting between the militia groups and a number of African armies, ten years ago. One Congolese women I saw had walked for 2 days to the distribution site, bare foot. She placed the large white bag of 5 kilos of rice on her head, tightened the cloth that was holding her baby on her back, and turned back, to walk for another 2 days. She wore a t-shift with President Laurent Kabila's face, a t-shirt she most probably received for free during Kabila's campaigning in 2006 for the Presidential elections which took place there. That bag of rice, the cloth around her baby and the free t-shirt, was all she had. While she will simply boil the rice and add some salt (if she is lucky to have received some), other more affluent Congolese enjoy rice with Moambe which is a chicken and palm oil stew, more popular in urban areas, rather than in the poorer villages. The recipe for the Congolese Moambe can be found here.

Palestinian boy at a UN WFP distribution site in Gaza, Palestine in 2005 (a few months before the disengagement of Israeli settlements)

Children of refugees returned to South Kivu in Eastern DR Congo, 2007. Thanks to digital technology, the photo I took of these kids appears instantly on the small screen of my camera, allowing the children to see themselves and their friends, they usually scream of excitement... Wonderful experience.

Guns, Checkpoints and Pesto: Sense of Hearing

In my experience of conflict and post-conflict contexts, sounds and noises are probably what cause most of the fear and anguish. While most of us aid workers and UN officials remain protected from the line of fire of the actual conflict, we spend days and nights close enough to the fighting to hear the gun fire, the RPGs and the ambulances rushing back and forth with the dead or wounded. Our sense of hearing therefore dominating all other senses. In a culinary context, hearing can also influence the other senses and is also subject to cultural differences...

The Sense of Hearing

While Indians wait to hear poppy seeds crackle in the hot oil before adding the rest of the ingredients to curry sauces, the Lebanese listen to the bubbling sound of the water at the bottom of a shisha pipe, as they eat hummus and other mezze. Palestinians enjoy the sound of Turkish coffee being poured into tiny handleless cups while Ugandan children listen to their mothers sing as they pound dried maize into flour, for hours, always at the same rhythm, and always smiling. And while the Congolese dip their fufu into crushed chilli sauce (made from very hot African chillies), you can almost hear their hearts beat from the fire of the spice...

A shisha pipe repairman in Shatila refugee camp, south of Beirut, Lebanon in 2008

Coffee merchant grinding cardamon pods and Costa Rican coffee beans in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine in 2007. The coffee is boiled in metal pots over the fire, constantly turning it to the right consistency, augmented by lots of sugar and poured into small cups, also known as Turkish coffee.

A Ugandan mother digs her field with her children, in Mbale, Eastern Uganda in 2003.

The red roundish ones are the chillies found in the DR Congo... Some of the hottest chillies in the World. The Congolese crush it with garlic and salt and use it as a condiment for fufu or chicken.

Guns, Checkpoints and Pesto: Sense of Smell

The third chapter of this culinary series of eating and cooking in conflict, is dedicated to the

The Sense of Smell

It is quite intriguing how the scent of something can bring back vivid memories of a place or of someone. Smell can enchant or disgust and it can attract or repulse. Smell is also subject to cultural differences. In the DR Congo, locals of its capital, Kinshasa, are delighted by the smell of a caterpillar stew simmering on the fire in their mother's kitchen. The Ugandans thoroughly enjoy the smell of a fresh cob of corn grilling on hot coal infront of houses in the villages. In Palestine, in the Muslim quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem, Palestinians are enchanted by the aroma of freshly baked knafeh, a sweet made with cheese, shredden Fillo dough, butter and sugar, originally from the city of Nablus in the West Bank. In 2009 the Palestinians set the Guinness record for the world's largest Knafeh (Read article in the Haaretz).

During Ramadan, the Palestinians also enjoy other pastries and sweets such as Qatayef, a small pancake, the smell of which reminds most of the Holy Month approaching. In 2007, a few days before Ramadan, while walking along the walls of the Old City in East Jerusalem, I came across an old man who was preparing Qatayef. He was very keen that I taste these delights and once we had chatted a bit about where I was from and what I was doing there, he handed me one for free, still warm and soft, it was sweet and melted in my mouth.

Nablus, a town which, in addition to being famous for Knafeh, is also home to the most delicious zaatar in the Middle East (dry thyme leaves which are ground with sesame seeds and salt) as well as olive oil produced from hand picked olives in groves which are centuries old. Unfortunately, with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, its imposed curfews, closures and trade blocks, Palestinians struggle to make a living from this production and are unable to export any surplus produce. Furthermore, many olive groves are destroyed by the Israeli army in order to expand the land around illegal settlements, citing security reasons. A few years ago, I often travelled to Nablus from East Jerusalem for the UN, and therefore had the chance to enjoy Nablus' culinary delicacies, the olive oil in particular, which while on the subject of smell, has such an intriguing perfume, that just with a whiff, one can taste it.