I got out of the house late this afternoon to do a little shopping. First we stopped by the grocery store, which we apparently caught at a well-stocked moment. Excellent scores, including barbecue sauce (anyone who knows me knows how important a fixture this is in my life ... I'd been contemplating making it upon acquisition of brown sugar), chutney, Thai chili sauce, powdered coconut milk (we'll see how that goes), paprika and chili powder (I'm Mexican again!), and cinnamon.
As we emerged from the store, dusk had fallen. The sky was hazy purple, the yellow moon high and only a few days from full. The call to prayer had just begun, and the domed roofs and minaret of the mosque a few blocks away were beautifully lit. The Arab world comes alive at night, when work is done and the heat has subsided, and the streets were full of vendors selling shoes, dishes, bootleg DVDs, rotisserie chickens, faux leather jackets, popcorn, cigarettes, and more. Steady streams of pedestrians passed: men in hip, European-style jeans and t-shirts; old women in full black abayas; young women in hijabs, tunics, skinny jeans and ballet flats. For a moment, Basrah was just a normal Middle Eastern city.
We stopped at my favorite fruit stand and discovered fresh corn, cabbage, zucchini, green beans and - thank you, Allah! - hot peppers. What a great haul. From there, we went around the block to a small hole-in-the-wall bakery where several young men were making khoubz, Arabic flatbread similar to a pita but lighter, larger, more stretchy and with wonderful airy bubbles and charred spots. I soon discovered how this comes about - it's baked in large, domed brick ovens. One person makes baseball-sized balls of dough, and another quickly pounds and twirls them into 8" rounds. The rounds are placed over a basketball-sized half-circular mold covered in cloth. Another baker takes the mold, reaches his arm in the oven, and uses it to stick the now-flat round of dough directly onto the top of the domed oven. It adheres instantly, and hangs on while it bakes over a roaring fire. It's removed with huge iron tongs, beautifully golden and warm. We bought a few special ones with green onions, parsley and a little bit of ground lamb mixed into the dough - amazing. I wish I'd had my camera.
This little excursion made me wistful about the security situation being what it is, that it's enough of a risk for me to go out that I can't enjoy the city except for small outings. Under a different set of circumstances, Basrah would be a wonderful place ... for just two hours this evening, I could feel it.
