Yesterday L and I went to the Syrian camp to be with a friend who is in labour (L wanted to come along to entertain the little children). It was such an interesting experience. My job became taking blood pressure (of all the ladies who came along to greet my friend Z in her labour!); reminding Z to breathe during contractions and timing those contractions! It was fun to meet a lot of their relatives and neighbours who dropped by during the many hours which passed without a whole lot of progress. I'm so thankful for this intense time I was given to really get to know them better. I loved getting to know the camp more too. We went walking, trying to get those contractions coming faster (in the end castor oil did the trick) and spent a lot of time driving back and forth from the hospital. I was pleasantly surprised by the hospital, which had been set up and run by Medicins Sans Frontier. A very unusual place for this country. The staff were so nice and it turned out to be a very sociable night chatting to staff and other visitors.
Some scenes from the camp.
It's started to get very cold (first snowfall on the mountains overnight) and rains have started. This makes the camp very muddy, not helped by all the new homes being built:
A typical Syrian supper. As ever, delicious!
The menu comprised of magdoosh (aubergines stuffed with red pepper and walnuts); grape jam; cheese; falafel; tahini; humous; olives; bread and sweet tea.
They make most of their food from scratch and still source a lot of ingredients from Syria. Back in their villages nearly all their food would have been locally produced.
I love Syrian food so much I've started learning some recipes from this wonderful book. It's by two ladies (a Syrian and Iraqi) who visited Syrian refugees in Lebanon as part of an acting project and collected their favourite recipes with stories to go along with them:
Here's one recipe we enjoy which makes a great side dish:
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