It’s always crowded at Abu Marzouk’s falafel stand. I squeeze past people to pass him a BYO plate for my mother’s order.
I observe him crafting a fresh plate of hummus, pouring rich olive oil till it lovingly reaches the centre. He then sprinkles chilli powder with his bare hands, as if placing the last touches on his canvas. On my way home, I use my fingers to carefully scrape the outer rim of the hummus plate. I can never resist Abu Marzouk’s art.
I am responsible for collecting my mother’s shopping from the dukan surrounding our home. The shopkeepers never request any money, they simply make records of any purchases in overflowing notebooks and bill my mother monthly.
Abir, aged 6, standing on the rooftop of apartment building in Tripoli. Source: Supplied
This is also how I cheekily manage to extend the order, requesting Ammo Sobhi to include some treats. I share them out with friends in our street.
Wherever you turn, the war has left its trail of damage and uncertainty. But the people in our town choose to live with empathy and kindness.
My mother has assigned me the task of delivering food to my tayta. She packs a little extra for my unresisting fingers. I am only eight, but already well acquainted with the alleyways of our town. Some walls in our city are newly disfigured with bullet holes, some roads are jagged and rough to tread, but underneath my feet lie tales of ancient Phoenician cities.
Abir, aged 8, with Tayta and her younger brother in Lebanon, in their grandmother’s salon, a room reserved for special events. Source: Supplied
There is no stranger danger, there are no road signs; the streets are marked instead by the people who give them life. Ammo Sobhi’s busy corner store marks the entrance. Up ahead is an overwhelming smell of diesel and a smile penetrating through the rugged exterior of Abu Rashid, the mechanic. I catch a whiff of zataar as I pass by Ibrahim the baker. I can never tell if his hair is truly silver or if his passion for flour taints it. I walk past the home of the man dubbed ‘Muhammad the Christian’. Muhammad, I am told, is a Christian man whose father simply loved the name Muhammad.
Situated away from the main streets is the place I dread most, the abandoned sports stadium, its reputation as a notorious base for torture during the civil war.
In the distance, the azan is echoing simultaneously alongside reverberating church bells, a prompt to quicken my pace to Tayta’s.
We retreat to her kitchenette, where Tayta’s warm embrace and fattoush salad anchor me. Tayta sometimes lights an indoor coal heater in her living room. She then toasts some stale bread to go with her homemade labneh, as we tune in to war correspondents broadcasting through her black and white television.
Tayta, Pauline and Clarry in the author's childhood home in Perth, 1994. Amir's Lebanese grandparents also later migrated to Australia. Source: Supplied
My jiddo arrives later in the evening. He always carries a heavy shadow along with him. Something about him makes you sit up straight whenever he walks into a room. I both fear and respect him. He walks past me, pauses and stares down, enveloping me with his shadow as if to acknowledge my presence. This is his silent way of greeting me, and with bonbons that discreetly land on my lap.
We are only prescribed short periods of electricity use, but candlelight sets the mood for dark Jihi tales. Tayta retells the stories so often I have memorised them. Something in her mesmerising voice means it’s always like I’m hearing them for the first time.
When darkness sets in, we retreat to the moonlit balcony overlooking our town. Setting the ambience is Fairuz playing softly, courtesy of floor three. The lack of electricity never dims the life of the bustling streets below. In the distance is the mechanic, still tinkering under a makeshift light bulb.
An evening at Tayta’s never feels complete without taking in the magnificent views and the salty breeze caressing the nearby ocean, overlooking the best place in the world, El Mina, Tripoli’s harbour.
A world away from Lebanon, in Australia, the air is dry and it feels as if there is no distance between my face and the scorching sun. There are more road signs than people on the streets. Houses stand perfectly aligned, like cloned pegs.
Uncle Jamal and Aunty Lois in their home in Perth, Western Australia, 1988. Source: Supplied
My uncle Jamal is married to an Australian woman, Aunty Lois. We are greeted by Uncle Jamal’s cheerful in-laws, softly spoken Aunty Pauline, and her polar opposite, Pop Clarry. Clarry introduces us to the Aussie larrikin. He can’t tell us Jihi tales but quickly finds a way around the language barrier by employing a fart cushion and other comical icebreakers. It’s his way of making us feel welcome, along with lollies, which secretly find their way into our pockets.
Inside Pauline and Clarry’s home in Australia, everything has a place. It’s where 1980s decor meets 1950s memorabilia. There’s Aunty Lois with her teased-up blonde hair, and Uncle Jamal with his sleek mullet.
The aroma always greets us first: sausages on the barbie, served with Aunty Pauline’s graceful gratin potatoes and a gently laid out egg salad. It is not Tayta’s tossed up fattoush or garlicky coriander potatoes, but it carries the same warmth. Aunty Lois offers us some Lebanese bread with a spread of our first slither of true assimilation – Vegemite.
Less than a month in Australia, I am quickly assigned to deliver my brother and me through the streets and bus routes leading to our new school. Just as quickly, however, I manage to almost get us lost by missing our bus. I wonder if I will ever learn to recognise these unfamiliar streets.
Jiddo and Clarry, taking in some sunshine in a park, 1994. Source: Supplied
There are many walls along the way, I count zero bullet holes and some vibrant graffiti. There are no notebooks to take our orders at the milk bar, and this new concept has us back and forth from the cashier until the price of our items matches our change. The treats taste peculiar and there are no friends in these streets to share them with.
On another occasion, we are at the all-you-can-eat buffet at Sizzler. We have been invited there to celebrate following our family’s Australian citizenship ceremony. The buffet is overflowing with unfamiliar new food. I am dressed in my finest little suit, paired with white shoes and matching white socks. There are two rites of passage taking place on this night. An ink on a paper signifying my citizenship, and a bloodstain on the back of my skirt marking my coming of age.
Abir El-Abed (she/her) grew up in Lebanon until the age of 10, when her family migrated to Australia in the late 1980s with help from extended family in Australia. She enjoys listening to, reading and sharing stories.
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