naftalanja

Earthy bread

Two smells were accompanying me and underpining this belonging to a “certain world”. The smell of burning wood and the smell of earth after the first rain..., which I learned later that that has a name, called naftalanja. My daydreaming–memory was inclined to the two odours. The odour always made me believe my visualisations of the smell manifestation. It always takes me back to that one world, where my memory always carries me to a dateless instance in my life with total absence of consciousness... to Palestine.

As Palestinians, we are raised with the notion of “land”, “belonging”, “identity”, and “homecoming”. So, many of us were not privileged to be born there and most of us could never be there yet! However, a lot of us have experienced those two smells, and just like me, we associate them with Palestine as we believe that it is where we first encountered them, when we went there as kids. I am one of the few who were born there and able to go whenever I want or can! For some reason, last June; I went to the little Palestinian village were my parents started their life journey.

It was in the afternoon as I went to scout the shooting location. I was walking in the old city part of the village examining the old road, the renovated houses, the remaining s of drawings and the incomplete stairs that ends in the void. Children were playing street games and women are in groups chatting in front of their green doors. I know this road as I have been here when I was younger so many years before. I like how it makes me feel, the ability to rewind the past and to flash what kind of being cropped up in between. I simply sensed the sweetness of the gift to get back to the birth of things and to actually being able to have an anchor starting point in life as a child. Which is the thing that I do not have as my life was constructed in scattered geographical locations.

In that trail my memory is still committed to Taboun which is an “earth oven” used to bake bread. I still remember that I went to that Taboun with my cousin when we were little and she was carrying the dough on a colourful round tray handmade of straw. It is like a one big room, in half ring shape, built of old rocks, and it has a small door for entry. In the interior, it is stained with black and the floor is layered with sand and organic fertiliser. Fire is in the heart surrounded by mud walls where the dough is flattened by hand and placed against them. Few minutes passes and the indulging aroma of earth and wood intertwined with the ripping bread filled the breathing space.

The tea pot is already brewing on the fire, teacups with mint leaves, and two small round dishes one contains the olive oil (Zeit) and the second ground thyme (Za’atar) for a succulent bite with a so fresh bread.