My sister pointed out a little shop to us as we walked briskly by the evening before: "This is a cool artisan shop. You might stop in there for handmade jewelry." Ok, I thought, and then continued to focus on not tripping over all the objects littering the somewhat dark sidewalk.
Well, the next day we went back to the artisan shop. We walked in the open door and the shop owner stood up, nodding his head to us in welcome. His mouth was full of grapes, or else he probably would have said hello. We nodded and muttered a hello as we gazed at the wall of handmade bracelets, earrings and necklaces. As he cleared his mouth he offered us some grapes. Initially I refused, not wanting to take someones lunch, but as he insisted we both acquiesced. We began chatting with him, and fairly soon: would you like some coffee? Yes, thank you. Sweetened? No, thank you. We were offered seats, and soon enough we were having a conversation with Elias. Our conversation bounced from topic to topic, each participant listening hard to try to decipher what was being communicated through the foreign accents. We learned that our new friend made the jewelry with his son, who at the time was visiting his sister in the U.S. She's going to university in Philadelphia and has been there studying film for the past three years. Elias was close to 70 years old, but we wouldn't have guessed that. We spoke about the civil war, about other jobs he's had, how he takes his coffee and how much we had enjoyed the city so far.
This picture, to me, signifies hospitality. I think we lose it in the U.S. Some people know how to welcome others, but as a general rule, we're really good at keeping our distance from strangers. Elias showed us the epitome of Lebanese hospitality. And the jewelry we bought is gorgeous to boot!
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