Three hours before Shabbat came in and the shops in the shuk (market) close for a brief 25hours I take refuge in a small cafe called Mitbakh Briut (Health Kitchen).The crowds which pass me by are seconded only by the hordes of teenage girls who rush to get a glimpse of Justin Bieber.
People pushing past people, veggie -vendor trying to out-scream veggie-vendor, and I sit and escape the daily grind at this quaint cafe with a sizzling pan full of shakshuka (eggs fried in a tomato base) and a glass half full of coffee.
I watch the kids stand in bewilderment of fruits which looks as though they exploded out of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. I see the religious sieve through produce, desperately searching for the choicest goods for their weekly feast. Tiny birds mock shop keepers by flying down and stealing grain from the open sacks which lie on the floor in vibrant colours. Tourists come, caught behind their cameras, they knock and block people, unable to break through the lens and see.
After a while of digesting the chaos, I sense some sort of order.
Spruikers yelling daily specials and bellowed greetings of “Shabbat Shalom” from across the main drag now sound melodic and I’m somehow apart of it.
I feel as though I’m playing the part of the breaks in the soundtrack of the shuk. Just as poetry would seem a melting pot of letters without its spaces and commas my role is just as key.
With me creating these silences are the sigh of exhausted hagglers who breathe again after scoring a bargain, the beggars who smile when a stranger drops a coin in his disposable cup, and the savatas (grandmothers) who drift by tasting an olive from here and a date from there.
It is us, the silent ones, who exist in contrast to the noise, who complete the orchestra of the shuk.
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