leave as family.
A house that has always been full.
Maha has always been cooking for someone. Not because we needed to eat — but because anyone who walked through the door was going to be fed before they left. Family, neighbours, friends of friends, the man fixing the water pump. That's how it had always been in this house.
One evening, a tourist staying at a nearby hostel knocked on our door looking for an electrical adaptor. Maha came out, the woman tried to ask, but neither understood the other. Then Amr came in, translated — and before he'd finished the sentence, Maha had pulled her inside, sat her down, and was warming food.
She fed her. Showed her around the house. And we noticed how her face lit up — at the kitchen, at the courtyard, at every small thing. She left with a full stomach, a warm heart, an electrical adaptor, and a story she'd tell her people when she got back to France.
She wasn't the last. Word travels in this town. Now we host guests from all over the world, in the same kitchen, around the same table. We work under the Thakafat cultural exchange umbrella, but the way we welcome people hasn't changed at all. You come, you eat, you stay as long as you want.