Soap House and Biscuit House Morning

Two co-operative workshops in Orjan village, both run by local women, both a ten-minute walk apart on a road with no pavement. At the soap house you cut and stamp your own bar from the olive-oil batch curing on the racks - pomegranate, lemon, or plain. It needs four to six weeks to cure properly, so yours goes home wrapped and unusable until roughly the end of next month. At the biscuit house you sit at the long table and shape ma'moul with dates and walnut, then eat the first tray hot with sage tea while the second bakes. The women speak Arabic; our host translates, and there is a lot of laughing at your rolling technique. Practical friction: this runs on the co-operatives' baking schedule, so it is mornings only, and the biscuit house closes for two weeks around Eid. The building is old and the toilet is a squat toilet. Wear something you do not mind getting flour on.