Shoot As You Walk (Ramadaniat 2)

From last night, I have a story to tell. It’s not very often (in fact, it’s the first time) that I come back from a “Shoot As You Walk” adventure with more words than pictures. I’ll be honest, I’m not as satisfied with the pictures I took last night (damn you, night mode! :-P) as I was with the pictures I took last time. But in terms of the path we took, our encounters, and meaning, it was one of my favorite...

I took my brother along, who was surprisingly quite enthusiastic to join us in Shoot As You Walk Ramadaniyat 2 (and I’m really glad he did, as you’ll soon read). We even ended up being the first to arrive! But, to keep our wait entertaining, these nearby dudes (who apparently own a music shop) blasted us some Lebanese Rap Music which I could help but laugh so hard at! It’s a song called “Ashta W 3assal” which I heard for the first time last night. And as vulgar as the song is, it’s quite catchy (click on the name of the song to listen to it in YouTube).

Anyway, after about five or six replays of the song, the entire group had gathered and we took off. But soon enough, we found ourselves being led up a building staircase. Where on earth were we going?! No later than we had reached the first floor, there was an open door which led outside, to the parking lot of another building. “Nour!” exclaimed my brother, “do you know where we are?” The place looked familiar, it was white and relatively new, and then, I looked over towards the building behind the garage, and that’s when it hit me! My paternal grandparents’ (may they RIP) house! I felt a flush of old memories coming back to me and balcony I was looking at was the balcony I used to stand on and look out from, the balcony Gran used to stand on and wave to us from. We exited the garage and I found myself back on the familiar street. I crossed over and took a snapshot of the old entrance. It’s too dark to see, but just looking at that old wall reminded me of good times…

As we walked on to “Bab El Ramel” the streets were starting to get overcrowded with people. Remember the picture I took of the old street with Musa Café? Well, this is the heart of it, alive on Ramadan Nights:

After making our way through the crowd of cars and people, towards the end of the street, a little boy came up to us, asking if we wanted to buy ka3ek. I looked at him and couldn’t help but smile, it was the familiar little souk boy I had seen once and twice before! I asked if I could take a picture of him and he gladly agreed, striking his menacing bad boy pose next to my brother (who asked me to crop him out of the picture, but no can do bro!) :-P

I’ve never had such a meaningful “Shoot As You Walk” adventure. And even if I had taken zero photos, I still would have come back quite satisfied, because to me it’s not just “Shoot As You Walk”, it’s also “Admire As You Walk” :-)