REAL kebab

According to my Iraqi friends most western cultures have got the kebab all wrong! They say that most of the kebab shops around town actually serve shawarmas. I understand their frustration, but I also understand where the confusion comes from. Kebab in Iraq refers to some meat mixture on a skewer or a stick, and it must be grilled, just like those tomatoes above. A döner kebab however (means rotating kebab in Turkish) is actually much more similar to what is sold to many drunken partiers around 3 a.m in the morning...and it is basically the same as a shawarma, at least to my insensitive eye. So as I said, it is easy to see why non-Iraqi can lump all these delicious variants of meat, veggies and tortilla\bread\pita into one scrumptious category.

Luckily for me, it was important to my friends that us non-arabic speaking folk understood the delicacy of the Iraqi kebab. Last Wednesday we were treated to an evening in the park filled with kebab eating, random Arabic lessons (did I mention I am learning Arabic? haha), bike riding, a spontaneous game of soccer and a lot of good laughs.

Jean Claude brought a six pack of beer to a gathering hosted by our Muslim non-drinking friends. Hilarious. Surprisingly, he wasn't the only one to indulge.

The weather has been a bit schizophrenic lately..bright sun turns into rain showers with the turn of a hat. At least we got a sweet rainbow out of the deal. I'm going to miss these people.