SOHÊR EL-IDLIBÎ

Idlib- Baking bread in a clay oven called tandoor is a tradition for Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen or Chechen living in Syria. If you visit Syria, you will see women baking tandoori bread in the yard of their houses. Once a week, women bake tandoori bread for their families. However, people cannot bake enough tandoori bread for their families due to poverty caused by the ongoing war in Syria. In Idlib, where the majority of the population lives in camps, we can see the trace of poverty. Women bake tandoori bread not for nostalgia but for necessity.

They face financial difficulties

35-year-old Meryem El Hemûd told us they wake up early in the morning to knead dough. They have to bake tandoori bread once a week to meet their families needs due to the lack of wood to light the tandoors. “Trying to bake bread to meet my family’s needs in one day is very difficult but I have to because we cannot find wood.”

Meryem El Hemûd lives in a camp located in the Armanaz town of Idlib. “In fact, there was no one in this camp who baked tandoori bread before me. When women living in the camp saw me baking bread, they began to bake to make an economic contribution for their families. Baking tandoori bread together improves our relationship and develops solidarity in the camp.”

“I wish I could make children happier”

Meryem El Hemûd like making children in the camp happy, “Those who don’t have money to buy bread will, of course, bake tandoori bread. I give bread to the children, whose families cannot afford to buy bread or bake tandoori bread. They become happy when I give bread. I wish I could make children happier.”

Badria Al Alusha (40) lives in the Karama camp located in the Kali district of Idlib with her family. “Tandoori bread will always be a trend for everybody. Rich people prefer to buy bread while poor people bake tandoori bread. We have to bake.”