Diplomatic Bazaar

This morning I was battling a cold but didn't want to miss anything, so we got in a taxi and went to Sports City, the athletic (stadium) complex in Amman, for a charity event. Every year the diplomatic community in Amman hosts a fundraiser called the Diplomatic Bazaar. Open to the public, everyone was greeted at the entry with a tiny cup of sweet Turkish coffee as a gesture of welcome. Over fifty embassies had booths where they sold national crafts, clothing, and other products imported from their countries. We walked from booth to booth, examining spices from Kuwait, towels from Turkey, perfumes and soaps from France, silk products from Thailand, some type of conical oven from Morocco, wooden dolls from Indonesia, and on and on. I realize I've written about food in my blog but this was particularly interesting because outside the cultural booths area, in a large open air food court, was a mini-United Nations. Each embassy had tables staffed by their embassy personnel dressed in their national clothing and selling their national foods. We began with my favorite, Thailand, and had Phad Thai and dumplings. Then we wandered over to Pakistan to try potato samosas with sweet sauce. Bangladesh had interesting orange-colored cakes we tried and still can't decide whether the cake was orange or carrot. The Sudan offered sweet fruit drinks, one purple, one cream-colored, but we don't know what we drank because no one spoke English. We stopped at the Ukraine area because the cream-filled layer cake coated in chocolate had my name on it. On our way out Yemen gave us samples of their raisins and almonds and The Netherlands gave us samples of their licorice candies and their cookies made from caramel waffle. We bought tiny walnut and date filled cookies from Iraq to take home. The food area was about as interesting as it gets. People walked around in native costumes, sampling the foods, listening to music. You know you've been living in a place for a while when you start bumping into friends in public places and sure enough, we ran into one of our friends from the U.S. Embassy, cranking out exotic American foods (hamburgers and hot dogs) to feed those interested in trying American food. We chuckled over the Australians, singing (shouting) raucous Aussie cheers as they cooked. The different embassies provided entertainment under a huge tent and we watched dance performances from Indonesia, South Africa, and Brazil. This is the 51st year of this one day event which packs in visitors by the thousands, all for a good cause, a home for orphans in Amman.