Confession of a nargila junkie
February 28th, 2006 Lisa
by David Levy
My favorite place to study is in a little, nameless nargila shop located directly across from the clock tower in Jaffa. The nargila is always fresh, constantly reloaded with charcoal, head and shoulders above the dirty nargilot you get on the Tel Aviv beachfront and half as expensive. The interior is admittedly dull, save for the magnificent tapestryācovering a hole on the wallāof a beautiful Arab warrior-princess, laying topless in a field next to her gigantic broadsword, seductively stroking her pet black panther.
There is a constant bustle in the shop, as groups of Arabs play backgammon and argue loudly, locals yell greetings from the street, soldiers saunter in with their M-16’s and drink the delicious mint tea, occasionally challenging the other patrons to a game of backgammon. The television in the corner invariably plays either the World Wide Wrestling Federation or soccer, and the beautiful Arabic music playing on the stereo challenges the hum of Hebrew and Arabic for the title of dominant background noise. All this is intermittently pierced by the haunting call to prayer from the nearby minarets.
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