by Alex Ellefson | Aug 06, 2013 JORDAN TIMES

AMMAN — Trucking traditional ice cream, while making sure it is kept below minus 20 degrees Celsius, on the 176-kilometre journey from Damascus to Amman has become a dangerous occupation since the Syrian conflict started in March of 2011.

Abu Maher, 52, has been working as a truck driver out of Damascus for 18 years. He remembers a resort between Damascus and Homs where he liked to stop and rest on his way to Amman.

The resort is now in ruins.

He asked The Jordan Times not to publish his real name to protect his family in Syria.

“Our country is destroyed,” he said.

“Lots of houses are burned down, lots of people have been killed or are trying to leave [Syria]. When I’m away from home, I stay in contact with my family every day to make sure they are safe.”

Abu Maher lives with his wife and 11 children in the Damascus suburb of East Ghoutta. His sons, who used to work in construction, can no longer find work, so Abu Maher continues to transport products out of Syria to support his family.

“The road itself is the most dangerous part of my job,” he said. “It is not even safe to stop to fix a flat tyre.”

He has been delivering ice cream to the newly opened Bakdash restaurant in Amman.

The original Bakdash, enjoyed by world leaders like His Majesty King Abdullah and former British prime minister Tony Blair, is located in Damascus’ historic Souk Al Hamidiya and has become a Syrian landmark since it opened in 1895.

In order to make up for the decrease in business due to the ongoing conflict in Syria, Bakdash has opened several new locations across the Middle East, including three franchises in Jordan.

“The ice cream is still made in Damascus,” said Amman Bakdash General Manager Yarob Ababneh. He and his father bought the franchise rights to open the a new Bakdash last year.

“The ingredients like milk, gum Arabic and Sahleb [made from orchids for flavour] come from the Syrian countryside,” he said.

“When I eat real Syrian ice cream, I remember home,” said Ahmad, a 51-year-old customer at Bakdash on Medina Munawara Street.

He and his family left their home in Damascus last year to escape the violence spreading across their country, he said.

In order to ferry the ice cream from Damascus to Amman, Abu Maher travels on the Swaida road, a Syrian Army-controlled highway, which winds through the desert to the Jordanian-Syrian border.

Along the way, he reported seeing “burned cars and trucks” as well as Syrian families waiting at the border to enter Jordan.

He estimated that the Syrian Army controls 50 checkpoints on the road. Several times this year, Abu Maher said he had to spend the night stranded in the desert because rebels from the Free Syrian Army attacked a military post further down the road.

“The fighting has increased in the last eight months,” he said. “So now, I don’t think there will be an end to the fighting anytime soon.”

While he waits for the skirmish to end, he often takes the kabseh, a meal of chicken and rice, which his wife packed at home and cooks it on the small stove in his truck.

Abu Maher said the journey from Damascus to Amman, which used to take two to three days, can now take up to a week because of fighting on the road and heightened security at Jordanian customs checkpoints.

“We have to take into account that the truck will get held up, so we always keep a reserve stock here,” said Ababneh, who explained that his restaurant has two refrigerators capable of holding 15 tonnes of ice cream.

For 19-year-old Batoul, the Syrian-made ice cream is a comforting reminder of home. Her father owned a cosmetics store in Souk Al Hamidiya before their family fled to Amman last year.

“The last time we were there, the place was so crowded. People were sitting inside and laughing. No one expected that war would come to the streets [of Syria],” she said.

“I miss Damascus all the time.”

SOURCE: http://jordantimes.com/importing-the-flavour-of-damascus-to-amman

In order to make up for the decrease in business due to the ongoing conflict in Syria, Bakdash has opened several new locations across the Middle East, including three franchises in Jordan (Photo by Alex Ellefson)