"Qat." That's all I can say. The bulge of his cheek is caused by "qat." If you look closely, you can see that it is green and sort of sneaks in around the teeth so everyone who chews it has green teeth (while they are chewing it). It's quite a challenge to understand a person (hard enough already when they're speaking Arabic) with this in their mouth - words are slurred and the green teeth are a little distracting. Have I said how gross it is?
I was reading on an article on BBC that a woman who visited here thought that everyone had tumors in their cheeks until her guide told her that it was "just qat." She went on to describe that everyone looked like lop-sided chipmunks. As you can see, this is a good description for what people look like while they're chewing it. No matter how much people try to get me to try it, I can't say I've ever been tempted.
No comments:
Post a Comment