Conversation IV: Permission to witness – by Libby King

1. When I felt she was open enough to hear, I told her everything. They are obsessed with olive oil and soap and oranges, I wrote. Coffee rituals / Tea rituals / Niche cheeses from specific villages / Old walls / Ancient wells / Markets. Oh friend, I wrote. The markets! / Farmers, I said. / And artisans / They are obsessed with spices.

2. I didn’t mention the little herbal hole in the wall in the Old Market in Nablus on the West Bank where a man with grey stubble and a balding head cheekily reassured my father that if impotency was an issue he had a herbal mixture to deal with that.