Letter 64

Hi Dad!
How are you? I miss you. I wish you were here the day me and mum went to Douma in Batroun to learn how they make olive oil. We made our own and apparently it's really good. I didn't taste it yet but mom did. They gave us complementary 1/2 L bottle of the olive oil we made that day.
We left home at 8:30 Am And arrived at 11:30. Yeah an extremely long ride. We were about 25 in a bus (not a pullman) But that's ok. I'm being precise because two women that were sitting behind me did not stop complaining about the "smallness" of the bus. And if they weren't complaining about the bus it was either about the long trip or the loads of work they have to do for the next week. I felt like i was going to hit someone. Plus they had a fake english accent. Yup that makes a hundred times worse.
We arrived, we walked around a bit, visited a house were Nadine Labake is going to shoot her movie and then we went to the field.
There we picked olives. (Of course, the two women stayed on the side of the road bickering). Then we ate manakish. Then saw how we make olive oil. First they separate the olives from the leafs, hen ground them with two huge rocks (it's the oldest machine in Lebanon) then a machine puts the pasty olives (skin and seed included) on a sort of plat round thingy made of straw. They stack then stack them one of top of the other. They compress them a take the liquid that come out. It looked brown. It was a mix of water, mud, oil and more... Then they separate the oil for the rest and we get extra super virgin olive oil.
I was a very cool experience. Douma was really nice. And the day was extremely interesting.
I love you dad
And i miss you so much
Many kisses
Your Symz
Xx