We ordered shawarma for each of us. It felt strange: the place was familiar, the faces were familiar, the food was familiar, but we had missed it for so long. The smell took me back years, to a time before all the times I had risked my life to get bread, vegetables or chicken for my family. With the first bite, I felt for a moment as if I had just returned from a lecture. Mahmoud looked at me. ‘This is the happiest day of my life,’ he said.
