Of Coffee and Conflict

a Damascus suburb, Nov. 2012 Abed Al-Kareem Muhammad/Shaam News Network/HO Reuters/Landov

How does one keep going when one's world is falling apart? If you suddenly found yourself in an area of prolonged fighting, what would you do? Would you pack up and leave your home, your friends, everything you knew? Or would you stay, defiant, and try to live in those places from your past that make everything feel normal for a few moments? For Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifeh, who chooses the latter path, one of those places is the Firdoss cafe in Damascus: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25878902
   A related story, on the origins of coffee and how its popularity spread throughout the world, is fascinating: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22190802