dispatches from here

Entrance to the Al Rasheed Cafe

Lots of little cafés tucked in alleyways and sidestreets all over Amman. But these aren’t your standard Starbucks or even the dimly lit cushy cafes out of Arabian Nights. Up little sets of stairs you enter a harshly fluorescently lit room hazy with sheesha smoke, with dingy floors and cracked plastic chairs, where everyone sits with their own sheesha around tables playing cards and drinking tea.

A fierce game of cards in the works