June 6, 2013
By RANA F. SWEIS
AMMAN — Two months ago, the most famous ice cream parlor in Damascus set up a new outlet amid the fast-food joints, stalls selling plastic household goods and offices lining Al Madina Al Munawara Street, a traffic-snarled road in Amman.

The original location for the ice cream shop, Bakdash, which is more than 100 years old, is in the Al Hamidiyah Souk, one of the oldest and largest markets in Syria.

As violence rages across the country, it is not only helpless refugees who are leaving for Jordan, but also skilled laborers, proficient builders and prominent chefs. “Business is dead in Damascus, and it’s going from bad to worse,” said Muhammad Abed, who worked at Bakdash in Damascus before he settled in Amman about a month ago.

“I was sent by Bakdash to come and work here, and it’s nice to see our product being sold in Jordan, because it always reminds me of home,” he said, as he rolled ice cream on a bed of crushed pistachio nuts.

Khaldoun Abbabneh, who manages the Amman shop, said it employs some Jordanians but the majority of the workers are Syrians. That includes Mr. Abed, the main ice cream beater: Using a large wooden paddle Mr. Abed vigorously churns the ice cream, made from boiled milk, sugar, vanilla flour, salt and choice pistachios, to soften and mix it before putting it in a large open freezer and serving it to customers.

Before the uprising began, more than two years ago, Jordanians were regular visitors to Damascus and other cities. They were lured by fine restaurants and eating places, along with affordable, high-quality fabric design stores and a shared social culture. The distance from Amman to Damascus is barely 175 kilometers, or 110 miles, by road.

Now, “Jordanians are no longer going to Syria because of the violence there, but we are offering the same atmosphere when it comes to the taste and the simple wooden chairs we bought from Damascus,” Mr. Abbabneh said.

“I used to visit Syria many times a year and always admired the theme and ambiance of their restaurants,” said Ibraheem Shokerat, owner of Areej Al Sham, one of several Syrian restaurants that have sprung up in Amman.

Areej Al Sham, meaning fragrance or sweet smell of Syria, has been designed — by a Syrian architect — to resemble an old Damascene home, with a small fountain in the middle, high ceilings that can open to the sky in summer and black and white wall tiles.

“I have the same kitchen staff I would have if I opened an excellent restaurant in Syria,” Mr. Shokerat said, “and that was important to me.”

“Before the uprising in Syria, it would have been impossible for these skilled Syrians to agree to come here and to accept the salaries we are offering them,” he added: “But the war changed everything.”

The United Nations has registered nearly 400,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan as of June 3, with another 83,000 awaiting registration. The government puts the number of refugees at 513,000.

After a sharp drop last week, the inflow picked up again this week, and is now running at 1,000 to 2,000 daily, according to U.N. officials.

In a country that was already short of natural resources and facing economic challenges, the refugee flow has created resentments, especially among Jordanians living in the north of the country, where most of the refugees are living, and trade with Syria has been hit hard.

Many refugees live in grim, overcrowded apartments, where their presence, intermingled with the Jordanian population, has strained school classrooms, infrastructure and health services. Local residents, once welcoming, accuse the refugees of taking their jobs and blame them for rising rents.

Still, whatever the economic benefits, the war presents daily business challenges. For Bakdash, which continues to make its ice cream in Damascus before transporting it in refrigerated trucks across the border, a worsening of the violence could force the closing of the Amman parlor. “We are not removed from the conflict,” Mr. Abbabneh said. “The trucks are already being delayed in delivering the ice cream from Syria and, so, we are forced to buy larger quantities for fear we will run out.

“In the future, the war will basically determine whether we have ice cream or not.”

For Mr. Shokerat, the owner of Areej Al Sham, there are other reminders of the conflict.

“What happens in Syria affects my employees who have families back home,” he said. “At one point at least four of them couldn’t communicate with their relatives because of the violence in their cities, so last month they decided to take a risk and return home.”

“You lose some really great employees but at the same time you understand the struggle,” he added. “Some of the ingredients also come straight from Syria, so, of course you can bring some aspects of Syria to Jordan. But at the end, you can’t separate yourself or your business from what is happening in that country.”

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