A sugar factory

There lies a huge sugar factory complex just a few kilometers out of Jisr Shoghour. It is probably the biggest factory around this area producing a very important ingredient which is used much too liberally in Arabic tea and desserts. Basically they are not drinking tea with sugar, rather it is sugar water with tea. Despite the "importance of sugar" to the Syrian diet, the factory looks as if it has just survived a war. Definitely it lacks the dignity that should have been accorded to it. The entire building looks like it is going to collapse any time soon - rusty, dillapidated. Rusty trucks and buses lie abandoned in its compound. Almost half of the windows of the factory are broken. Wonder what they do when it rains (and it does rain quite a lot in winter) And somehow rather conveniently, exhaust pipes stick out of the broken windows billowing smoke of some sort. A sign that the factory is still in service. The only thing in the entire complex which looks in perfect order is the huge picture of the President mounted at the front entrance with some arabic slogan. Needless to say, the Syrians have incredible respect for their President.

But the most bewildering thing of all is the sugar factory is swarmed by trucks loaded with tomatoes every morning. Since when is sugar processed from tomatoes? Maybe this is some kind of Syrian innovation. Bring in the tomatoes and out comes the sugar. We have called it panadura shukar (tomato sugar in arabic). We have referred this incredible query to the locals and nobody has yet been able to respond affirmatively. Meanwhile, the mystery of tomato sugar continues in Jisr Al Shoghour...