Coffee & Orange Blossoms: 7 Years & 15 Days in Tyre, Lebanon

When he moved to Lebanon to live in a Shia Muslim neighborhood, Nate Scholz knew he was in for an adventure. The aroma of orange blossoms wafting over the countryside was as inviting as the people he met. To avoid offending his Arab hosts, Nate learned to enjoy drinking bitter coffee. By the time the bombs started falling seven years later, Nate had married the woman of his dreams, brought two children into the world, and become an accepted part of the Shia community. Scholz braids highlights of seven years lived in the Hezbollah heartland together with tense emails written to friends and family during the 33-Day War in 2006, when Nate’s family survived Israeli air assaults and a refugee camp in Cyprus. Coffee & Orange Blossoms tells a story that is, as the title indicates, both bitter and sweet.