Sure, this is about the sweets: the chewy, the crispy, the deep-fried and the honey-soaked. The date-filled, the sesame-laden. Sweets by the kilo.

The ones you find deep in the market. The sweets you only buy from your guy, the one to whom you trust your most saccharine indulgences.

But this is also an ode to them: the guys, the vendors, The Sweetsmen.

The ones whose days drip with sugar, the ones whose clothes are crispy fried like the wares they hawk to a pulsating, uncontrolled, dare I say riotous crowd, looking for a fix.

The Sweetsmen provide solutions to life’s problems, healing to the hurt, tonic for the troops, memories for the children and nostalgia for the elderly.

They do it with a healer’s dignity, and a merchant’s mischief. They’re a rare breed, doling out the best life has to offer on a corner of the souk, day after honey-drizzled day.