Thanks for listening to The Sporkful. Be sure to tune in each week for new episodes on Amazon Music or just ask, Alexa, play the podcast, The Sporkful on Amazon Music.

Back in 2017, we aired one of our most popular Sporkful episodes ever, about a beloved sandwich shop in Aleppo,

Syria.

At that time, Syria was reeling from years of civil war, and the country's leader, Bashar al-Assad,

had been brutally targeting his own citizens.

Aleppo was especially hard hit.

We heard about that sandwich shop and set out to find out what made it special and whether

it was even still there. At the end of last year, when rebel fighters toppled the Assad regime, we heard from so many of you asking for updates on the story and on Shadi Martini, the story's main character.

Well, listen to this, big news. We have a brand new update to share with you, including Shadi's first visit back to Aleppo

since he went into exile more than a decade ago.

We'll have that new update for you next week, but ahead of that, we're re-sharing this two-part

story.

If you're a newer listener, this will catch you up.

If you're a long-time listener, I hope you'll appreciate hearing the story again.

We'll share part two this Friday, then the new update next Monday.

Here's part one.

In 2003, Adam Davidson and Jen Banbury were living in Baghdad.

They were working as reporters covering the Iraq War.

And they were falling in love.

Early on, it was sort of, as was common, at the time,

it was like two journalists hooking up in a war zone,

and it wasn't entirely clear this was going to be a long-term thing.

...