Tuesday I had my first official yoga class. The one with the Indian teacher was just a one-time event but I found out that the studio offered regular classes on Sundays and Tuesdays every week in the afternoons. The first time I went, the teacher wasn’t there so there was no class and Tuesday when I returned to the studio, 20 minutes before the class started at 3, the teacher met me at the door and told me we could start as soon as I was changed. Really? How does that work?
I changed in the locker room/spa (jacuzzi and sauna and massage tables and showers!) and joined her in the studio. She sat cross-legged on her mat with just one mat beside her. Where is everbody else? What is going on?
For the next forty minutes or so, Sandy led me in the stretches and exercises. She doesn't speak very much English so it is a little more difficult to fully understand the stretches but we get by with hand gestures and vocal signals and a few key vocab words. She is a little older than me and clearly a dancer which made me feel a little silly next to her, as she is about 100 times more flexible and graceful than I am and it was just the two of us in front of the mirror. The class turned out to be Hatha Yoga, which is much slower than the classes I’ve taken before, and by the time we finished the basic relaxation and stretching exercises that usually make up a warm-up session for any other class, the class was over! I changed back to my normal clothes and went to pay at the desk (it costs 2000 lira or about $40 for 8 1 ½ hour sessions) but the woman there told me this time was free and I can pay next time. Ok that’s great but how did they know I was coming and what if there were other people in the class and why was it so short?
So I returned the following week (aka yesterday) for my first full session. Again it was just me and Sandy, though after an hour and a half I began to feel the benefits of the exercises a lot more. We stretched everything from our fingertips to our facial muscles, and for only $5 for an hour and a half private lesson, I really can’t complain. After the class was over I asked if I was her only pupil and she explained that the morning class has 2-3 students but I am the only afternoon one. The classes did just begin this month but what happens when I travel in a few weeks—class is cancelled? As I paid for my 8 sessions I asked if it was okay that I skip a few weeks and come back to finish the sessions in April and was told that was no problem. I should probably offer to put up flyers for them or something at the university, I think a lot of other students would be interested in the classes, though at the same time I'm not ready to give up my private lessons.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Bussing it
As I mentioned in my previous post, the ride home from school has been a little bit hectic recently. Since the crowds seemed inevitable regardless of which bus I took, I decided to stick to my normal bus route home and embrace the feeling of being packed like a sardine in a can.
There are two kinds of busses here in Damascus, the same 12-seater white tin cans that you find in many other countries outside of the US, and snazzy new green city busses that you can find in any ‘modern’ city. Either way the ride is 10 Syrian lira (about 20 cents) and if you take the big busses, which are less frequent but a little more comfortable, you have to get a ticket from the driver and stamp it on both sides for the ticket collector who comes around periodically. I’ve only had a collector on my bus twice so far, and I don’t really know what the fine is but I’d rather not find out. When there are people spilling out the doors of the bus (while it is driving) it makes it a little difficult to work your way up to the front and buy yourself a ticket so on one particularly crowded afternoon I held on to my bags and hoped for the best.
Of course this was one of the two times a collector joined the ride. But before I even noticed he was on the bus, someone next to me handed me a stamped ticket. I offered him a 10 lira coin but he said, “No, without money.” Confused I looked around and saw the ticket collector and the guy told me to show it to him. The collector takes the tickets, checks them and rips them in half, but as for mine he saw it in my hand and waved me away. When he turned around the guy told me to give it back to him and tucked it back into his coat pocket for another crowded ride and perhaps another helpless foreigner.
This left me with a whirl of questions in my head—How did he know the ticketman wouldn’t take mine and rip it up? Where did his extra ticket come from and how can he use it on multiple rides? How does this system work anyway? If you can buy just one ticket and save it until the ticketman comes, why would anyone bother buying one for each trip? Perhaps I would have voiced a few of these questions but I didn’t know exactly how to express them so I smiled my thanks and sat there confused. I’m not sure in which direction this tips the honesty scale for Syria, but this was one instance where I was glad to be so obviously an oblivious foreigner.
At the same time, I am equally grateful for the times when I am completely ignored or treated as any other city-dweller—that is, when it is not assumed that I am oblivious/inept just because I am foreign. The first time (okay the only time) someone asked me for directions, in Arabic, and I could respond appropriately, that was big, and also the first time someone handed me money to buy them a ticket as I was making my way to the front of the crowded bus. I can be useful too! I am not only tall and strange-looking and something to stare at while walking down the street.
There are two kinds of busses here in Damascus, the same 12-seater white tin cans that you find in many other countries outside of the US, and snazzy new green city busses that you can find in any ‘modern’ city. Either way the ride is 10 Syrian lira (about 20 cents) and if you take the big busses, which are less frequent but a little more comfortable, you have to get a ticket from the driver and stamp it on both sides for the ticket collector who comes around periodically. I’ve only had a collector on my bus twice so far, and I don’t really know what the fine is but I’d rather not find out. When there are people spilling out the doors of the bus (while it is driving) it makes it a little difficult to work your way up to the front and buy yourself a ticket so on one particularly crowded afternoon I held on to my bags and hoped for the best.
Of course this was one of the two times a collector joined the ride. But before I even noticed he was on the bus, someone next to me handed me a stamped ticket. I offered him a 10 lira coin but he said, “No, without money.” Confused I looked around and saw the ticket collector and the guy told me to show it to him. The collector takes the tickets, checks them and rips them in half, but as for mine he saw it in my hand and waved me away. When he turned around the guy told me to give it back to him and tucked it back into his coat pocket for another crowded ride and perhaps another helpless foreigner.
This left me with a whirl of questions in my head—How did he know the ticketman wouldn’t take mine and rip it up? Where did his extra ticket come from and how can he use it on multiple rides? How does this system work anyway? If you can buy just one ticket and save it until the ticketman comes, why would anyone bother buying one for each trip? Perhaps I would have voiced a few of these questions but I didn’t know exactly how to express them so I smiled my thanks and sat there confused. I’m not sure in which direction this tips the honesty scale for Syria, but this was one instance where I was glad to be so obviously an oblivious foreigner.
At the same time, I am equally grateful for the times when I am completely ignored or treated as any other city-dweller—that is, when it is not assumed that I am oblivious/inept just because I am foreign. The first time (okay the only time) someone asked me for directions, in Arabic, and I could respond appropriately, that was big, and also the first time someone handed me money to buy them a ticket as I was making my way to the front of the crowded bus. I can be useful too! I am not only tall and strange-looking and something to stare at while walking down the street.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Cultural exchanges
Back to school on Monday for a full day of class, after which I met my conversation-buddy Manhal. I met him for the first time last week, as he knows a friend of mine from high school who was in Damascus last summer and connected us via email. The first time we met it was a little awkward because I didn’t realize right away that he and Cameron were friends mostly for the sake of “exchange” (what they call when you speak half Arabic and half English with a local Syrian studying English) and that he expected our friendship to be the same. I’ve never had such a practical friendship before, but it has actually turned out quite well. I met another of his friends, Ali, who Cameron described as a ‘displaced Texan rancher’—though I don’t know him well enough yet to confirm that description, I do know that he lives in the same village as Laila, the mother in my family here, and has a family farm and grows apples.
So the three of us meet around one, 2 or 3 times a week, between my class and their English class, and spend most of the time speaking in fus’ha and a little bit of English as well. It has been very good for me to force myself to speak Arabic more often and not to be shy that I don’t know much a’amiyya (local dialect). We have exhausted most of the introductory getting-to-know-you basic conversation starters, so last time we spent a lot of time helping me to figure out what I should do my class presentation on.
Each student in my class has to give a 10 minute-plus presentation + discussion and so far the presentations have been pretty interesting. Some of the students have talked about their work or research, like Esther from Canada who worked in a law office in Guatemala dealing with land reform issues, or Maria from Greece who is working on her Anthropology PhD in London and is writing her thesis on Syrian dance. Magda (Polish-Palestinian, 27, is in Syria because she did her master’s in Middle East studies at SOAS in London and doesn’t want to be in Europe or look for a job) talked about her travels over break with a few friends and conversations they had with Syrians about marriage—mostly how the men they met were waiting to marry until they had enough money to support their family, buy a house, etc. Mustafa and Aitol (both Turkish, around 30, Aitol is a diplomat) shared a presentation about Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, creator of modern secular reforms such as those banning any form of religious dress and the Arabic alphabet, yet apparently loved by all Turks, without fail (the four in our class agreed). Jackson (Australian, 20) talked about a Palestinian singer. Zia (Turkish, married but his wife is in Turkey, around 30) talked about environmental issues, Kubra (Turkish, maybe the youngest in the class) talked about cultural superstitions that are rooted in pagan beliefs and Juliana (German, 25, married with a 2 year-old baby), talked about the idea of a female-led society that supposedly existed in the time of hunter-gatherers.
As for me though, I was completely stuck. I really don’t like public speaking if I don’t really care about the subject, if I don’t know what I am talking about, or worse, if I don’t know how to talk about it (i.e. in a foreign language). I struggled for a few nights to think of a subject that I knew enough about to talk about for 10-20 minutes, that I actually knew the words for in Arabic, and that the rest of the class could follow, in Arabic, and then would actually be interested in it enough to participate in some kind of discussion. In the end I decided to work off of Zia’s presentation on the environment (which created the most animated discussions) and talk about the relationship between the environment and the economy, in particular, related to food trade. That is (in very broad terms):
- how the issue of the environment (and food) is considered to be a worry only for the affluent in the US, and given our economic crisis it is no longer worth the attention it was gaining before the economy went sour.
- how our economy is run on consumption but the environment is ruined by it and
- can we afford to support local markets instead of global ones for the sake of fair wages, better quality food, better health and benefiting the environment?
I talked through some of my ideas with Manhal and Ali, first in Arabic, then in English when I couldn’t figure out the words, then realized my first idea was way too complicated (it focused more on what the food issue is exactly—problems with the American diet, where our food comes from, how we can be more conscious with the food we put into our body and why it is important to think about), even in English. In an effort to offer some new ideas, Ali told me about the presentations they have in their English classes. His last one was on fear. Manhal’s was on hackers. And Manhal had one this week about people who study or live abroad, then return and look down upon the Syrian lifestyle. Also those who project an image of being more cultured and more intelligent by wearing a beret or the Palestinian kefayieh, for example (I told him the same problem exists in the US too).
This week our conversation was interrupted by a university official pulling Manhal aside and telling him that it is not allowed to “make exchange” inside the language center, as if we were doing something illegal rather than enriching our education. Neither of us understood the reasoning behind it but we were forced outside anyway and we will have to find somewhere else to sit and talk. Also- how did they even know we were “making exchange” in the first place? Apparently Syrians and foreigners don’t usually mix.
--
In the evening I met up with a friend from class, Katherine. She is Canadian and studied International Development at McGill. She spent last semester studying the University of Jordan in Amman but changed to Damascus because she was not satisfied with the classes there. She’s been here for two months and invited me to go with her and a few friends to the Opera House for a concert that evening. I had already checked out the schedule since it is one of the few venues for music that isn’t a foreign cultural center and there is an Oriental Music Festival running this week which features lectures during the day and musical performances at night. This particular event consisted of a Syrian oud player and what was listed as Persian chants. We were both curious to know what Persian chants might mean and agreed to meet around 7:40 at the Opera House.
I woke up exhausted from a nap and dragged myself out of bed to go to the Opera House. There I met Katherine and her friend, who had organized the event and bought the tickets in advance. She met him at her gym and he is Syrian but has lived in France for the past 35 years and only moved back 3 months ago. Needless to say he is a bit older than us but actually very nice, and apparently spends a lot of time at the Opera House because it is the only thing worth seeing in Damascus, in his opinion. He came with another friend and the four of us spoke in fus’ha for the night, just for the sake of it.
The oud player dragged on a little bit but the Persian chanting turned out to be well worth the wait. It was performed by a duo dressed in traditional clothing—not the long black robes that we/I associate Iran with, but instead blue silk and red flowing robes with gold embrodiery that seemed more Pakistani/Hindi within my realm of cultural stereotypes. The duo was composed of a man who sang and played an instrument I don’t know the name of (tiny body, long skinny neck) and a woman who accompanied him with vocals and played a drum (round, about the size of her upper body, which she tossed in the air, it shook as it fell and she beat it with her hands). They were both incredibly talented and the music was beautiful. So much sound from such a small guitar! And so much music for about $6.
We all left thoroughly impressed and Katherine’s friend vowed to take us to see Arabic music so we wouldn’t think Iran was the only culture with good music. He also suggested going to the final event of the festival on Thursday night, which should feature several different groups from His friend dropped us all off at our respective homes and hurray for that.
So the three of us meet around one, 2 or 3 times a week, between my class and their English class, and spend most of the time speaking in fus’ha and a little bit of English as well. It has been very good for me to force myself to speak Arabic more often and not to be shy that I don’t know much a’amiyya (local dialect). We have exhausted most of the introductory getting-to-know-you basic conversation starters, so last time we spent a lot of time helping me to figure out what I should do my class presentation on.
Each student in my class has to give a 10 minute-plus presentation + discussion and so far the presentations have been pretty interesting. Some of the students have talked about their work or research, like Esther from Canada who worked in a law office in Guatemala dealing with land reform issues, or Maria from Greece who is working on her Anthropology PhD in London and is writing her thesis on Syrian dance. Magda (Polish-Palestinian, 27, is in Syria because she did her master’s in Middle East studies at SOAS in London and doesn’t want to be in Europe or look for a job) talked about her travels over break with a few friends and conversations they had with Syrians about marriage—mostly how the men they met were waiting to marry until they had enough money to support their family, buy a house, etc. Mustafa and Aitol (both Turkish, around 30, Aitol is a diplomat) shared a presentation about Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, creator of modern secular reforms such as those banning any form of religious dress and the Arabic alphabet, yet apparently loved by all Turks, without fail (the four in our class agreed). Jackson (Australian, 20) talked about a Palestinian singer. Zia (Turkish, married but his wife is in Turkey, around 30) talked about environmental issues, Kubra (Turkish, maybe the youngest in the class) talked about cultural superstitions that are rooted in pagan beliefs and Juliana (German, 25, married with a 2 year-old baby), talked about the idea of a female-led society that supposedly existed in the time of hunter-gatherers.
As for me though, I was completely stuck. I really don’t like public speaking if I don’t really care about the subject, if I don’t know what I am talking about, or worse, if I don’t know how to talk about it (i.e. in a foreign language). I struggled for a few nights to think of a subject that I knew enough about to talk about for 10-20 minutes, that I actually knew the words for in Arabic, and that the rest of the class could follow, in Arabic, and then would actually be interested in it enough to participate in some kind of discussion. In the end I decided to work off of Zia’s presentation on the environment (which created the most animated discussions) and talk about the relationship between the environment and the economy, in particular, related to food trade. That is (in very broad terms):
- how the issue of the environment (and food) is considered to be a worry only for the affluent in the US, and given our economic crisis it is no longer worth the attention it was gaining before the economy went sour.
- how our economy is run on consumption but the environment is ruined by it and
- can we afford to support local markets instead of global ones for the sake of fair wages, better quality food, better health and benefiting the environment?
I talked through some of my ideas with Manhal and Ali, first in Arabic, then in English when I couldn’t figure out the words, then realized my first idea was way too complicated (it focused more on what the food issue is exactly—problems with the American diet, where our food comes from, how we can be more conscious with the food we put into our body and why it is important to think about), even in English. In an effort to offer some new ideas, Ali told me about the presentations they have in their English classes. His last one was on fear. Manhal’s was on hackers. And Manhal had one this week about people who study or live abroad, then return and look down upon the Syrian lifestyle. Also those who project an image of being more cultured and more intelligent by wearing a beret or the Palestinian kefayieh, for example (I told him the same problem exists in the US too).
This week our conversation was interrupted by a university official pulling Manhal aside and telling him that it is not allowed to “make exchange” inside the language center, as if we were doing something illegal rather than enriching our education. Neither of us understood the reasoning behind it but we were forced outside anyway and we will have to find somewhere else to sit and talk. Also- how did they even know we were “making exchange” in the first place? Apparently Syrians and foreigners don’t usually mix.
--
In the evening I met up with a friend from class, Katherine. She is Canadian and studied International Development at McGill. She spent last semester studying the University of Jordan in Amman but changed to Damascus because she was not satisfied with the classes there. She’s been here for two months and invited me to go with her and a few friends to the Opera House for a concert that evening. I had already checked out the schedule since it is one of the few venues for music that isn’t a foreign cultural center and there is an Oriental Music Festival running this week which features lectures during the day and musical performances at night. This particular event consisted of a Syrian oud player and what was listed as Persian chants. We were both curious to know what Persian chants might mean and agreed to meet around 7:40 at the Opera House.
I woke up exhausted from a nap and dragged myself out of bed to go to the Opera House. There I met Katherine and her friend, who had organized the event and bought the tickets in advance. She met him at her gym and he is Syrian but has lived in France for the past 35 years and only moved back 3 months ago. Needless to say he is a bit older than us but actually very nice, and apparently spends a lot of time at the Opera House because it is the only thing worth seeing in Damascus, in his opinion. He came with another friend and the four of us spoke in fus’ha for the night, just for the sake of it.
The oud player dragged on a little bit but the Persian chanting turned out to be well worth the wait. It was performed by a duo dressed in traditional clothing—not the long black robes that we/I associate Iran with, but instead blue silk and red flowing robes with gold embrodiery that seemed more Pakistani/Hindi within my realm of cultural stereotypes. The duo was composed of a man who sang and played an instrument I don’t know the name of (tiny body, long skinny neck) and a woman who accompanied him with vocals and played a drum (round, about the size of her upper body, which she tossed in the air, it shook as it fell and she beat it with her hands). They were both incredibly talented and the music was beautiful. So much sound from such a small guitar! And so much music for about $6.
We all left thoroughly impressed and Katherine’s friend vowed to take us to see Arabic music so we wouldn’t think Iran was the only culture with good music. He also suggested going to the final event of the festival on Thursday night, which should feature several different groups from His friend dropped us all off at our respective homes and hurray for that.
Other moments from the weekend in Beirut that I forgot to mention
- On the drive there, stopping on the side of the road so the girl could jump out and bring a handful of snow to her mother to eat. They don’t have snow so much in Aleppo.
- My aunt’s mischevious grin every time I returned home after another attempt to leave, suggesting that maybe God is trying to tell me I should not return to Damascus but stay in Beirut. Then my mom later suggesting that she probably organized the roads being closed in order to keep me there.
- One of the women that I spoke to during the receiving condolences phase who told me she thought I was 15 or 16, on the eve of my 22nd birthday. Not since I was in Ghana have I been so wrongly accused of youth, when a woman in the market thought I was 12. Then again my 12 year-old Ghanaian sister did look older than me and it has been about 3 ½ years since then so apparently I am aging appropriately. The question of why a 12 year-old would ever travel to Ghana by herself never came up.
- Another conversation that I had with a woman—the whole time that we talked about my studies in Syria she thought I came to study “Aerobics.” Somehow the same questions still applied: “Why would you go to Syria to study?” “You know we have a good program for that in Lebanon.” “Is there a big difference in the way they teach it?” “What kind of exercises do you do?”
- The awkward pause in each conversation when a family member would explain to their friend that I am studying “Arabic Nahawiy” (aka fus’ha) after which I would realize they don’t actually know any fus’ha (one of the appeals of learning fus’ha in the first place is that you are supposed to be able to travel to any country in the Arab world and speak fus’ha, regardless of the dialect, because every Arab learns it in school. Except Lebanon, apparently, where the languages of education are English and French.)
- My aunt’s mischevious grin every time I returned home after another attempt to leave, suggesting that maybe God is trying to tell me I should not return to Damascus but stay in Beirut. Then my mom later suggesting that she probably organized the roads being closed in order to keep me there.
- One of the women that I spoke to during the receiving condolences phase who told me she thought I was 15 or 16, on the eve of my 22nd birthday. Not since I was in Ghana have I been so wrongly accused of youth, when a woman in the market thought I was 12. Then again my 12 year-old Ghanaian sister did look older than me and it has been about 3 ½ years since then so apparently I am aging appropriately. The question of why a 12 year-old would ever travel to Ghana by herself never came up.
- Another conversation that I had with a woman—the whole time that we talked about my studies in Syria she thought I came to study “Aerobics.” Somehow the same questions still applied: “Why would you go to Syria to study?” “You know we have a good program for that in Lebanon.” “Is there a big difference in the way they teach it?” “What kind of exercises do you do?”
- The awkward pause in each conversation when a family member would explain to their friend that I am studying “Arabic Nahawiy” (aka fus’ha) after which I would realize they don’t actually know any fus’ha (one of the appeals of learning fus’ha in the first place is that you are supposed to be able to travel to any country in the Arab world and speak fus’ha, regardless of the dialect, because every Arab learns it in school. Except Lebanon, apparently, where the languages of education are English and French.)
Hooray I made it back!
Every day this week has started out gray and cold (high 50s low 60s), turning into rain. Each morning I pack my raingear and double up on my layers, but by the time I get out of class the streets are wet but the sky is clearing and the weather has turned. The first week or so that I was here the weather was unseasonably warm, pushing upwards into the 70s and all I could think about was—if this February, what will June be like? So I am thankful for the cold, at least for now, because it means summer is still a ways away.
Though clearly winter here is very different from winter at home. So although the snow this past weekend changed my plans a little bit, it was a nice change of scenery to drive through snow-covered mountains on the way home and a good reminder that it is actually winter somewhere in the Middle East.
For all the worry and stress of closed roads and images of missing my midterm and failing my first class danced in my head, the ride home was fairly painless. The roads were cleared Sunday morning so Josyan called for a taxi to the house and I rode with Nilda to the station, who was on her way to church. Nilda is great—she has worked for Josyan and Eli for 18 years! She has grandchildren back in the Philippines and she tries to go back every 3 or 4 years, in time for the next kid’s graduation, as she said. But after a string of sketchy incidents involving deaths of Filipino maids that I didn’t fully understand, the Philippines banned issuing visas to Lebanon for the time being, meaning she can go home but then cannot return. She barely speaks any Arabic—one, because she doesn’t care to learn and two because the family speaks to her in English and she spends all day working in the house. Still she seems to have a relative amount of independence—I’m sure because she’s lived there for so long—and knows her way around town by bus, talks about seeing different parts of Lebanon on trips organized by her agency and watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies all day when Madame and Mister are on vacation….Of course my only basis for comparison is Ketes who has only been with my aunt Nagibe for a year or so and rarely leaves the house.
But back to the journey. I rode in the back of the car with a French couple, a little older than myself, who work at a French high school in Damascus and have been there for a year and a half. The roads were slushy and wet but not icy, so we made good time and I was back at the university by noon. The only issues we had on the way were at the border and once we arrived in Damascus.
At the border we went up to the immigration desk as usual and I noticed a woman’s wallet sitting on the counter, with no other women to be seen. I didn’t know what to do with it—was it safer with the immigration officer or to be left on the counter for someone to come back for? Or should I take it and figure out whose it is and return it to them? I opted for non-involvement and left it on the desk, unsure how honest the guards were and decided someone had to notice they lost their wallet and would soon return. We were almost through the border gate when someone came up to our car and said we had lost one of our bags. We opened the trunk and counted, no they are all here. Which one is the American? That’s me! So I soaked my feet in the slushy puddles on the way back to the immigration office and realized on the way that they thought the wallet was mine. The confusion was sorted out and I felt guilty for doubting their honesty in the first place.
Then once we arrived to Damascus, the driver stopped and explained his car wasn’t allowed within city limits so he would have to drop us on the outskirts and we should take a taxi. But he didn’t leave us somewhere convenient, like the Someria garage where I found my taxi to Beirut and which was just around the corner, he simply dropped us on the side of the highway. A taxi picked us up and asked us how much we paid to come from Beirut. $20, or 1000 Syrian Lira. And so we learned the real price, 600 lira. So the Syrians’ score on the honesty scale dropped a few points, or maybe taxi drivers deserve their own rating system. Then our sympathetic driver proceeded to ask for 300 lira to take the three of us into town, which we firmly refused. Within the city, during the day, taxis run on meters and the most I’ve ever paid is about 80 lira (for the car, not per person). We got out of the car and refused to ride with him and instead we found a driver for 150.
Back at the university, Hajer, my professor, ever easy-going, offered that I should take the test on Tuesday morning, since I had just arrived that day. Alhumdulillah all that worry was for nothing. She also told me that I hadn’t missed anything, they had spent most of the morning discussing/complaining about the midterm and reviewing homework and grammar. Since I didn’t have to take the test after school, I headed home.
I waited for a bus for maybe 20 minutes but they were all full, with crowds of people waiting for each bus and swooping in on them as soon as they pulled to the curb. I’m not much of a pusher and shover so I opted to go to the other side of the road and take a different bus that I’d never taken before, but had seen pass through Abassiyin Square (where I live). Unfortunately the bus dead-ended soon after I got on and I had to wait on a street corner with about 100 other people for the next one. I had never been to the part of town that this bus drove through, so just to be sure I marked the journey by checking (through the bus window that I was smushed up against) the city maps that are on every bus stop, with a convenient red arrow that says “Anta Huna” aka You Are Here. The arrow traveled south-east, swooping around the old city and back up to my neighborhood where I gladly returned to my room, dropped my bags and brushed my teeth.
--
Later, eating lunch in the tv room with the father, Philip, he told me, you are part of our family now and when are you gone, there is a big emptiness in the house.
Though clearly winter here is very different from winter at home. So although the snow this past weekend changed my plans a little bit, it was a nice change of scenery to drive through snow-covered mountains on the way home and a good reminder that it is actually winter somewhere in the Middle East.
For all the worry and stress of closed roads and images of missing my midterm and failing my first class danced in my head, the ride home was fairly painless. The roads were cleared Sunday morning so Josyan called for a taxi to the house and I rode with Nilda to the station, who was on her way to church. Nilda is great—she has worked for Josyan and Eli for 18 years! She has grandchildren back in the Philippines and she tries to go back every 3 or 4 years, in time for the next kid’s graduation, as she said. But after a string of sketchy incidents involving deaths of Filipino maids that I didn’t fully understand, the Philippines banned issuing visas to Lebanon for the time being, meaning she can go home but then cannot return. She barely speaks any Arabic—one, because she doesn’t care to learn and two because the family speaks to her in English and she spends all day working in the house. Still she seems to have a relative amount of independence—I’m sure because she’s lived there for so long—and knows her way around town by bus, talks about seeing different parts of Lebanon on trips organized by her agency and watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies all day when Madame and Mister are on vacation….Of course my only basis for comparison is Ketes who has only been with my aunt Nagibe for a year or so and rarely leaves the house.
But back to the journey. I rode in the back of the car with a French couple, a little older than myself, who work at a French high school in Damascus and have been there for a year and a half. The roads were slushy and wet but not icy, so we made good time and I was back at the university by noon. The only issues we had on the way were at the border and once we arrived in Damascus.
At the border we went up to the immigration desk as usual and I noticed a woman’s wallet sitting on the counter, with no other women to be seen. I didn’t know what to do with it—was it safer with the immigration officer or to be left on the counter for someone to come back for? Or should I take it and figure out whose it is and return it to them? I opted for non-involvement and left it on the desk, unsure how honest the guards were and decided someone had to notice they lost their wallet and would soon return. We were almost through the border gate when someone came up to our car and said we had lost one of our bags. We opened the trunk and counted, no they are all here. Which one is the American? That’s me! So I soaked my feet in the slushy puddles on the way back to the immigration office and realized on the way that they thought the wallet was mine. The confusion was sorted out and I felt guilty for doubting their honesty in the first place.
Then once we arrived to Damascus, the driver stopped and explained his car wasn’t allowed within city limits so he would have to drop us on the outskirts and we should take a taxi. But he didn’t leave us somewhere convenient, like the Someria garage where I found my taxi to Beirut and which was just around the corner, he simply dropped us on the side of the highway. A taxi picked us up and asked us how much we paid to come from Beirut. $20, or 1000 Syrian Lira. And so we learned the real price, 600 lira. So the Syrians’ score on the honesty scale dropped a few points, or maybe taxi drivers deserve their own rating system. Then our sympathetic driver proceeded to ask for 300 lira to take the three of us into town, which we firmly refused. Within the city, during the day, taxis run on meters and the most I’ve ever paid is about 80 lira (for the car, not per person). We got out of the car and refused to ride with him and instead we found a driver for 150.
Back at the university, Hajer, my professor, ever easy-going, offered that I should take the test on Tuesday morning, since I had just arrived that day. Alhumdulillah all that worry was for nothing. She also told me that I hadn’t missed anything, they had spent most of the morning discussing/complaining about the midterm and reviewing homework and grammar. Since I didn’t have to take the test after school, I headed home.
I waited for a bus for maybe 20 minutes but they were all full, with crowds of people waiting for each bus and swooping in on them as soon as they pulled to the curb. I’m not much of a pusher and shover so I opted to go to the other side of the road and take a different bus that I’d never taken before, but had seen pass through Abassiyin Square (where I live). Unfortunately the bus dead-ended soon after I got on and I had to wait on a street corner with about 100 other people for the next one. I had never been to the part of town that this bus drove through, so just to be sure I marked the journey by checking (through the bus window that I was smushed up against) the city maps that are on every bus stop, with a convenient red arrow that says “Anta Huna” aka You Are Here. The arrow traveled south-east, swooping around the old city and back up to my neighborhood where I gladly returned to my room, dropped my bags and brushed my teeth.
--
Later, eating lunch in the tv room with the father, Philip, he told me, you are part of our family now and when are you gone, there is a big emptiness in the house.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Trapped!
Originally I had planned to stay for the funeral on Thursday and return to Damascus Friday afternoon, in order to be back in time to study for my make-up midterm on Sunday. But it is now Saturday evening after midnight and I am still in Beirut. Why? Good question.
For two days after the funeral the family receives condolences at their house. They had published a news release in the papers to notify the public about the death of their family member and as people see it, outside of the immediate friends/family circle, they come to the house from about 11-7, sitting chatting drinking coffee etc etc. It doesn't sound intense but it is still somehow exhauusting. I found that the conversations were easier to follow and so I honed my skills in the Lebanese dialect for following the usual greetings- howarethekids-howisyourhealth-howisyourwork-lookatthisweather! train of thought.
In the afternoon, after lunch (catered rice pilaf with white fish, big salad, roasted vegetables and beef, stuffed grape leaves zucchini and eggplant) and a lot of guilting from the rellys about leaving so soon, I decided I could wait another day to return to Damascus. If I left early in the morning, I could still make it back in time to study in the afternoon and enjoy some more time with the family. Plus the weather forecast was more snow for the mountains and leaving late in the day is a little risky.
After a few more hours of receiving condolences, I escaped for a bit to see how my aunt Nagibe was doing, as she was not feeling well earlier and was resting in her room. I found her watching Turkish soap operas so I gladly sat next to her on her bed and joined in, only to emerge, alas, when all the guests had disappeared.
Dinner was vegetable soup, salad, fruit for dessert and such...and then I said my goodbyes, returned with my bags to Josyan's house, and set my alarm to wake up early and pack and head out.
But of course for the first time this year, the roads to Damascus were closed. I don't know if there was any other way I could have gone, perhaps via a different city, but amidst family apprehension I agreed to go back to Nagibe's house and wait a few hours to see if it cleared. So back with my bags to another day of condolences and condolences, though this time I learned my lesson and broke it up a bit. After a breakfast that we picked up on the way of kenafeh (different from what we make at home, and for breakfast?), a sesame seed roll toasted and stuffed with either cheese or cream and drizzled with sweet syrup, I went with Nilda and Ramez to buy groceries, then sat in the kitchen and helped prepare fruit salad. Before lunchtime, I asked again about leaving, and though the roads still seemed to be closed, I didn't trust that there wasn't an alternative route or taxis with snow chains or something. So I ate a quick lunch and went with Ramez to the taxi station. There were zero taxis there. I didn't quite understand if there were no taxis at all today, or if there had been some in the morning and they left early because of the snow, but either way it was clear I had to return to the house and spend another day.
I was worried about my midterm, because the university made it very clear that this is a special case to get it moved and I didn't want to have to ask for another date change. There are very few grades in the month-long course, and though I don't care what my final grade is, there is no way I want to fail it and have to retake the same level next time. I don't know how it will turn out, but at the very least I hope to make it back tomorrow in time to find my teacher, explain to her what happened, and still take the exam in the afternoon. However apparently the roads stay closed til 10 am, which leaves no time for error or delays, if I want to be at the university by 1. [The other reason I really need to go back- I forgot my toothbrush! It's been terrible for everyone involved.]
But I can't do anything about it and in the end it turned out to be a good thing that I stayed another day. After a few days of being overwhelmed by familyness combined with formalities and on top of my own lack of communication, I finally began to feel a little more comfortable as part of the family. Also, I got to talk to my parents via the videochat and used my laptop to bring them around to the whole family so they could talk to each person. It was a living MacBook commercial.
Then a nice long dinner with spicy vegetable soup, salad and cheese (5 kinds, including pesto cheese!) and then goodbyes, for the third time in two days.
And oh yeah, it was my birthday today :) A strange 22nd birthday, but I suppose it was better than spending it studying. Also I learned I have the same birthday as my great uncle Antonio, though he is 58 years older. And Nagibe's birthday was 2 days ago, my grandmother's would be tomorrow, and Sr Agnes a few days after that.
--
Inshallah when I write again I will have made it back to Damascus.
For two days after the funeral the family receives condolences at their house. They had published a news release in the papers to notify the public about the death of their family member and as people see it, outside of the immediate friends/family circle, they come to the house from about 11-7, sitting chatting drinking coffee etc etc. It doesn't sound intense but it is still somehow exhauusting. I found that the conversations were easier to follow and so I honed my skills in the Lebanese dialect for following the usual greetings- howarethekids-howisyourhealth-howisyourwork-lookatthisweather! train of thought.
In the afternoon, after lunch (catered rice pilaf with white fish, big salad, roasted vegetables and beef, stuffed grape leaves zucchini and eggplant) and a lot of guilting from the rellys about leaving so soon, I decided I could wait another day to return to Damascus. If I left early in the morning, I could still make it back in time to study in the afternoon and enjoy some more time with the family. Plus the weather forecast was more snow for the mountains and leaving late in the day is a little risky.
After a few more hours of receiving condolences, I escaped for a bit to see how my aunt Nagibe was doing, as she was not feeling well earlier and was resting in her room. I found her watching Turkish soap operas so I gladly sat next to her on her bed and joined in, only to emerge, alas, when all the guests had disappeared.
Dinner was vegetable soup, salad, fruit for dessert and such...and then I said my goodbyes, returned with my bags to Josyan's house, and set my alarm to wake up early and pack and head out.
But of course for the first time this year, the roads to Damascus were closed. I don't know if there was any other way I could have gone, perhaps via a different city, but amidst family apprehension I agreed to go back to Nagibe's house and wait a few hours to see if it cleared. So back with my bags to another day of condolences and condolences, though this time I learned my lesson and broke it up a bit. After a breakfast that we picked up on the way of kenafeh (different from what we make at home, and for breakfast?), a sesame seed roll toasted and stuffed with either cheese or cream and drizzled with sweet syrup, I went with Nilda and Ramez to buy groceries, then sat in the kitchen and helped prepare fruit salad. Before lunchtime, I asked again about leaving, and though the roads still seemed to be closed, I didn't trust that there wasn't an alternative route or taxis with snow chains or something. So I ate a quick lunch and went with Ramez to the taxi station. There were zero taxis there. I didn't quite understand if there were no taxis at all today, or if there had been some in the morning and they left early because of the snow, but either way it was clear I had to return to the house and spend another day.
I was worried about my midterm, because the university made it very clear that this is a special case to get it moved and I didn't want to have to ask for another date change. There are very few grades in the month-long course, and though I don't care what my final grade is, there is no way I want to fail it and have to retake the same level next time. I don't know how it will turn out, but at the very least I hope to make it back tomorrow in time to find my teacher, explain to her what happened, and still take the exam in the afternoon. However apparently the roads stay closed til 10 am, which leaves no time for error or delays, if I want to be at the university by 1. [The other reason I really need to go back- I forgot my toothbrush! It's been terrible for everyone involved.]
But I can't do anything about it and in the end it turned out to be a good thing that I stayed another day. After a few days of being overwhelmed by familyness combined with formalities and on top of my own lack of communication, I finally began to feel a little more comfortable as part of the family. Also, I got to talk to my parents via the videochat and used my laptop to bring them around to the whole family so they could talk to each person. It was a living MacBook commercial.
Then a nice long dinner with spicy vegetable soup, salad and cheese (5 kinds, including pesto cheese!) and then goodbyes, for the third time in two days.
And oh yeah, it was my birthday today :) A strange 22nd birthday, but I suppose it was better than spending it studying. Also I learned I have the same birthday as my great uncle Antonio, though he is 58 years older. And Nagibe's birthday was 2 days ago, my grandmother's would be tomorrow, and Sr Agnes a few days after that.
--
Inshallah when I write again I will have made it back to Damascus.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Beirut on short notice
Wednesday morning my cousin Chantal called me in the middle of class to share the sad news that my great aunt Sr Agnes had passed away the night before. She had spent a week in the hospital fighting a kidney infection but the antibiotics strong enough to put her in a coma, they were not enough to keep out the infection and so she passed away. She was 86 years old and the eldest of ten children in my grandmother's family (Nagibe is the second and my grandmother was the third). I am lucky to be so nearby that I could make it to Beirut on the same day, especially since my other great-aunt Sr Augustine (sister of my grandfather) passed away 2 weeks ago and I didn't find out in time to make it back for the funeral.
I spoke with my teacher during our break and asked if I could be excused from our midterm the following day. We went to ask the director of the university but were turned away-- no changing of the dates! I explained to Hajer, my teacher, the situation and why I wanted to go, and she went back to plead for my case. She convinced the director in the end and so after class was over at 1 I went back to the house to pack and go to Beirut.
After a yummy lunch of stuffed grape leaves, spinach pies and muhammara I packed a bag of black dresses and took a bus to the Beirut station. It turns out it was back across town, past the university, in the far western reaches of the city where I had not been before. I found a driver headed for Beirut and sat in the car waiting for it to fill. Two other men came to the car and we sat drinking tea while we waited. Within half an hour, a mother and her daughter joined us and the six of us squished into an old Mercedes Benz. The women were from Aleppo and though its the same country their Arabic was very different from what I was used to hearing in Damascus and Lebanon. The daughter was only 15 but she acted much older, arguing with the men to make them change seats so she could sit by a window (her mom refused to switch), bartering for cigarettes, yelling at her mother, etc.
It took us a little while to leave Syria, as we stopped along the way for permits, coffee and cigarette breaks (at the gas station! not the best place for smoking), Coke, nuts and raisins (bought by the mom and daughter, shared with all, shells littering the backseat). It was actually a pretty fun car ride--Syrians can make friends with just about anyone and they act as if they've know each other for years, making easy conversation, sharing snacks, sitting comfortably in close quarters.
Chantal had warned me to leave as early as possible because snow was forecasted for the evening, and once we reached the Anti-Lebanon mountains and crossed into Lebanon there was snow on the sides of the roads, but none on the road itself. The driver dropped off the passengers along the way and I was the last stop, so I arrived at the house of my aunt Nagibe by 7 pm (maybe 3 1/2 hours or less after leaving).
The door was open so I walked in and found the sitting room full of strange faces. It was only the day after Sr Agnes had died, so everyone was still very much in mourning but my arrival was mixed with happiness as well. My great uncles Antonio (whom I hadn't met before, #4 in the family) and Henri (whom I had met a few years ago at a family reunion in Mexico, #5) had come from Venezuela, where they live with their families, when Sr Agnes was still in the hospital and were staying at the house for the week.
I sat with the family and their friends for a while and then was ushered into the kitchen to have something to eat. Georgette, Sr Agnes' live-in assistant (she literally slept on the couch in her room every night and did everything for her for the past 2 years), was there with Kedes and Nilda (Josyan's Philippino housekeeper) preparing coffee for the guests and when she saw me she came and hugged me for several minutes, weeping into my chest.
People stayed at the house for a few hours and then after 10 pm I went home with Josyan, Eli and Nilda, since my uncles were staying with Chantal and Nagibe. I had a second dinner with them, and then sleep and up early the next morning.
--
We left for the hospital around 9 am so the family could say good-bye to Sr Agnes before she was put in the coffin. The hospital that she died in is run by the nuns in her convent, so they had a special ceremony for her. We went to the morgue on the first floor where she was laid out on a table, dressed in her habit with her hands crossed over a rosary, and nuns, family and friends crowded around to sing together. The room was full of prayers, tears and incense and afterwards people went up to say their last words to Sr Agnes.
We waited outside while she was transferred to the coffin and then climbed into cars to follow the hearst to the church, winding up the mountain roads to Batroun. In the church, there was a brief service in the chapel with the small group who was in the hospital, then everyone filed out to the reception room in the main hall, for receiving condolences. This meant sitting in a long room with couches and armchairs lining the walls, with people coming throughout the day to share in the grieving with the family. It involved a lot of black fur coats, prada/chanel/lv handbags, big hair, manicured nails and sitting, standing, greeting, sitting, small talk, coffee, standing, saying good-bye, sitting, eavesdropping/practicing my Arabic listening skills, dozing, small talk, and so on and so forth. There was also a big lunch around 1 with two long tables forming a T and one long table filled with food : green salad, rice pilaf with chicken, kibbe, hummus, bread, cheeses, spinach pies, mini-pizzas and zaatars, beef, roasted vegetables, potatoes, and fruit for dessert.
Then back to the r'ing c's until a mass at 3. It was different from funerals that I've been to as no one from the family stood up to say anything or share stories, it was only readings from the Bible (in formal Arabic, though I still couldn't understand it) and such. The altar had rows of priests and bishops on either side and the whole left side of the chapel was filled with nuns.
Then r.c. again until leaving at 6. Before we left, every person in the room lined up to say goodbye and the line was out the door for about 20 minutes.
I left with Eli, Josyan and Uncle Antoun, and we stopped on the way to buy kaek (no not cake, as I thought it might be), a thin crispy hollow ball of bread which you eat with zaatar, and so we did on the car ride home.
Then dinner with the family at Nagibe's house. It was a nice break to have some time alone with everyone after being surrounded by strangers (to me anyway) all day. Still, it was frustrating not to be able to speak easily with family you never see, or have never even met. My uncles speak French, Spanish and Arabic, still I cannot even carry on a conversation with them. All weekend I have been constantly reminded that I should have studied French! instead of Arabic. What good does fus'ha do me now?
I spoke with my teacher during our break and asked if I could be excused from our midterm the following day. We went to ask the director of the university but were turned away-- no changing of the dates! I explained to Hajer, my teacher, the situation and why I wanted to go, and she went back to plead for my case. She convinced the director in the end and so after class was over at 1 I went back to the house to pack and go to Beirut.
After a yummy lunch of stuffed grape leaves, spinach pies and muhammara I packed a bag of black dresses and took a bus to the Beirut station. It turns out it was back across town, past the university, in the far western reaches of the city where I had not been before. I found a driver headed for Beirut and sat in the car waiting for it to fill. Two other men came to the car and we sat drinking tea while we waited. Within half an hour, a mother and her daughter joined us and the six of us squished into an old Mercedes Benz. The women were from Aleppo and though its the same country their Arabic was very different from what I was used to hearing in Damascus and Lebanon. The daughter was only 15 but she acted much older, arguing with the men to make them change seats so she could sit by a window (her mom refused to switch), bartering for cigarettes, yelling at her mother, etc.
It took us a little while to leave Syria, as we stopped along the way for permits, coffee and cigarette breaks (at the gas station! not the best place for smoking), Coke, nuts and raisins (bought by the mom and daughter, shared with all, shells littering the backseat). It was actually a pretty fun car ride--Syrians can make friends with just about anyone and they act as if they've know each other for years, making easy conversation, sharing snacks, sitting comfortably in close quarters.
Chantal had warned me to leave as early as possible because snow was forecasted for the evening, and once we reached the Anti-Lebanon mountains and crossed into Lebanon there was snow on the sides of the roads, but none on the road itself. The driver dropped off the passengers along the way and I was the last stop, so I arrived at the house of my aunt Nagibe by 7 pm (maybe 3 1/2 hours or less after leaving).
The door was open so I walked in and found the sitting room full of strange faces. It was only the day after Sr Agnes had died, so everyone was still very much in mourning but my arrival was mixed with happiness as well. My great uncles Antonio (whom I hadn't met before, #4 in the family) and Henri (whom I had met a few years ago at a family reunion in Mexico, #5) had come from Venezuela, where they live with their families, when Sr Agnes was still in the hospital and were staying at the house for the week.
I sat with the family and their friends for a while and then was ushered into the kitchen to have something to eat. Georgette, Sr Agnes' live-in assistant (she literally slept on the couch in her room every night and did everything for her for the past 2 years), was there with Kedes and Nilda (Josyan's Philippino housekeeper) preparing coffee for the guests and when she saw me she came and hugged me for several minutes, weeping into my chest.
People stayed at the house for a few hours and then after 10 pm I went home with Josyan, Eli and Nilda, since my uncles were staying with Chantal and Nagibe. I had a second dinner with them, and then sleep and up early the next morning.
--
We left for the hospital around 9 am so the family could say good-bye to Sr Agnes before she was put in the coffin. The hospital that she died in is run by the nuns in her convent, so they had a special ceremony for her. We went to the morgue on the first floor where she was laid out on a table, dressed in her habit with her hands crossed over a rosary, and nuns, family and friends crowded around to sing together. The room was full of prayers, tears and incense and afterwards people went up to say their last words to Sr Agnes.
We waited outside while she was transferred to the coffin and then climbed into cars to follow the hearst to the church, winding up the mountain roads to Batroun. In the church, there was a brief service in the chapel with the small group who was in the hospital, then everyone filed out to the reception room in the main hall, for receiving condolences. This meant sitting in a long room with couches and armchairs lining the walls, with people coming throughout the day to share in the grieving with the family. It involved a lot of black fur coats, prada/chanel/lv handbags, big hair, manicured nails and sitting, standing, greeting, sitting, small talk, coffee, standing, saying good-bye, sitting, eavesdropping/practicing my Arabic listening skills, dozing, small talk, and so on and so forth. There was also a big lunch around 1 with two long tables forming a T and one long table filled with food : green salad, rice pilaf with chicken, kibbe, hummus, bread, cheeses, spinach pies, mini-pizzas and zaatars, beef, roasted vegetables, potatoes, and fruit for dessert.
Then back to the r'ing c's until a mass at 3. It was different from funerals that I've been to as no one from the family stood up to say anything or share stories, it was only readings from the Bible (in formal Arabic, though I still couldn't understand it) and such. The altar had rows of priests and bishops on either side and the whole left side of the chapel was filled with nuns.
Then r.c. again until leaving at 6. Before we left, every person in the room lined up to say goodbye and the line was out the door for about 20 minutes.
I left with Eli, Josyan and Uncle Antoun, and we stopped on the way to buy kaek (no not cake, as I thought it might be), a thin crispy hollow ball of bread which you eat with zaatar, and so we did on the car ride home.
Then dinner with the family at Nagibe's house. It was a nice break to have some time alone with everyone after being surrounded by strangers (to me anyway) all day. Still, it was frustrating not to be able to speak easily with family you never see, or have never even met. My uncles speak French, Spanish and Arabic, still I cannot even carry on a conversation with them. All weekend I have been constantly reminded that I should have studied French! instead of Arabic. What good does fus'ha do me now?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Recipe: Kibbe-djaaj
Saturday I spent the morning studying, doing laundry, etc. For lunch, we had fool bi-labneh (fava beans in a yogurt-tahini sauce with chopped parsley and tomatoes), fool bi-khadr (fava beans mixed with tabbouleh), hummus (though they call it something different here), pickled vegetables (green peppers, beets, carrots, cauliflower), scooped up in fresh flatbread and shoved dripping into your mouth. Next time I will learn to make it … recipe forthcoming. It was almost the same meal I had at the restaurant a few days ago, but all the more delicious, reminding me that I’m not really missing out on much by eating all my meals at home.
In the afternoon, since I had asked Laila to teach me new recipes and she promised to do so, she called me in to show me how to make a chicken recipe (kibbe-djaaj).
2 kilo chicken breast, in small pieces
2 potatoes, baked and blended (in small long pieces, I don’t know how she prepared this, with some machine.)
mix chicken, bread crumbs, potatoes, salt, black and white pepper, cinnamon, paprika. Knead, adding water, til homogenous and soft.
Saute chopped onions and mushrooms in vegetable oil; when finished, add butter.
Spread ½ chicken mixture in bottom of oiled pan
Put onion mixture in the middle, then cover with a layer of grated Bulgarian cheese (ashowan). Add the other half of the chicken, spread flat on top (prepared like kibbe).
Refrigerate until ready to bake.
Around 6 we went to their neighbor’s for tea, the Finnish couple that I met on my first evening here. I learned that the apartment that they live in used to be part of our house, the two oldest sons (Oubai and Ihab) lived there when all the sons were home—the connecting door is now covered up with a wall. It is small but homey and peaceful. I also learned that the husband works as a pediatrician in a clinic run by the church that both families attend. The clinic serves the public but in particular Iraqi refugees and in addition to the clinic, there is also a center where both Laila and Ingvar go to teach the women different skills.
Ingvar made a sandwich cake, which I had never seen before. She baked white bread, layered with pickles and smoked ham, frosted with labneh-mayo and decorated with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. Also cinnamon buns!
They told us a lot about their life in Finland, how university is free for both Fins and foreigners, how the husband has been to 35-ish countries in Europe travelling for a week or two at a time to provide medical aid. They have 3 daughters, one of which I met last week when she was visiting, and also one foster daughter who lived with them for 10 years because her parents both had mental disabilities and couldn’t take care of her. They explained how they came to the decision to take her in—how happy and complete their life was with their three daughters and how they decided you can’t learn about love until you challenge your comfortable existence by bringing someone else in need into your life. And how when they were deciding if they should have Maria live with them or not, the mom was listening to religious programming on the radio and the speaker quoted from the Bible “Don’t be afraid to let Maria into your life,” and how the following day the same quote came up in her reading…i.e. they felt that God was speaking to them and asking them to take her into their family, even though it resulted in a lot of emotional stress on their family, particularly on their own daughters. And how now Maria is married, happy, spending time with her biological mother, getting to know her and coming to terms with her own difficult childhood.
But most of all what I took from their stories and photos was how much I want to see Northern Europe! 1000s of islands in Finland’s archipelago alone, plus 177,000 lakes or something ridiculous like that. And then there’s Sweden, Norway, Denmark just a few hours away. Next trip—next summer.
In the afternoon, since I had asked Laila to teach me new recipes and she promised to do so, she called me in to show me how to make a chicken recipe (kibbe-djaaj).
2 kilo chicken breast, in small pieces
2 potatoes, baked and blended (in small long pieces, I don’t know how she prepared this, with some machine.)
mix chicken, bread crumbs, potatoes, salt, black and white pepper, cinnamon, paprika. Knead, adding water, til homogenous and soft.
Saute chopped onions and mushrooms in vegetable oil; when finished, add butter.
Spread ½ chicken mixture in bottom of oiled pan
Put onion mixture in the middle, then cover with a layer of grated Bulgarian cheese (ashowan). Add the other half of the chicken, spread flat on top (prepared like kibbe).
Refrigerate until ready to bake.
Around 6 we went to their neighbor’s for tea, the Finnish couple that I met on my first evening here. I learned that the apartment that they live in used to be part of our house, the two oldest sons (Oubai and Ihab) lived there when all the sons were home—the connecting door is now covered up with a wall. It is small but homey and peaceful. I also learned that the husband works as a pediatrician in a clinic run by the church that both families attend. The clinic serves the public but in particular Iraqi refugees and in addition to the clinic, there is also a center where both Laila and Ingvar go to teach the women different skills.
Ingvar made a sandwich cake, which I had never seen before. She baked white bread, layered with pickles and smoked ham, frosted with labneh-mayo and decorated with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. Also cinnamon buns!
They told us a lot about their life in Finland, how university is free for both Fins and foreigners, how the husband has been to 35-ish countries in Europe travelling for a week or two at a time to provide medical aid. They have 3 daughters, one of which I met last week when she was visiting, and also one foster daughter who lived with them for 10 years because her parents both had mental disabilities and couldn’t take care of her. They explained how they came to the decision to take her in—how happy and complete their life was with their three daughters and how they decided you can’t learn about love until you challenge your comfortable existence by bringing someone else in need into your life. And how when they were deciding if they should have Maria live with them or not, the mom was listening to religious programming on the radio and the speaker quoted from the Bible “Don’t be afraid to let Maria into your life,” and how the following day the same quote came up in her reading…i.e. they felt that God was speaking to them and asking them to take her into their family, even though it resulted in a lot of emotional stress on their family, particularly on their own daughters. And how now Maria is married, happy, spending time with her biological mother, getting to know her and coming to terms with her own difficult childhood.
But most of all what I took from their stories and photos was how much I want to see Northern Europe! 1000s of islands in Finland’s archipelago alone, plus 177,000 lakes or something ridiculous like that. And then there’s Sweden, Norway, Denmark just a few hours away. Next trip—next summer.
Yoga fii Dimashq
The rumors are true! Yoga does exist in Damascus. Friday I went to a 2 hour class in the evening—I had mentioned to a friend that it would be great if there was yoga here because I would actually have the time to keep up with it, and the next day he texted me to saying he saw an ad for a yoga class this weekend. I called the number and found out that it was the last of four consecutive sessions with this instructor who was only in town visiting family for the week, but I could join the class anyway. The woman who answered the phone gave me directions to the location, and it took me about 40 minutes to walk there from my house.
The class was hosted in a dance studio in the lower level of a hospital called “Mommy and Me.” I had never taken a yoga class for more than an hour before, so I was worried it would be too intense, but this class turned out to be a mix of physical exercises and relaxation exercises, in addition to an introduction to yoga philosophy. The teacher, Ashwani, was Indian and from a school of yoga (whose name I can't remember) and spent time at the beginning and end of class discussing the basic philosophy behind the practice (uniting mind, body and spirit; stopping the mental waves in order to reach a state of nothingness/bliss/the present moment by following the 5 basic principles of proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet, positive thinking/meditation). The other classes I’ve taken have been power yoga, which focus on the workout and moving through the exercises quickly to keep up your heart rate, so although the philosophy was oversimplified and I don’t agree with a lot of it, I liked the pace of the class and its focus on learning the individual exercises.
After the class was over, I asked the woman at the desk if there are more yoga classes, since this teacher is leaving. She told me that there are classes 4 times a week! This is the first week they’ve had them and there is one class Sunday/Tuesday in the afternoon and another Monday/Wednesday when I am in school. The class I took was $60 for 4 2-hour classes, so I paid $15 for one class. These classes are 1 ½ hours and cost $40 for 8 sessions. Hopefully the teachers are good.
--
When I returned home around 9 after walking back, we had dinner with Laila’s nephew, who was visiting with his wife and 10 month-old son. Laila made tabbouleh and they ordered shawarma sandwiches with tum (garlic paste) and pickled vegetables, and we sat eating and playing with their 10 month-old son, Aram. Children are well-loved in Syrian culture and they are always dressed as well as any adult. One of the other students in my class is 25 and lives here with her husband and 2 year-old son—in class she often asks the teacher how to say things to her son so she can scold him in Arabic. I asked her if her son is happy here and she said he loves it because people give children much more attention than in Germany and he is in day care while she and her husband are in class. And they have been here for almost a year!
The class was hosted in a dance studio in the lower level of a hospital called “Mommy and Me.” I had never taken a yoga class for more than an hour before, so I was worried it would be too intense, but this class turned out to be a mix of physical exercises and relaxation exercises, in addition to an introduction to yoga philosophy. The teacher, Ashwani, was Indian and from a school of yoga (whose name I can't remember) and spent time at the beginning and end of class discussing the basic philosophy behind the practice (uniting mind, body and spirit; stopping the mental waves in order to reach a state of nothingness/bliss/the present moment by following the 5 basic principles of proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet, positive thinking/meditation). The other classes I’ve taken have been power yoga, which focus on the workout and moving through the exercises quickly to keep up your heart rate, so although the philosophy was oversimplified and I don’t agree with a lot of it, I liked the pace of the class and its focus on learning the individual exercises.
After the class was over, I asked the woman at the desk if there are more yoga classes, since this teacher is leaving. She told me that there are classes 4 times a week! This is the first week they’ve had them and there is one class Sunday/Tuesday in the afternoon and another Monday/Wednesday when I am in school. The class I took was $60 for 4 2-hour classes, so I paid $15 for one class. These classes are 1 ½ hours and cost $40 for 8 sessions. Hopefully the teachers are good.
--
When I returned home around 9 after walking back, we had dinner with Laila’s nephew, who was visiting with his wife and 10 month-old son. Laila made tabbouleh and they ordered shawarma sandwiches with tum (garlic paste) and pickled vegetables, and we sat eating and playing with their 10 month-old son, Aram. Children are well-loved in Syrian culture and they are always dressed as well as any adult. One of the other students in my class is 25 and lives here with her husband and 2 year-old son—in class she often asks the teacher how to say things to her son so she can scold him in Arabic. I asked her if her son is happy here and she said he loves it because people give children much more attention than in Germany and he is in day care while she and her husband are in class. And they have been here for almost a year!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Recipe: Makdoos
One of my favorite foods here so far, which I had never had before, is makdoos. I asked Laila for the recipe and it is as follows (or as much as I could understand from arabic and hand gestures):
small eggplants (maybe they are babies? she said they are only in season here in Nov/Dec but when she visited her son in MD she found them at a Korean market), they are short, fat, and purple.
cut off the top, then slice open (vertically). wash in hot water, soak them until they are soft, then move into cold water. salt them.
place top (open side) down into a colander, covered, and with a heavy weight on them to drain the liquid. leave for 24 hours.
chop walnuts, mix with minced red peppers and garlic.
when the eggplants are done, stuff with walnut mixture.
leave for another 24 hours.
store in oil at room temperature (if you make extra you can keep them in the freezer and add them to the jarful of oil as you consume).
--
Overall, I have been so lucky with the food in my house. Every time Laila makes something new, her husband, Philip, says "This is how your grand-grand-grandmother made food!"
On the one hand, it would be fun to have to shop for myself in the markets and buy food, trying out new ingredients and being forced to find new recipes. On the other hand, I get 3 homecooked meals a day, just as my grand-grand-grandmother would have made it, (what does Michael Pollan say? Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize? I win!) and after hearing a little bit about a student's life in Damascus, it makes me all the more grateful for my situation. For example, the Australian student in my class, Jack, told me he eats tuna and pasta every night for dinner. He also pays about $150 a month for renting a room, though I don't know in what conditions. So there are extremes. I also overheard on the bus one woman talking about looking for rooms to rent and seeing one where 7 students share an apartment with one toilet.
small eggplants (maybe they are babies? she said they are only in season here in Nov/Dec but when she visited her son in MD she found them at a Korean market), they are short, fat, and purple.
cut off the top, then slice open (vertically). wash in hot water, soak them until they are soft, then move into cold water. salt them.
place top (open side) down into a colander, covered, and with a heavy weight on them to drain the liquid. leave for 24 hours.
chop walnuts, mix with minced red peppers and garlic.
when the eggplants are done, stuff with walnut mixture.
leave for another 24 hours.
store in oil at room temperature (if you make extra you can keep them in the freezer and add them to the jarful of oil as you consume).
--
Overall, I have been so lucky with the food in my house. Every time Laila makes something new, her husband, Philip, says "This is how your grand-grand-grandmother made food!"
On the one hand, it would be fun to have to shop for myself in the markets and buy food, trying out new ingredients and being forced to find new recipes. On the other hand, I get 3 homecooked meals a day, just as my grand-grand-grandmother would have made it, (what does Michael Pollan say? Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize? I win!) and after hearing a little bit about a student's life in Damascus, it makes me all the more grateful for my situation. For example, the Australian student in my class, Jack, told me he eats tuna and pasta every night for dinner. He also pays about $150 a month for renting a room, though I don't know in what conditions. So there are extremes. I also overheard on the bus one woman talking about looking for rooms to rent and seeing one where 7 students share an apartment with one toilet.
Back to the present
And today, finally we arrive to the present moment. Today (Thursday) I wanted to find the British Council, where there should be a good library with the ever-elusive English books. It was, according to LP, unfortunately close to the US embassy and American cultural center, which is now, in my opinion, a black hole for directions and finding one’s way. The area is filled with embassies and cultural centers, though today not one of them was the one I was looking for. I walked mostly in circles for almost 2 ½ hours—first it was my fault for taking the wrong road and then misreading the map, then it was LP’s fault for being outdated and sending me to the wrong building, now owned by the Turkish embassy, then it was up to fate to put me back on the right track. A man stopped to offer me help, though he sent me on as much of a goose-chase as anyone else, and seemed to have short-term memory problems, repeating himself several times in one sentence and telling me how the BC closed, is owned by another embassy, how this is where the US embassy and where did I want to go again? And where was it on the map? And this is the way to the UK embassy. And maybe it is here. And where did I want to go? And what did the map say? And here is the US embassy. And this is the way to the UK Embassy. And so on…
So I walked to the UK embassy, where the BC most certainly was not, and they sent me back in the other direction, where I asked for more directions, walked in more circles, and eventually found my destination, uncomfortably close to where I had been just hours before. I hadn’t thought the trek would be so lengthy, so I had opted to wait for lunch until I returned home, and my blood sugar was running low. The BC was just as nice as the FCC, similarly putting the Americans to shame, though with less working space and still inconvenient to the house. For now, I think I am done exploring that part of town.
[side note: when this post was written it was in the present, though now it's Friday morning and alas. plans for today? studies, lunch, trying to figure out where I can find yoga in dimashq. it does exist! there was an ad posted, and there is a 2 hour class this evening (also a 1 hour class this morning at 8am that I slept through). I've never done yoga for 2 hours, but we shall see. the bad news is its back in Abu Romana, the black hole from whence I came, yesterday.]
So I walked to the UK embassy, where the BC most certainly was not, and they sent me back in the other direction, where I asked for more directions, walked in more circles, and eventually found my destination, uncomfortably close to where I had been just hours before. I hadn’t thought the trek would be so lengthy, so I had opted to wait for lunch until I returned home, and my blood sugar was running low. The BC was just as nice as the FCC, similarly putting the Americans to shame, though with less working space and still inconvenient to the house. For now, I think I am done exploring that part of town.
[side note: when this post was written it was in the present, though now it's Friday morning and alas. plans for today? studies, lunch, trying to figure out where I can find yoga in dimashq. it does exist! there was an ad posted, and there is a 2 hour class this evening (also a 1 hour class this morning at 8am that I slept through). I've never done yoga for 2 hours, but we shall see. the bad news is its back in Abu Romana, the black hole from whence I came, yesterday.]
Work and Play
The next day was rain, the first day of rain here since I arrived, for which I was completely unprepared, so I vetoed my plans to find the British Council and cultural center and instead went straight home to take a nap. Wednesday it was sunny again, but this time after class finished, I had to go to the Office of Immigration Services to extend my visa. You get a 2 week tourist visa when you enter the country, then you have to extend it further. The university gives students a letter verifying enrollment in school and in return you get a one month temporary residency permit (called Iqama) that you have to renew each month. I had already heard horror stories about the Syrian bureaucracy, being sent from room to room, from floor to floor and from one official to another, looking for someone to explain to you in English exactly where you should go and what it all means. On top of this there are photocopies to be made, forms to be filled, passport photos, fees, even the presence of the owner of the house you are staying in to prove your residency.
Luckily I avoided this adventure with the advice of a friend who had gone through it the day before, and went instead to a smaller office in the city center where the process was much simpler. I took a bus there and eventually found the office, though I was greeted with much of the same confusion and bureaucracy as anywhere else. Still, it was relatively efficient, and they (that is, soldiers in the office, random people waiting in line or standing on the street) knew to direct me, the confused foreigner, back downstairs to get a form, out to the street where someone filled it out for me, made photocopies, collected his 20 cents, sold me a stamp, sent me back upstairs, where I was stamped, signed, moved from room to room and sent back home again with a 2 month visa. I’m not sure how it worked, but it is good for me because I won’t be a student in March as I am taking the month off to travel (the parents are visiting!) and I didn’t know how I would get in and out of the country.
Later that night I met up with Frank, one of his classmates and a group of friends who are older and not students but instead are working in the city, for my first night out on the town. I left in somewhat of a rush, being late, and failed to tell my family that I was headed out for the night. We headed to Bab-Sharqi, the eastern gate of the old city, which I recognized from my excursion last weekend. We were going to the only salsa club in the city (one of the women in our group, Columbian, teaches at the club) where on Wednesday nights they have classes followed by dancing from 10 pm-whenever. We arrived just before it opened to the public, so we waited in a nearby bar (“Le Piano”) and hung out for a while. Frank’s friend, whose name I can’t remember, is Indian and did his masters at SOAS in London in the Middle East Studies program. His thesis was on gay human rights organizations in the Middle East. Apparently there are only two based in the Middle East (in Beirut and Israel) and the rest are based abroad—Canada, US, etc. For now he is studying at the university and holding off on more research while he learns Arabic. He was impressed to learn I was at g’town, mostly because he said another student in his class was doing her thesis on counterterrorism through relationships in the public and private sector (she was working at Bank of America and realized in her work that banks and other private institutions could/did support government counterterrorism efforts). I told him that sounded very Georgetown.
The salsa club was in a restaurant that is apparently the largest club in Damascus (not that big) but I haven’t been anywhere else to compare it with. There was recorded music playing accompanied by a live drummer and a surprisingly active dancing crowd. Who knew salsa was such a thing in Syria? I couldn’t really tell how many of the dancers were local, but I think a majority of them are, with a few foreigners in the mix. Unfortunately it is not as much fun when everybody else knows what they are doing and you haven’t salsa’ed since ballroom dancing class senior year four years ago, but I managed to get a few dances in with others who knew a lot more than I did, and it was fun regardless. But alas Thursday was another day of waking up at 7 so I found a cab and returned home just after 12. I saw that Laila, the mother, had called me while I was out, and when I was home brushing my teeth, Philip, the father came to talk to me. Oops. There was no big problem, only that I forgot to tell them I was going out, they were worried, I came home late, it was my first time out. The next morning I talked to Laila about it again and she explained that our neighborhood is not a great place to walk around alone at night—and when I explained I took a cab home, she was even more worried. She said next time I should either come home with a friend or have a male take the cab back with me to the house and then continue on to his home. I promised to be more careful next time, but I’m not sure how to convince others to go out of their way around the city just to drop me off at home. I am grateful, however, that they are concerned about me but still allow me to maintain my independence.
Luckily I avoided this adventure with the advice of a friend who had gone through it the day before, and went instead to a smaller office in the city center where the process was much simpler. I took a bus there and eventually found the office, though I was greeted with much of the same confusion and bureaucracy as anywhere else. Still, it was relatively efficient, and they (that is, soldiers in the office, random people waiting in line or standing on the street) knew to direct me, the confused foreigner, back downstairs to get a form, out to the street where someone filled it out for me, made photocopies, collected his 20 cents, sold me a stamp, sent me back upstairs, where I was stamped, signed, moved from room to room and sent back home again with a 2 month visa. I’m not sure how it worked, but it is good for me because I won’t be a student in March as I am taking the month off to travel (the parents are visiting!) and I didn’t know how I would get in and out of the country.
Later that night I met up with Frank, one of his classmates and a group of friends who are older and not students but instead are working in the city, for my first night out on the town. I left in somewhat of a rush, being late, and failed to tell my family that I was headed out for the night. We headed to Bab-Sharqi, the eastern gate of the old city, which I recognized from my excursion last weekend. We were going to the only salsa club in the city (one of the women in our group, Columbian, teaches at the club) where on Wednesday nights they have classes followed by dancing from 10 pm-whenever. We arrived just before it opened to the public, so we waited in a nearby bar (“Le Piano”) and hung out for a while. Frank’s friend, whose name I can’t remember, is Indian and did his masters at SOAS in London in the Middle East Studies program. His thesis was on gay human rights organizations in the Middle East. Apparently there are only two based in the Middle East (in Beirut and Israel) and the rest are based abroad—Canada, US, etc. For now he is studying at the university and holding off on more research while he learns Arabic. He was impressed to learn I was at g’town, mostly because he said another student in his class was doing her thesis on counterterrorism through relationships in the public and private sector (she was working at Bank of America and realized in her work that banks and other private institutions could/did support government counterterrorism efforts). I told him that sounded very Georgetown.
The salsa club was in a restaurant that is apparently the largest club in Damascus (not that big) but I haven’t been anywhere else to compare it with. There was recorded music playing accompanied by a live drummer and a surprisingly active dancing crowd. Who knew salsa was such a thing in Syria? I couldn’t really tell how many of the dancers were local, but I think a majority of them are, with a few foreigners in the mix. Unfortunately it is not as much fun when everybody else knows what they are doing and you haven’t salsa’ed since ballroom dancing class senior year four years ago, but I managed to get a few dances in with others who knew a lot more than I did, and it was fun regardless. But alas Thursday was another day of waking up at 7 so I found a cab and returned home just after 12. I saw that Laila, the mother, had called me while I was out, and when I was home brushing my teeth, Philip, the father came to talk to me. Oops. There was no big problem, only that I forgot to tell them I was going out, they were worried, I came home late, it was my first time out. The next morning I talked to Laila about it again and she explained that our neighborhood is not a great place to walk around alone at night—and when I explained I took a cab home, she was even more worried. She said next time I should either come home with a friend or have a male take the cab back with me to the house and then continue on to his home. I promised to be more careful next time, but I’m not sure how to convince others to go out of their way around the city just to drop me off at home. I am grateful, however, that they are concerned about me but still allow me to maintain my independence.
The long walk home
In the afternoons after class I’ve been getting to know the city a little better. On Monday, one of the students I had met the day before, told me about a film festival that was showing at the French Cultural Center. I had seen posters for it around the city but didn’t know anything else about it, and I still hadn’t been to visit the center, which hosts a variety of concerts, film screenings, lectures and other events. We agreed to meet at 3 and I decided to walk there by way of a few other sites that I wanted to visit. I walked from the university to Ummayyad Square, hoping to get another chance to enter the National Library. Again I was stopped at the gate, but this time the guard explained to me (in Arabic! aka I understood!) that you needed a membership card and visitors could only enter from 9-1 and that it was closed on the weekends. That is, it is impossible for me, or any other foreign students who can’t obtain membership cards, to enter.
So I continued to the National Museum, though I decided against going in because I wanted to save it for another day when I had more than 30 minutes to explore. Also I had to leave a little time to actually find the center and maybe grab a sandwich on the way. I made it to the city center, where I had been on Saturday, and of course I got lost within just a few blocks of the cultural center. I found myself on a backroad, with narrow streets and sidewalk cafés, and a little hole-in-the-wall (literally) bakery with men lining up for their freshly baked bread.
It reminded me of what one of the students that I met in Beirut told me about Damascus- overall its not a very attractive city, but once in a while you get lost and find yourself on a pretty little quiet street with trees and twinkling lights, maybe some greenery and a fountain, and men drinking coffee and smoking while chatting away (I noticed that I didn’t see any women) that seems miles away from the busy city streets. I looked into the windows of the small restaurants, my stomach begging me to stop for a meal, especially since I still had an hour before the film. One of the men who worked at a sidewalk café smiled and gestured for me to sit. There was a little fountain/well bubbling, wicker chairs, small tables carved out of logs, and small rooms lined with benches and red striped fabric built into the wall, equipped with nargileh (hookah/hashish) and shash bash boards. So I sat and asked what kind of food they had and ended up with a bowl of hummus, another of fool, a plate of pickled vegetables, a packet of flatbread and a cup of tea. Altogether my meal, with portions large enough for 2-3 people, cost about $5.
I made it to the cultural center just before 3. From the outside, the building is not impressive and is surrounded by DVD and computer software shops, but the inside is much more attractive than the American center. It is about 5 stories high, the first floor hosts an art gallery with a local artist, the second floor with the cinema, and on the fourth floor there is a small but pleasant library. There was no one else inside the theater but the screening had already started and it was a few minutes into a documentary about the Israel/Palestine conflict. It must have been made before the outbreak of violence in December, which made the timing of the film all the more important. The storyline was difficult to follow but the moments that it captured in interviews with locals about the conditions they live in and the quality of life that they lead, needed little introduction to appreciate. Frank, my German friend from the university, came in a few minutes later with his Algerian housemate, who is, as I learned later, here in Damascus looking for ‘inspiration’ for her work as a playwright. The rest of the films were very much student films, way too long, flashing images and pulsing music, headache-inducing, either a little too abstract or a little too obvious.
One of the ones that I liked, though it went on longer than necessary, was a screen shot of an online war game (I think in real time). It was made by an American student, who logged in under the username “dead-in-iraq” and joined an on-going multiplayer game as an American soldier in Iraq. At the beginning of each round he would drop the weapon he was given and walk around the scenario, looking at dead soldiers on the ground, typing into the computer screen (which the computer would then read aloud for all the other players to hear) the names of dead Iraqi soldiers, their age, and date of death. Every so often he would get killed and the round would restart and he would continue, to the aggravation and continued annoyance of the other players, who harrassed and insulted him in typical gamer-speak in order to make him stop listing names and dates. It became interesting when the other players realized what he was actually doing and the line between virtual/reality became increasingly blurred.
After the showing was over I stayed behind to check out the library, which had computers, tables to work at and shelves of French books and movies. I sat at a computer for over an hour before I learned that you have to be a member to use their library, for about $7 a year. If it was closer to my house it would be very convenient, but as it is, I left only with a program of upcoming events. From there I walked home, completing my first (probably only) cross-town trek from class to home.
So I continued to the National Museum, though I decided against going in because I wanted to save it for another day when I had more than 30 minutes to explore. Also I had to leave a little time to actually find the center and maybe grab a sandwich on the way. I made it to the city center, where I had been on Saturday, and of course I got lost within just a few blocks of the cultural center. I found myself on a backroad, with narrow streets and sidewalk cafés, and a little hole-in-the-wall (literally) bakery with men lining up for their freshly baked bread.
It reminded me of what one of the students that I met in Beirut told me about Damascus- overall its not a very attractive city, but once in a while you get lost and find yourself on a pretty little quiet street with trees and twinkling lights, maybe some greenery and a fountain, and men drinking coffee and smoking while chatting away (I noticed that I didn’t see any women) that seems miles away from the busy city streets. I looked into the windows of the small restaurants, my stomach begging me to stop for a meal, especially since I still had an hour before the film. One of the men who worked at a sidewalk café smiled and gestured for me to sit. There was a little fountain/well bubbling, wicker chairs, small tables carved out of logs, and small rooms lined with benches and red striped fabric built into the wall, equipped with nargileh (hookah/hashish) and shash bash boards. So I sat and asked what kind of food they had and ended up with a bowl of hummus, another of fool, a plate of pickled vegetables, a packet of flatbread and a cup of tea. Altogether my meal, with portions large enough for 2-3 people, cost about $5.
I made it to the cultural center just before 3. From the outside, the building is not impressive and is surrounded by DVD and computer software shops, but the inside is much more attractive than the American center. It is about 5 stories high, the first floor hosts an art gallery with a local artist, the second floor with the cinema, and on the fourth floor there is a small but pleasant library. There was no one else inside the theater but the screening had already started and it was a few minutes into a documentary about the Israel/Palestine conflict. It must have been made before the outbreak of violence in December, which made the timing of the film all the more important. The storyline was difficult to follow but the moments that it captured in interviews with locals about the conditions they live in and the quality of life that they lead, needed little introduction to appreciate. Frank, my German friend from the university, came in a few minutes later with his Algerian housemate, who is, as I learned later, here in Damascus looking for ‘inspiration’ for her work as a playwright. The rest of the films were very much student films, way too long, flashing images and pulsing music, headache-inducing, either a little too abstract or a little too obvious.
One of the ones that I liked, though it went on longer than necessary, was a screen shot of an online war game (I think in real time). It was made by an American student, who logged in under the username “dead-in-iraq” and joined an on-going multiplayer game as an American soldier in Iraq. At the beginning of each round he would drop the weapon he was given and walk around the scenario, looking at dead soldiers on the ground, typing into the computer screen (which the computer would then read aloud for all the other players to hear) the names of dead Iraqi soldiers, their age, and date of death. Every so often he would get killed and the round would restart and he would continue, to the aggravation and continued annoyance of the other players, who harrassed and insulted him in typical gamer-speak in order to make him stop listing names and dates. It became interesting when the other players realized what he was actually doing and the line between virtual/reality became increasingly blurred.
After the showing was over I stayed behind to check out the library, which had computers, tables to work at and shelves of French books and movies. I sat at a computer for over an hour before I learned that you have to be a member to use their library, for about $7 a year. If it was closer to my house it would be very convenient, but as it is, I left only with a program of upcoming events. From there I walked home, completing my first (probably only) cross-town trek from class to home.
Classes begin (2/8-2/12)
Sunday morning I woke up around 7 am. I think the last time I had to wake up so early for classes was in high school—though the university is only about 20 minutes by bus, I had to get there early to check the level that I was placed into and allow for some time to get lost on the way. Class begins at 9 am every morning, and I found my room on the lower floor of the language center with a little help from the other students. Most of the students (about my age or older, a few of another generation) were gathered in the hallway, smoking their last cigarettes, catching up with each other about their travels over the break, crowding the small shop at the end of the hall for Nescafés and croissants.
Most of the other students in my class have been here for at least one previous class, some for many months or even over a year. There are 15 other students, though the number seems to change every day, from Australia, Korea, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Poland, Greece, Malaysia, Spain, Iran and Russia. From what I can tell, most of them seem to be taking Arabic to boost their careers—e.g. they are students in Middle East studies and want to find a job in politics, etc. or they have jobs where they need to be able to read the Arabic press. Some have moved here from other parts of the Middle East (Jordan, Israel/Palestine) and overall they are a thrifty, well-traveled group. There is a range of living arrangements to choose from for foreign students, and many are on a tight budget, even for Syria. I am grateful to have the luxury of my own room, in a clean house with a nice family, who cooks for me!, without having to support myself by making $5/hour teaching or working at a desk in a tourist company, and still the cost of 1 month of tuition + room and board is less than a month’s rent in DC.
I was placed into level 5 (of 8), mid-intermediate, just about where I should be, halfway through my third year. Though we are in class for four hours a day (from 9-1), so far it doesn’t drag on too much, especially with 10 minute breaks every hour. I like my professor a lot—she is Syrian, very friendly and a good teacher, which is important because the classes have a reputation of being hit or miss according to the professor’s teaching skills. She offered to help me by grading any additional work I do from my Georgetown textbook, which is great because I still have to keep up with the classes I am missing back at school.
The first day was a lot of review and I was surprised not to be overwhelmed with pages of vocabulary to memorize and packets of readings to translate, as I am used to at school in the US. The work is very manageable, especially since I have nothing but time in the afternoon. It is a nice relief from the pace at Georgetown where it was enough just to sit for a few hours and complete the assignments, let alone take the time to go back and review vocabulary, study grammar, re-read texts, watch the news, read the newspaper, look up endless amounts of words in the dictionary, listen to the cd-rom, and so on and so forth. In the back of my head I’m not thinking about all the things I would rather be doing with my time: reading for another class, working on a paper, catching up with a friend, cooking dinner, doing my laundry, taking a nap, going out into the city… It also doesn’t hurt that I can ask any of the members of the family here to define a word or explain something in Arabic, and its nice to study in the late afternoons, working on the dining room table next to Farah, doing his homework, Oubai studying law or the parents studying their Bible—especially since I haven’t found a good library or another place to work except for the wi-fi café of frequent electricity shortages (though this happens at home too, but there I have my headlamp and the family is stocked with candles…reminds me of Vinalhaven!).
Most of the other students in my class have been here for at least one previous class, some for many months or even over a year. There are 15 other students, though the number seems to change every day, from Australia, Korea, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Poland, Greece, Malaysia, Spain, Iran and Russia. From what I can tell, most of them seem to be taking Arabic to boost their careers—e.g. they are students in Middle East studies and want to find a job in politics, etc. or they have jobs where they need to be able to read the Arabic press. Some have moved here from other parts of the Middle East (Jordan, Israel/Palestine) and overall they are a thrifty, well-traveled group. There is a range of living arrangements to choose from for foreign students, and many are on a tight budget, even for Syria. I am grateful to have the luxury of my own room, in a clean house with a nice family, who cooks for me!, without having to support myself by making $5/hour teaching or working at a desk in a tourist company, and still the cost of 1 month of tuition + room and board is less than a month’s rent in DC.
I was placed into level 5 (of 8), mid-intermediate, just about where I should be, halfway through my third year. Though we are in class for four hours a day (from 9-1), so far it doesn’t drag on too much, especially with 10 minute breaks every hour. I like my professor a lot—she is Syrian, very friendly and a good teacher, which is important because the classes have a reputation of being hit or miss according to the professor’s teaching skills. She offered to help me by grading any additional work I do from my Georgetown textbook, which is great because I still have to keep up with the classes I am missing back at school.
The first day was a lot of review and I was surprised not to be overwhelmed with pages of vocabulary to memorize and packets of readings to translate, as I am used to at school in the US. The work is very manageable, especially since I have nothing but time in the afternoon. It is a nice relief from the pace at Georgetown where it was enough just to sit for a few hours and complete the assignments, let alone take the time to go back and review vocabulary, study grammar, re-read texts, watch the news, read the newspaper, look up endless amounts of words in the dictionary, listen to the cd-rom, and so on and so forth. In the back of my head I’m not thinking about all the things I would rather be doing with my time: reading for another class, working on a paper, catching up with a friend, cooking dinner, doing my laundry, taking a nap, going out into the city… It also doesn’t hurt that I can ask any of the members of the family here to define a word or explain something in Arabic, and its nice to study in the late afternoons, working on the dining room table next to Farah, doing his homework, Oubai studying law or the parents studying their Bible—especially since I haven’t found a good library or another place to work except for the wi-fi café of frequent electricity shortages (though this happens at home too, but there I have my headlamp and the family is stocked with candles…reminds me of Vinalhaven!).
The weekend comes early (2/6-2/7)
Much like at Georgetown, Thursday is the new Friday here! Friday is the holy day for Muslims and since Syria is 90% Muslim (though its government is secular) the weekend is Friday and Saturday, hence classes starting on Sunday.
I planned to sleep in Friday morning, but that didn’t work out. But at least with nowhere to rush off to, I could take my time in the morning getting ready and eating breakfast. Around 11 I left the house to find my way to the old city, entering through Bab Touma (Gate of Thomas), as Oubai had shown me a few days earlier. The streets were much quieter with hardly any cars out, and most of the shops were closed. Much of the appeal of the old city is in the shopping for the handmade crafts, so although I could only do a limited amount of window shopping, it was also nice to walk around the (relatively) quiet streets and see the old buildings, sneaking glimpses of interior courtyards and signs of life off the street. I didn’t go in any of the mosques or churches or sites listed in my Lonely Planet book, I figured there will be plenty of time for that next time. Apparently I was walking south because I reached Bab Sharqi (the Eastern Gate, there are 7 gates to the old city) and was pleasantly surprised by the change in décor. The buildings were whitewashed with rooftop gardens, wider streets, beautiful painted tiles and carved wood inlaid with mother of pearl on their doors and windows. This is the city where I want to live—in the picturesque renovated representation of life a hundred years ago!
Turning around I walked in the other direction, reaching the entrance to the Ummayyad mosque in the western end. By now it was around noon and families were flocking to the mosque for the midday prayer. Next to the mosque is the entrance to the souq al-Hamadiyya, the famous stretch of covered market where you can buy almost anything. Again the vast majority of shops were closed, though I was pulled in by one shopkeeper to see his selection of jewelry made by his Bedouin mother. He poured me a cup of tea and showed me the goods, but unfortunately for him I was not in the purchasing mood.
Somehow I found my way home again, in time for lunch. After a nap I spent the afternoon reading. While I am anxious to meet people to explore the city with, I don’t feel guilty about enjoying a few leisurely afternoons, especially knowing that I have 4 months ahead. At school I don’t have the time or the peace of mind to take a nap or read a book outside of class, and I did take this semester off for the break from the fast-pace of Georgetown as much as I did for the exposure to Arabic. But I’m nearly done with my book, its only been one week, and there are no libraries to be found to restock my supply (I’m pretty sure they doesn’t exist)! Perhaps this will offer me a new source of motivation to improve my Arabic so that at least I can find something to read. It’s like being hungry and being surrounded by food you can’t eat.
--
Saturday my day was on a similar schedule. I wanted to walk a little further west than the old city into the city center, where there is not much to see by way of tourism but there is at least a cinema and a few bookshops worth investigating. I surprised myself and found the right roads, walking for the majority of the time along Sharia Faysal al-Malik (Street of King Faysal) and finding myself in a neighborhood of metal workshops with sparks and anvils and hammers galore. A little further down it became a food market with sacs of nuts, spices, fruits, vegetables and raw meat on display, and as I reached the end and crossed another main road, I walked through a bird/goldfish/rabbit market and found Al-Merjeh (Martyr’s Square) marked with people lounging in the green grass.
The city center is mostly government buildings, big banks and other unappealing structures, though I found the cinema and was disappointed to see that the only movies playing were goofy looking popular Arab films, probably from Egypt. From there I sought out one of the two libraries (aka bookstores) recommended by LP as the best bets for English books, one of them located in an area owned by the tourist and travel agent industry. The streets were lined with every Middle Eastern airline in existence and when I found the spot where I thought the library should be I looked up and saw an arrow with the name of the bookstore pointing in the other direction. Confused, I wandered with LP map in hand until a man stopped me and asked me in Arabic what I was looking for. I explained I just wanted a bookshop but he didn’t understand me and took me around the block to a travel agency so I could ask the woman at the desk in English. We returned to the exact same spot where the arrow stood, pointing in the direction from whence we came, and he directed me across the street to the store. But of course.
The bookstore’s English collection was unfortunately limited to coffeetable art and interior decorating books and bad paperback novels. The next one was slightly more fruitful with its collection of classic works though not necessarily worth buying for more than their listed price. I left with one book in hand and decided it probably wasn’t worth coming back to see how often they update their inventory.
The only other stop I had was the French Cultural Center, likely to have the most interesting schedule of events, though I decided to forego it on this trip and check out the schedule online. Instead I returned home for lunch and such.
In the evening I met up with a friend of a friend of a friend of my sister’s, Reem, the only person I know so far in Syria. She called me to let me know she was in the neighborhood for a meeting and we could meet up after she was finished. Around 830 I left my house to meet her and waited at a nearby gas station so she could pick me up, though I ended up waiting for more than 20 minutes because she got lost on the way. It turns out she grew up in San Diego but spent her summers with the whole family here in Damascus, and surprised herself by moving here last year and finding a job. She now lives with her grandparents and works for a distribution company, but confesses that its not a place she could ever imagine living longterm, after growing up in the US. We ended up literally driving in circles around the square near my house while we talked as she didn’t want to get lost again and had to meet another friend in just a few minutes. Although it was a brief, and somewhat random, meeting, I was glad to finally meet someone else who lived here so the next time someone asked me if I knew anyone here, at the very least I could claim, yes! One!
I planned to sleep in Friday morning, but that didn’t work out. But at least with nowhere to rush off to, I could take my time in the morning getting ready and eating breakfast. Around 11 I left the house to find my way to the old city, entering through Bab Touma (Gate of Thomas), as Oubai had shown me a few days earlier. The streets were much quieter with hardly any cars out, and most of the shops were closed. Much of the appeal of the old city is in the shopping for the handmade crafts, so although I could only do a limited amount of window shopping, it was also nice to walk around the (relatively) quiet streets and see the old buildings, sneaking glimpses of interior courtyards and signs of life off the street. I didn’t go in any of the mosques or churches or sites listed in my Lonely Planet book, I figured there will be plenty of time for that next time. Apparently I was walking south because I reached Bab Sharqi (the Eastern Gate, there are 7 gates to the old city) and was pleasantly surprised by the change in décor. The buildings were whitewashed with rooftop gardens, wider streets, beautiful painted tiles and carved wood inlaid with mother of pearl on their doors and windows. This is the city where I want to live—in the picturesque renovated representation of life a hundred years ago!
Turning around I walked in the other direction, reaching the entrance to the Ummayyad mosque in the western end. By now it was around noon and families were flocking to the mosque for the midday prayer. Next to the mosque is the entrance to the souq al-Hamadiyya, the famous stretch of covered market where you can buy almost anything. Again the vast majority of shops were closed, though I was pulled in by one shopkeeper to see his selection of jewelry made by his Bedouin mother. He poured me a cup of tea and showed me the goods, but unfortunately for him I was not in the purchasing mood.
Somehow I found my way home again, in time for lunch. After a nap I spent the afternoon reading. While I am anxious to meet people to explore the city with, I don’t feel guilty about enjoying a few leisurely afternoons, especially knowing that I have 4 months ahead. At school I don’t have the time or the peace of mind to take a nap or read a book outside of class, and I did take this semester off for the break from the fast-pace of Georgetown as much as I did for the exposure to Arabic. But I’m nearly done with my book, its only been one week, and there are no libraries to be found to restock my supply (I’m pretty sure they doesn’t exist)! Perhaps this will offer me a new source of motivation to improve my Arabic so that at least I can find something to read. It’s like being hungry and being surrounded by food you can’t eat.
--
Saturday my day was on a similar schedule. I wanted to walk a little further west than the old city into the city center, where there is not much to see by way of tourism but there is at least a cinema and a few bookshops worth investigating. I surprised myself and found the right roads, walking for the majority of the time along Sharia Faysal al-Malik (Street of King Faysal) and finding myself in a neighborhood of metal workshops with sparks and anvils and hammers galore. A little further down it became a food market with sacs of nuts, spices, fruits, vegetables and raw meat on display, and as I reached the end and crossed another main road, I walked through a bird/goldfish/rabbit market and found Al-Merjeh (Martyr’s Square) marked with people lounging in the green grass.
The city center is mostly government buildings, big banks and other unappealing structures, though I found the cinema and was disappointed to see that the only movies playing were goofy looking popular Arab films, probably from Egypt. From there I sought out one of the two libraries (aka bookstores) recommended by LP as the best bets for English books, one of them located in an area owned by the tourist and travel agent industry. The streets were lined with every Middle Eastern airline in existence and when I found the spot where I thought the library should be I looked up and saw an arrow with the name of the bookstore pointing in the other direction. Confused, I wandered with LP map in hand until a man stopped me and asked me in Arabic what I was looking for. I explained I just wanted a bookshop but he didn’t understand me and took me around the block to a travel agency so I could ask the woman at the desk in English. We returned to the exact same spot where the arrow stood, pointing in the direction from whence we came, and he directed me across the street to the store. But of course.
The bookstore’s English collection was unfortunately limited to coffeetable art and interior decorating books and bad paperback novels. The next one was slightly more fruitful with its collection of classic works though not necessarily worth buying for more than their listed price. I left with one book in hand and decided it probably wasn’t worth coming back to see how often they update their inventory.
The only other stop I had was the French Cultural Center, likely to have the most interesting schedule of events, though I decided to forego it on this trip and check out the schedule online. Instead I returned home for lunch and such.
In the evening I met up with a friend of a friend of a friend of my sister’s, Reem, the only person I know so far in Syria. She called me to let me know she was in the neighborhood for a meeting and we could meet up after she was finished. Around 830 I left my house to meet her and waited at a nearby gas station so she could pick me up, though I ended up waiting for more than 20 minutes because she got lost on the way. It turns out she grew up in San Diego but spent her summers with the whole family here in Damascus, and surprised herself by moving here last year and finding a job. She now lives with her grandparents and works for a distribution company, but confesses that its not a place she could ever imagine living longterm, after growing up in the US. We ended up literally driving in circles around the square near my house while we talked as she didn’t want to get lost again and had to meet another friend in just a few minutes. Although it was a brief, and somewhat random, meeting, I was glad to finally meet someone else who lived here so the next time someone asked me if I knew anyone here, at the very least I could claim, yes! One!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Back to School (2/5)
Thursday morning I returned to the university to take my placement test. There were about 40 other students taking the test, which is necessary for all new students (or those who haven't taken a class in the last 4 months) who are not complete beginners. I skimmed the lists quickly and I think there may have been only one other American, the majority was EurAsian. The test was comprised of five parts-- listening, reading, grammar, writing and then a short interview/oral exam-- and took over two hours. While we waited outside for our interviews, I talked a little with some of the other students. One of them, a Danish guy, was planning to be here for 4 months, like me, and was living in a hostel in Bab Touma for the entirety of his stay. Another was an Italian, who didn't know very much Arabic but decided on a whim to come here for a month to study and was potentially regretting it. We find out tomorrow morning before class which level we placed into-- the test was pretty difficult and is unreliable in its placements, also it has been over 2 months since I've had any classes, but I am hoping at least to be in a level that will prove to my Arabic professors back at GU that I was doing some work while abroad.
After I finished my interview at 1, I took a cab to find the American cultural center. I had read that they have a library there with American newspapers and cultural events. The driver took me instead to the embassy, but luckily they are very close together. I walked in circles trying to find it on my map, asking directions, until I asked a guard on a corner and found out I was standing right in front of it. There were no signs or indications as to what the building was, but I knocked on the door and entered. The guard looked surprised and asked if I had a badge. A badge? Why? You need a badge to enter. What are you looking for? I'm American, I just want to look around. He called in and asked if I could enter and was granted permission. Confused, I walked into the center and a woman greeted me, explaining that the center is actually closed right now. I had forgotten that it was closed back in October after demonstrations against the US following US attacks on Syrian civilians next to the Iraqi border. Even if it had been open, though, the library consisted of a few bookshelves of children's books and generic information and though there was an internet room with all the computers on, it was closed to visitors. So I left, disappointed, and walked to find the National Library, hoping there I might find at least a good place to study and perhaps even books in English that I could borrow.
Just to make sure I was in the right place, I asked the guard the name of the building. He smiled and asked to see my passport. After laughing and talking it over with the other guards he told me it was too late and I had to come back another day. I left, again confused, as I saw many other people enter the building without showing ID. I walked to another entrance but they told me to return to the main entrance. Instead I got into a cab and went home.
For lunch, we had another big meal at 330. The father, Phillipe, was home from work and an aunt came over for lunch too. The mother, Laila, had made yabra, similar to grape leaves but rolled in cabbage leaves instead. Eaten with labneh, pickled vegetables, fresh tomato and green pepper and roasted garlic, yum!
After lunch and then a long nap, I walked to a nearby cafe that Oubai had pointed out to me a few days before. It was filled with students and laptops as it offers free wi-fi with its $3 teas and coffees and there is a nice study room on the lower level. The connection isn't great, but its a good atmosphere to work and I can bring my own laptop.
In the evening, after a third night of no dinner, I finally realized that dinner is eat-as-you-like, so Farah, the youngest, showed me around the kitchen so I could choose my food from the fridge full of leftovers. I sat in the living room eating apples with peanut butter (!) and honey and makdoos as he surfed the tv channels, past American movies to CSI reruns to Arab soaps. The best choice for both of us was Tom & Jerry cartoons. With no language barriers, we could both enjoy the common humor.
I also had a lot of good conversations with the mother (or as much as was possible in Arabic). She is very easy to talk to as she changes her sentences to simpler constructions or uses fus'ha (the formal Arabic that I learn in school) so I can understand a little easier. She asked me about family life in the states, what it is like for my parents to live alone with their kids in the house. Here kids live at home until they are married, except for their sons who are working/studying abroad, so the idea that it is normal that we leave the house at age 18 is very strange to them. I tried to explain what I do at school outside of work and classes, but the strange concept of Outdoor Ed is very difficult to talk about in Arabic without knowing the words for "hiking" "camping" "backpacking" "rock climbing" "kayaking" "national park" etc. The closest I got was "walking in the mountain" or "sleeping in the woods" and "big garden."
After I finished my interview at 1, I took a cab to find the American cultural center. I had read that they have a library there with American newspapers and cultural events. The driver took me instead to the embassy, but luckily they are very close together. I walked in circles trying to find it on my map, asking directions, until I asked a guard on a corner and found out I was standing right in front of it. There were no signs or indications as to what the building was, but I knocked on the door and entered. The guard looked surprised and asked if I had a badge. A badge? Why? You need a badge to enter. What are you looking for? I'm American, I just want to look around. He called in and asked if I could enter and was granted permission. Confused, I walked into the center and a woman greeted me, explaining that the center is actually closed right now. I had forgotten that it was closed back in October after demonstrations against the US following US attacks on Syrian civilians next to the Iraqi border. Even if it had been open, though, the library consisted of a few bookshelves of children's books and generic information and though there was an internet room with all the computers on, it was closed to visitors. So I left, disappointed, and walked to find the National Library, hoping there I might find at least a good place to study and perhaps even books in English that I could borrow.
Just to make sure I was in the right place, I asked the guard the name of the building. He smiled and asked to see my passport. After laughing and talking it over with the other guards he told me it was too late and I had to come back another day. I left, again confused, as I saw many other people enter the building without showing ID. I walked to another entrance but they told me to return to the main entrance. Instead I got into a cab and went home.
For lunch, we had another big meal at 330. The father, Phillipe, was home from work and an aunt came over for lunch too. The mother, Laila, had made yabra, similar to grape leaves but rolled in cabbage leaves instead. Eaten with labneh, pickled vegetables, fresh tomato and green pepper and roasted garlic, yum!
After lunch and then a long nap, I walked to a nearby cafe that Oubai had pointed out to me a few days before. It was filled with students and laptops as it offers free wi-fi with its $3 teas and coffees and there is a nice study room on the lower level. The connection isn't great, but its a good atmosphere to work and I can bring my own laptop.
In the evening, after a third night of no dinner, I finally realized that dinner is eat-as-you-like, so Farah, the youngest, showed me around the kitchen so I could choose my food from the fridge full of leftovers. I sat in the living room eating apples with peanut butter (!) and honey and makdoos as he surfed the tv channels, past American movies to CSI reruns to Arab soaps. The best choice for both of us was Tom & Jerry cartoons. With no language barriers, we could both enjoy the common humor.
I also had a lot of good conversations with the mother (or as much as was possible in Arabic). She is very easy to talk to as she changes her sentences to simpler constructions or uses fus'ha (the formal Arabic that I learn in school) so I can understand a little easier. She asked me about family life in the states, what it is like for my parents to live alone with their kids in the house. Here kids live at home until they are married, except for their sons who are working/studying abroad, so the idea that it is normal that we leave the house at age 18 is very strange to them. I tried to explain what I do at school outside of work and classes, but the strange concept of Outdoor Ed is very difficult to talk about in Arabic without knowing the words for "hiking" "camping" "backpacking" "rock climbing" "kayaking" "national park" etc. The closest I got was "walking in the mountain" or "sleeping in the woods" and "big garden."
I think it's working?
hurrah! zee blog is back.
In anticipation of finding internet and maintaining my blog, I had already written on my laptop about the first few days here. It is as follows:
Monday morning I was packed and ready to go by 930. My aunt and her driver Ramez were going to drop me off at the taxi station and help me find a car to Damascus. At breakfast she made me take two sandwiches for the road, one that I made with apricot jam and white cheese and the other she made for me with chancleesh (pink/spiced cheese) and salty green olives from the family orchards. As we got into the elevator and I said my goodbyes to Ketes, my aunt said something in Arabic that I didn’t understand. “We will miss you when you’re gone! Shoo haida? What is this?”
We found our way to the taxi station and my aunt worked to find me a good driver. At first they all told her I would have to pay for the whole car because Americans have to wait 5 hours at the border and nobody else will want to wait for you. She explained that I already have my visa and there is no reason it should take that long. As they were arguing, her phone rang and Ketes was on the other line—I had forgotten my glasses and contacts in the bathroom. Of course. Ramez took me on a slight detour back to the house where Ketes had assembled my missing belongings, along with a few things I left behind on purpose, such as a Virgin Mary figurine that my aunt Sr Augustine had given me and half a bag of chocolates. ‘I don’t need it! You can have it.’ ‘Ah, because you don’t pray?’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘No.’ ‘Ok well you take it because you don’t have your mother and you know nobody. Take it.’ I took it.
Back in the car, back to the station, where my aunt had been waiting in the taxi that would take me to Damascus. The last few goodbyes and promises to stay safe and warm and full and happy and we were off. It took us a little while to leave Beirut as we stopped to pick up two more passengers on the way out (even though my aunt had paid them extra in my absence to take me alone), but then we were over the Lebanon mountains, into the Bekaa valley (stop for coffee) then up over the Anti-Lebanon mountains, down into Syria.
The Anti-Lebanon mountains look much different from the western range. They are the color of the red earth, rather than the green trees, and much more stony. It was a great way to start the trip.
Crossing the borders was no problem. A few forms, a few trips inside, a few stamps, and then continuing on our way. There is a no-mans-land between the Lebanese and Syrian borders and then the same process at the Syrian border, with a stop at duty-free shopping so one of the other passengers could buy cartons of cigarettes.
Coming down over the mountains I was impressed by the sprawl of Damascus. There are 4.5 million people living in the city, 3 times the size of Beirut. As we drove, the repetitive apartment buildings reminded me of driving through the Bronx. Then there were the crumbling concrete buildings.
So maybe my house here isn’t the magical Damascene house of the past (or at least how I imagined it to be), with an open courtyard and rooms around the side, with fountains and fishponds and birds chirping in the lemon trees. No, it is, unfortunately, more modern than that. But it is also just enough for what I need. Nothing too fancy, a super-sweet family that is happy to give me my independence but still treats me like part of the family, outside of downtown, my own room, my own door to the outside, my own key. My room is next to the bathrooms (one Arabic toilet, much like the Ghanaian and Japanese variety—a hole in the ground) and one Western, with a shower. The rest of the house is a small kitchen, living room with TV, formal living room / dining room, and two bedrooms for the rest of the family. There are 4 boys—one, Ihab, married last April (he works at a hospital in Damascus and operates the heart and lung machine in surgery) and lives 15 minutes away in the suburbs with his wife, one, Oubai, 28 working in Saudi Arabia in marketing research but home for the next month to study law, one 17, Ronnee, at high school in Maryland living with his uncle’s family, one, Farah, 13 living here. Oubai has been showing me around a little and helping me to do basic things like buy water, a cell phone card, find an internet café, find my university, the embassy etc.
The parents are very nice, the mother, Leila, speaks little English which is probably a good thing, and is a very good cook. After I arrived yesterday and had finished unpacking I ate zucchini (coussa, aka my mom’s maiden name), eggplant (bitinjaan) and red peppers (flayfley ahmar) baked with olive oil and stuffed with meat and rice. The father, Phillipe, is a lawyer, speaks better English and is very friendly and unassuming. He likes to teach me Arabic proverbs. So far the only ones I remember (and I only remember the translations) are “You eat like you love” aka if you don’t eat my food you don’t like me. And my favorite so far “The birds in my stomach are shouting” aka I’m hungry! We also had some interesting albeit slightly illogical conversations (due to the language barrier) about religion and law—he is Christian but because of his job he has to study shari’ah (Islamic law) in addition to Syrian law (secular) since religious law governs marriage, etc and the majority of Syrians are Muslim. He seems to be a pretty serious Christian, lamenting the loss of Christian faith in the US compared to the good old days of the founding fathers. Again, the conversations are not always easily followed, but interesting nonetheless.
Later in the evening their neighbors, a Finnish family, came over for dessert—sweet white cheese in a white gelatinous thing with sliced pistachios flavored with orange blossom water, homemade cake with carrot shavings in it (I preferred this one to the heavy sweet cheese) and tea, flavored with cinnamon. The Fins have been here since September, the husband is working as a doctor, and they were very friendly. It was interesting to watch them speak English with my host-family, as it is something like their 4th language (after Swedish, Finnish and German) and clearly not the first language either. The mother, Ingvar, said she teaches Iraqi women (there is a large population of refugees here) how to crochet in wool.
--
Today I started the circuitous process of registering for my language class. First a trip to the language center to get the forms, then to the embassy to get a letter of recommendation/permission to study only to find that I am 10 minutes past the 8-10:30 visiting hours, then to the clinic to get tested for HIV (if foreigners are found positive they are deported, if Syrians are they are quarantined)—so tomorrow I have to go early to the embassy, to the bank to withdraw money to pay my tuition, to the clinic (near the house) for the results by noon, then back across town to the university to complete registration, with a placement exam on Thursday morning. Luckily the taxis are cheap (the most I’ve paid so far is about 70 lira, approx $1.50) and the busses are cheaper (10 lira, about 20 cents)—at least they will be when I figure out their routes.
For breakfast today, a delicious spread of white cheese, green za’atar, olive oil, honey, bread, olives and small eggplants stuffed with nuts and red peppers (makdoos). We had a big lunch with the oldest brother, Ihab, who came with his wife—Oubai had brought a big fish back from Saudi Arabia so we had it with roasted peppers and carrots and tartour sauce (tahini with parsley, garlic and lemon) and cabbage/parsley/tomato salad and green salad with beets. And for dessert big juicy sweet bortugal, oranges.
In the evening I walked with Oubai to Bab Touma, the neighborhood that most of the other Western students I emailed with before I left had advised I live. It is in the old Christian part of the city so it features older buildings and more ‘classic’ Damascene houses (many turned into bars and restaurants) and narrow streets, souqs, etc. On the way we stopped in shops (he was looking for a jacket) such as United Colors of Benetton and other familiar European chains. We bought ears of corn from a street vendor and later a chocolate croissant. I think if I had come to Damascus, as I was planning to, without a family arranged to live with and had to find a room to rent upon arrival, I would have preferred to be in a more student friendly area, such as Bab Touma. But it is only 15 minutes or so walking from the house so in the end it seems it is better that I found a family outside of these more expensive touristy areas yet can still walk to shop or tourist or meet friends (when I make them, inshahallah). We shall see.
In anticipation of finding internet and maintaining my blog, I had already written on my laptop about the first few days here. It is as follows:
Monday morning I was packed and ready to go by 930. My aunt and her driver Ramez were going to drop me off at the taxi station and help me find a car to Damascus. At breakfast she made me take two sandwiches for the road, one that I made with apricot jam and white cheese and the other she made for me with chancleesh (pink/spiced cheese) and salty green olives from the family orchards. As we got into the elevator and I said my goodbyes to Ketes, my aunt said something in Arabic that I didn’t understand. “We will miss you when you’re gone! Shoo haida? What is this?”
We found our way to the taxi station and my aunt worked to find me a good driver. At first they all told her I would have to pay for the whole car because Americans have to wait 5 hours at the border and nobody else will want to wait for you. She explained that I already have my visa and there is no reason it should take that long. As they were arguing, her phone rang and Ketes was on the other line—I had forgotten my glasses and contacts in the bathroom. Of course. Ramez took me on a slight detour back to the house where Ketes had assembled my missing belongings, along with a few things I left behind on purpose, such as a Virgin Mary figurine that my aunt Sr Augustine had given me and half a bag of chocolates. ‘I don’t need it! You can have it.’ ‘Ah, because you don’t pray?’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘No.’ ‘Ok well you take it because you don’t have your mother and you know nobody. Take it.’ I took it.
Back in the car, back to the station, where my aunt had been waiting in the taxi that would take me to Damascus. The last few goodbyes and promises to stay safe and warm and full and happy and we were off. It took us a little while to leave Beirut as we stopped to pick up two more passengers on the way out (even though my aunt had paid them extra in my absence to take me alone), but then we were over the Lebanon mountains, into the Bekaa valley (stop for coffee) then up over the Anti-Lebanon mountains, down into Syria.
The Anti-Lebanon mountains look much different from the western range. They are the color of the red earth, rather than the green trees, and much more stony. It was a great way to start the trip.
Crossing the borders was no problem. A few forms, a few trips inside, a few stamps, and then continuing on our way. There is a no-mans-land between the Lebanese and Syrian borders and then the same process at the Syrian border, with a stop at duty-free shopping so one of the other passengers could buy cartons of cigarettes.
Coming down over the mountains I was impressed by the sprawl of Damascus. There are 4.5 million people living in the city, 3 times the size of Beirut. As we drove, the repetitive apartment buildings reminded me of driving through the Bronx. Then there were the crumbling concrete buildings.
So maybe my house here isn’t the magical Damascene house of the past (or at least how I imagined it to be), with an open courtyard and rooms around the side, with fountains and fishponds and birds chirping in the lemon trees. No, it is, unfortunately, more modern than that. But it is also just enough for what I need. Nothing too fancy, a super-sweet family that is happy to give me my independence but still treats me like part of the family, outside of downtown, my own room, my own door to the outside, my own key. My room is next to the bathrooms (one Arabic toilet, much like the Ghanaian and Japanese variety—a hole in the ground) and one Western, with a shower. The rest of the house is a small kitchen, living room with TV, formal living room / dining room, and two bedrooms for the rest of the family. There are 4 boys—one, Ihab, married last April (he works at a hospital in Damascus and operates the heart and lung machine in surgery) and lives 15 minutes away in the suburbs with his wife, one, Oubai, 28 working in Saudi Arabia in marketing research but home for the next month to study law, one 17, Ronnee, at high school in Maryland living with his uncle’s family, one, Farah, 13 living here. Oubai has been showing me around a little and helping me to do basic things like buy water, a cell phone card, find an internet café, find my university, the embassy etc.
The parents are very nice, the mother, Leila, speaks little English which is probably a good thing, and is a very good cook. After I arrived yesterday and had finished unpacking I ate zucchini (coussa, aka my mom’s maiden name), eggplant (bitinjaan) and red peppers (flayfley ahmar) baked with olive oil and stuffed with meat and rice. The father, Phillipe, is a lawyer, speaks better English and is very friendly and unassuming. He likes to teach me Arabic proverbs. So far the only ones I remember (and I only remember the translations) are “You eat like you love” aka if you don’t eat my food you don’t like me. And my favorite so far “The birds in my stomach are shouting” aka I’m hungry! We also had some interesting albeit slightly illogical conversations (due to the language barrier) about religion and law—he is Christian but because of his job he has to study shari’ah (Islamic law) in addition to Syrian law (secular) since religious law governs marriage, etc and the majority of Syrians are Muslim. He seems to be a pretty serious Christian, lamenting the loss of Christian faith in the US compared to the good old days of the founding fathers. Again, the conversations are not always easily followed, but interesting nonetheless.
Later in the evening their neighbors, a Finnish family, came over for dessert—sweet white cheese in a white gelatinous thing with sliced pistachios flavored with orange blossom water, homemade cake with carrot shavings in it (I preferred this one to the heavy sweet cheese) and tea, flavored with cinnamon. The Fins have been here since September, the husband is working as a doctor, and they were very friendly. It was interesting to watch them speak English with my host-family, as it is something like their 4th language (after Swedish, Finnish and German) and clearly not the first language either. The mother, Ingvar, said she teaches Iraqi women (there is a large population of refugees here) how to crochet in wool.
--
Today I started the circuitous process of registering for my language class. First a trip to the language center to get the forms, then to the embassy to get a letter of recommendation/permission to study only to find that I am 10 minutes past the 8-10:30 visiting hours, then to the clinic to get tested for HIV (if foreigners are found positive they are deported, if Syrians are they are quarantined)—so tomorrow I have to go early to the embassy, to the bank to withdraw money to pay my tuition, to the clinic (near the house) for the results by noon, then back across town to the university to complete registration, with a placement exam on Thursday morning. Luckily the taxis are cheap (the most I’ve paid so far is about 70 lira, approx $1.50) and the busses are cheaper (10 lira, about 20 cents)—at least they will be when I figure out their routes.
For breakfast today, a delicious spread of white cheese, green za’atar, olive oil, honey, bread, olives and small eggplants stuffed with nuts and red peppers (makdoos). We had a big lunch with the oldest brother, Ihab, who came with his wife—Oubai had brought a big fish back from Saudi Arabia so we had it with roasted peppers and carrots and tartour sauce (tahini with parsley, garlic and lemon) and cabbage/parsley/tomato salad and green salad with beets. And for dessert big juicy sweet bortugal, oranges.
In the evening I walked with Oubai to Bab Touma, the neighborhood that most of the other Western students I emailed with before I left had advised I live. It is in the old Christian part of the city so it features older buildings and more ‘classic’ Damascene houses (many turned into bars and restaurants) and narrow streets, souqs, etc. On the way we stopped in shops (he was looking for a jacket) such as United Colors of Benetton and other familiar European chains. We bought ears of corn from a street vendor and later a chocolate croissant. I think if I had come to Damascus, as I was planning to, without a family arranged to live with and had to find a room to rent upon arrival, I would have preferred to be in a more student friendly area, such as Bab Touma. But it is only 15 minutes or so walking from the house so in the end it seems it is better that I found a family outside of these more expensive touristy areas yet can still walk to shop or tourist or meet friends (when I make them, inshahallah). We shall see.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Beirut, khallas
Today was my last day in Beirut. It feels good, now that I've had over two weeks to ease in to moving to the Middle East by living with family first. I know Damascus will be very different, I will not be speaking English and hearing French everyday, nor will I have wireless internet from my bedroom. At least I don't think so. And I'll be a student again, not a tourist all the time, spoiled by the attentions and comforts of family. But I'll be back, either to visit for the weekend (we didn't make it to the family house in the mountains on this trip) or when my parents come to visit me in March. But hopefully then I will be in a much different place. And maybe I'll have a better answer to the question "Why Damascus?"
It also feels good that I can now write in real time! Hurrah I caught up, just in time to leave. I have no idea how often I will be able to use the internet, nor how much I'll want to, so I promise less frequent and maybe less lengthy entries. You will be saved from all the details! Maybe.
Tomorrow I am taking a shared taxi in the morning, a few hours drive, for only $18 (if there are no surprise charges). And the driver will take me straight to the house! If I can find it. Then I'll have a few days before classes begin on Sunday (the weekend is Friday to Saturday as the Muslim holy day is Friday) to register, see a bit of the city, get to know my family a little, train myself to think in Arabic.
But as for today, today... woke up and was planning to go to church with my aunt but she wasn't feeling well so we postponed it to 6 pm. Had kibbe for lunch, started packing throughout the day, went to church, all of us, Ketes (as I learned her actual name, 2 weeks later) included. It was strange to sit through a mass in a different language, recognizing the rituals but being more distanced from it than usual. We came back to the house, I helped Chantal take down the Christmas decorations and we went out with Michel and his friend Selim (who I met my first day here when we went walking on the Corniche) for dinner at a nearby cafe. The cafe was cute-- everything in it was for sale, including the mismatched furniture on which you sit and eat and the art on the walls. It was just soup, salads and sandwiches (and chocolate cake for dessert-- there are NOT enough chocolate desserts here) and good conversation with a few aging leftists who don't want to grow up. But then again here it seems it is not in fashion to act(/dress/look) your age.
It also feels good that I can now write in real time! Hurrah I caught up, just in time to leave. I have no idea how often I will be able to use the internet, nor how much I'll want to, so I promise less frequent and maybe less lengthy entries. You will be saved from all the details! Maybe.
Tomorrow I am taking a shared taxi in the morning, a few hours drive, for only $18 (if there are no surprise charges). And the driver will take me straight to the house! If I can find it. Then I'll have a few days before classes begin on Sunday (the weekend is Friday to Saturday as the Muslim holy day is Friday) to register, see a bit of the city, get to know my family a little, train myself to think in Arabic.
But as for today, today... woke up and was planning to go to church with my aunt but she wasn't feeling well so we postponed it to 6 pm. Had kibbe for lunch, started packing throughout the day, went to church, all of us, Ketes (as I learned her actual name, 2 weeks later) included. It was strange to sit through a mass in a different language, recognizing the rituals but being more distanced from it than usual. We came back to the house, I helped Chantal take down the Christmas decorations and we went out with Michel and his friend Selim (who I met my first day here when we went walking on the Corniche) for dinner at a nearby cafe. The cafe was cute-- everything in it was for sale, including the mismatched furniture on which you sit and eat and the art on the walls. It was just soup, salads and sandwiches (and chocolate cake for dessert-- there are NOT enough chocolate desserts here) and good conversation with a few aging leftists who don't want to grow up. But then again here it seems it is not in fashion to act(/dress/look) your age.
Family Outing
Again Saturday I spent the morning with my aunt in the kitchen. This time she let me peel garlic. She was preparing lunch-- Armenian sausage sliced in the bottom of a pan, layered with sliced tomatoes, ground white pepper (I was allowed to grind that too) and sliced green peppers, baked in the oven.
I asked her a few questions about growing up. My mom and my uncle back home had both wanted to know how many people lived in the household, she said 21! 2 parents, 10 kids, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 2 kids from an aunt with no husband and 3 servants. She said her father loved having people around in the house, family and neighbors alike, and her mother was a very kind woman to allow so many people to live in their house. I asked her if she learned to cook from her mother, and she said yes, but only Lebanese food. But she also likes to cook international foods, which she learned from her 'encyclopedia.' My grandmother, on the other hand, only cooked Lebanese food, which she learned from her mother, though my aunt wasn't clear about if her mother was actually a remarkable cook or not. Judging from the skills of her daughters (Sr Agnes included, our house-favorite dish in CT is 'Sr Agnes chicken': grilled with garlic and olive oil and more garlic; also I remember Tante Therese's cooking from visiting her in Brazil) she must have been.
I also asked her (as per requested by my mom) if she cooked food from Senegal, where she lived for 19 years while her husband worked as a doctor there. She said, cous cous. That's all I got. But more on Senegal-- all four of her children were born there, and they only chose to move back when Josyan, the eldest, was 17 and needed to 'go to school and get married.' It was either France or Lebanon and they returned to Lebanon, where every 4 years they had returned to visit family. I asked her a little about my grandmother, if she had any stories or memories about her, since she died a few months after my parents were married, and she said when they were young, the three oldest girls, Sr Agnes, Nagibe and my grandmother Marie, were always together. Then my grandmother moved to NY to marry my grandfather, Frank/Fathallah (when she was in her 20s) and after the wedding they didn't see each other for 20 years, because my grandmother lived in NY and her sister lived in Senegal. She said it was very difficult the first time they saw each other, because "I look for my sister, but I don't find her." She said it was like her sister was a different person, or maybe that she herself had changed-- and of course after 20 years of living in different countries both had changed. But after "4, 5 hours of conversation, there was no problem, I find my sister."
--
A neighbor stopped by for coffee, and my aunt called a friend of hers from Damascus to ask advice about hiring a taxi for me, since I realized this week that I cannot go with the family friend as he is going Tuesday and I need to be there Monday. We also called the family in Damascus and I spoke a little to the mother, Leila, who doesn't speak much English (probably a good thing) but sounded very sweet and my aunt spoke to her in Arabic to get the full address of the house. I also talked to her older son who spoke English very well and gave me a few more details for when I arrive.
Josyan and Eli came by to visit, offering the idea of going out to dinner and a movie (Valkyrie) that night with all of us; it was Eli's idea to take me out on my last weekend in Beirut. I hadn't been out anywhere with my aunt and I liked the idea of going out with the whole family, though I probably wouldn't have seen the movie otherwise. Chantal had been out all day so when she returned around 7 we left for the theater. Seating in Lebanese theaters is assigned so when I was sent ahead to buy tickets (they cost about $7) I tried to find 6 seats together as Michel was joining us. The movie was intense but everybody loved it, my aunt Nagibe included. I asked her if she liked violent action movies and she said yes "c'est magnifique!" We went to a pizza restaurant on the top floor of the mall where the cinema is (the largest mall in Beirut, packed with families and teenagers on a Saturday night) and each person ordered their own thin-crust platter-sized pizza, of which I could finish half. Not too bad though, when I think about other countries' attempts to recreate pizza (I think the weirdest was in Japan with corn and shrimp), particularly since the restaurant tried to stay faithful to the Napolitan theme.
We were home by 1230, pizza boxes in hand, and I gladly went to bed. I probably could have still met up with Diana and her friends, but sleep is good too.
I asked her a few questions about growing up. My mom and my uncle back home had both wanted to know how many people lived in the household, she said 21! 2 parents, 10 kids, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 2 kids from an aunt with no husband and 3 servants. She said her father loved having people around in the house, family and neighbors alike, and her mother was a very kind woman to allow so many people to live in their house. I asked her if she learned to cook from her mother, and she said yes, but only Lebanese food. But she also likes to cook international foods, which she learned from her 'encyclopedia.' My grandmother, on the other hand, only cooked Lebanese food, which she learned from her mother, though my aunt wasn't clear about if her mother was actually a remarkable cook or not. Judging from the skills of her daughters (Sr Agnes included, our house-favorite dish in CT is 'Sr Agnes chicken': grilled with garlic and olive oil and more garlic; also I remember Tante Therese's cooking from visiting her in Brazil) she must have been.
I also asked her (as per requested by my mom) if she cooked food from Senegal, where she lived for 19 years while her husband worked as a doctor there. She said, cous cous. That's all I got. But more on Senegal-- all four of her children were born there, and they only chose to move back when Josyan, the eldest, was 17 and needed to 'go to school and get married.' It was either France or Lebanon and they returned to Lebanon, where every 4 years they had returned to visit family. I asked her a little about my grandmother, if she had any stories or memories about her, since she died a few months after my parents were married, and she said when they were young, the three oldest girls, Sr Agnes, Nagibe and my grandmother Marie, were always together. Then my grandmother moved to NY to marry my grandfather, Frank/Fathallah (when she was in her 20s) and after the wedding they didn't see each other for 20 years, because my grandmother lived in NY and her sister lived in Senegal. She said it was very difficult the first time they saw each other, because "I look for my sister, but I don't find her." She said it was like her sister was a different person, or maybe that she herself had changed-- and of course after 20 years of living in different countries both had changed. But after "4, 5 hours of conversation, there was no problem, I find my sister."
--
A neighbor stopped by for coffee, and my aunt called a friend of hers from Damascus to ask advice about hiring a taxi for me, since I realized this week that I cannot go with the family friend as he is going Tuesday and I need to be there Monday. We also called the family in Damascus and I spoke a little to the mother, Leila, who doesn't speak much English (probably a good thing) but sounded very sweet and my aunt spoke to her in Arabic to get the full address of the house. I also talked to her older son who spoke English very well and gave me a few more details for when I arrive.
Josyan and Eli came by to visit, offering the idea of going out to dinner and a movie (Valkyrie) that night with all of us; it was Eli's idea to take me out on my last weekend in Beirut. I hadn't been out anywhere with my aunt and I liked the idea of going out with the whole family, though I probably wouldn't have seen the movie otherwise. Chantal had been out all day so when she returned around 7 we left for the theater. Seating in Lebanese theaters is assigned so when I was sent ahead to buy tickets (they cost about $7) I tried to find 6 seats together as Michel was joining us. The movie was intense but everybody loved it, my aunt Nagibe included. I asked her if she liked violent action movies and she said yes "c'est magnifique!" We went to a pizza restaurant on the top floor of the mall where the cinema is (the largest mall in Beirut, packed with families and teenagers on a Saturday night) and each person ordered their own thin-crust platter-sized pizza, of which I could finish half. Not too bad though, when I think about other countries' attempts to recreate pizza (I think the weirdest was in Japan with corn and shrimp), particularly since the restaurant tried to stay faithful to the Napolitan theme.
We were home by 1230, pizza boxes in hand, and I gladly went to bed. I probably could have still met up with Diana and her friends, but sleep is good too.
Cabin Fever; Friends? part 2
I spent the day Friday at home again, sleeping in, sitting in the kitchen with my aunt while she cooked but refused to let me help. I found myself feeling anxious-- not wanting to be a tourist anymore, ready to leave the comfort of living with family to live on my own, but still nervous about going to Damascus in a few days and knowing nobody. It was raining all day and I didn't want to do anything, nor did I know anything to do.
Josyan had given me the number of her friend's niece, Diana, so I had called her the day before and emailed her to see if we could meet up Friday afternoon. She responded that the rain kept her indoors and she was busy working on her thesis, but she did feel a bit of cabin fever and wanted to go out that night. So we made plans to meet up later in the evening. I was glad that I would not leave Beirut without experiencing any of its famous nightlife and I felt a little reassured from our brief conversations that we might have more in common than the last group of friends I was set up with. After dinner with Chantal and Nagibe, I waited for a taxi to come and bring me to her dorm in AUB campus, where she lived. We met and walked to her friend's apartment nearby. There were four of us, including her friend Kevin (American, in the same ME studies program) and his friend George (a French-Lebanese who is working as a journalist). In the car, I asked them about their master's program, both laughed and said it was a little disappointing in the end. There are only 21 credits (7 courses), 2-3 of which are Arabic language, 1 is an easy seminar, and 3 are actually relevant to the program. They both were excited and supportive of my decision to study in Damascus and Diana said in retrospect she probably would have preferred Damascus over Beirut for school, though she loves living in the city and has been here for 2 1/2 years.
We ended up at a club called Basement, which turned out to be a little stuffy. The people seemed a bit too serious and there were few places to hang out and talk. You couldn't sit anywhere as the only options were the seats at the bar for $25 and the tables with bottles of champagne-- we didn't ask-- and there was little standing room. They talked a little bit about other clubs they've been to/heard about in Beirut, including one that is underground that doesn't get busy til after 2 am but opens its roof so partiers can watch the sunrise and another with $1000 tables, reservations necessary-- Kevin only slipped in without paying as part of a larger group. Around 1230 we opted to head out, stopping at a local snack shop called Barbar (if I remember correctly, the family of the kids I met the week before owns it) to get a little food-- Diana said they have the best falafel but I couldn't stomach the huge sandwich, I opted for a (huge but delicious) spinach pie under $1. Then we continued on to Acid, listed in LP as one of the gay-friendly bars in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Entry for women is free before midnight, and though we missed the cutoff they also feature an open bar. This business model makes no sense to me, but at least the crowd was a lot more fun and colorful (perfect for people-watching) and of course representative of a subculture in Beirut that you don't see out and about during the day. They had laser shows, showered foam from the ceilings, pounding music, etc etc that began to get to me sometime around 230 am as we debated leaving for another club or staying a little longer. We stayed, and by 330 we were leaving, this time for home. They drove me back to Jel El-Dib, which was great for me not to have to take a taxi, and I was home before 4. I don't think I saw the full range of what Beirut has to offer in one night, but I am glad I got the chance to go out before leaving. Diana called me the following night for a more "organized" night out, but we had plans with the family to go out for dinner and a movie, on Beirut time (aka movie at 8, dinner at 1030, home at 1230). See following post for more details.
Josyan had given me the number of her friend's niece, Diana, so I had called her the day before and emailed her to see if we could meet up Friday afternoon. She responded that the rain kept her indoors and she was busy working on her thesis, but she did feel a bit of cabin fever and wanted to go out that night. So we made plans to meet up later in the evening. I was glad that I would not leave Beirut without experiencing any of its famous nightlife and I felt a little reassured from our brief conversations that we might have more in common than the last group of friends I was set up with. After dinner with Chantal and Nagibe, I waited for a taxi to come and bring me to her dorm in AUB campus, where she lived. We met and walked to her friend's apartment nearby. There were four of us, including her friend Kevin (American, in the same ME studies program) and his friend George (a French-Lebanese who is working as a journalist). In the car, I asked them about their master's program, both laughed and said it was a little disappointing in the end. There are only 21 credits (7 courses), 2-3 of which are Arabic language, 1 is an easy seminar, and 3 are actually relevant to the program. They both were excited and supportive of my decision to study in Damascus and Diana said in retrospect she probably would have preferred Damascus over Beirut for school, though she loves living in the city and has been here for 2 1/2 years.
We ended up at a club called Basement, which turned out to be a little stuffy. The people seemed a bit too serious and there were few places to hang out and talk. You couldn't sit anywhere as the only options were the seats at the bar for $25 and the tables with bottles of champagne-- we didn't ask-- and there was little standing room. They talked a little bit about other clubs they've been to/heard about in Beirut, including one that is underground that doesn't get busy til after 2 am but opens its roof so partiers can watch the sunrise and another with $1000 tables, reservations necessary-- Kevin only slipped in without paying as part of a larger group. Around 1230 we opted to head out, stopping at a local snack shop called Barbar (if I remember correctly, the family of the kids I met the week before owns it) to get a little food-- Diana said they have the best falafel but I couldn't stomach the huge sandwich, I opted for a (huge but delicious) spinach pie under $1. Then we continued on to Acid, listed in LP as one of the gay-friendly bars in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Entry for women is free before midnight, and though we missed the cutoff they also feature an open bar. This business model makes no sense to me, but at least the crowd was a lot more fun and colorful (perfect for people-watching) and of course representative of a subculture in Beirut that you don't see out and about during the day. They had laser shows, showered foam from the ceilings, pounding music, etc etc that began to get to me sometime around 230 am as we debated leaving for another club or staying a little longer. We stayed, and by 330 we were leaving, this time for home. They drove me back to Jel El-Dib, which was great for me not to have to take a taxi, and I was home before 4. I don't think I saw the full range of what Beirut has to offer in one night, but I am glad I got the chance to go out before leaving. Diana called me the following night for a more "organized" night out, but we had plans with the family to go out for dinner and a movie, on Beirut time (aka movie at 8, dinner at 1030, home at 1230). See following post for more details.
Jesuits, Romans, Ummayads oh my!
Thursday morning I rolled myself out of bed at 615, left with Chantal on her way to work and she dropped me at a hotel in the neighborhood where I would meet the bus for the tour company. By 8 the group was assembled (6 of us- 2 Belgian women, a Jordanian couple, and a Moroccan girl my age from Paris) and we drove off into the Bekaa valley (to the east, between the Lebanon Mountains and the Anti-Lebanon mountains on the border with Syria), which is actually closer to Damascus than Beirut. We stopped for breakfast (flatbread with labneh- thick yogurt) and by 930 we were at Ksara, Lebanon's oldest and most famous winery. It is a medieval fortress turned vineyard, bought by a Jesuit in the mid 19th century, with underground caves. We had a brief tour and ended with a wine tasting (the Muslim Jordanian couple opted out), though I found it to be a little too early, especially on a queasy stomach.
After the others bought a few bottles of wine we returned to the car and continued to Baalbek, home to the MidEast's most impressive display of Roman ruins. Our guide pointed out as we drove the yellow and green flags of Hezbollah and Amal, and vendors at the entrance to the site offered yellow t-shirts with the Hezbollah logo on it. But before we reached the site we stopped to see the largest stone in the world, also called 'the Stone of the Pregnant Woman,' though the souvenir shop attached to it attracted more interest from our group than the stone itself. The souvenir shop was run by a man who is credited with cleaning up the area around the stone, previously used as a town garbage dump. Since then he has set up a town garbage system in order to encourage locals to dispose of their trash responsibly and comes every day to keep the area clean.
This being my last day in a long chain of sightseeing adventures, I was feeling a little unappreciative of the historical and archaeological significance that lay before me in Baalbek. Woe is me. The centuries began running together in my head, and it didn't help that the Roman temples of Venus, Bacchus and Jupiter were surrounded by Mamluk fortresses and had been partially destroyed to make way for Christian churches built by emperor Theodosius.
Though Baalbek was not a particularly important city in history, it was chosen as a site for these impressive temples because of its position between important N-S and E-W trade routes, as well as two rivers. Additionally, the land on which the Jupiter temple is built is the highest point in the Bekaa valley. LP tells me that the temples were important also because they were an effort to remind the Baalbekian people of their devotion to pagan gods in the face of the oncoming threat of Christianity, and consequently Baalbek became one of the most important places of worship in the Roman Empire. As the empire converted to Christianity under Constantine, construction ceased (began in 60 BC, still uncomplete at this time in 324, never completed), then came pagan emperor Julian, then crazy Christian emperor Theodosius who converted the temples to churches.
I was impressed to see that so much of the temples and massive columns (some built from one piece of granite) still stood after centuries of devastating earthquakes (though only 6 of the 54 remain in the temple of Jupiter, the temple of Bacchus is better preserved). The site received little attention for a few hundred years until 1898 the German Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the site and sponsored its preservation and excavation (the Bacchus temple features graffiti from the 1880s, in both Arabic and English, though I don't know if its authentic or not). Baalbek is one of the sites I remember visiting with my family when we were there 11 years ago, though I remember it very differently-- much more spacious and removed from the city. When I arrived this time, I was surprised to see that is just off the road in the city.
[side note: my digital camera officially died. more pictures forthcoming on film.]
Anyway- lunch at a hotel in Zahle, the usual spread of dips and meats and veggies. The dining room had about 6 other tables filled with groups of 5 or so men, smoking cigars and drinking arak (the national drink), there was only one other woman in the room. Then we went to Anjar, a small Armenian town, previously the Syrian military base. We visited its extensive ruins of an Ummayad city (est. 8th century), the largest in Lebanon, as well as the Armenian jewelry/souvenir shop at its entrance (they are famous for their silver work, our group bought accordingly). The city has evidence of architectural elements from the preceeding Roman, Byzantine and Hellenistic eras in its columns, public baths, mosaics, carvings.
Back in the van, listening to the local Hezbollah radio broadcast (the Jordanian man translated a little, they were talking about how "Lebanon doesn't need another war right now") and it began to rain. I was dropped around 6 back at the hotel and thankfully the rain had stopped so I could walk back to the house. I was very tired, a little sick, and happy to have no more sightseeing plans for a while.
Since then, it has been raining every day (Thursday to Sunday) and I think it will continue tomorrow. But its all sunshine and clear skies in Damascus!
After the others bought a few bottles of wine we returned to the car and continued to Baalbek, home to the MidEast's most impressive display of Roman ruins. Our guide pointed out as we drove the yellow and green flags of Hezbollah and Amal, and vendors at the entrance to the site offered yellow t-shirts with the Hezbollah logo on it. But before we reached the site we stopped to see the largest stone in the world, also called 'the Stone of the Pregnant Woman,' though the souvenir shop attached to it attracted more interest from our group than the stone itself. The souvenir shop was run by a man who is credited with cleaning up the area around the stone, previously used as a town garbage dump. Since then he has set up a town garbage system in order to encourage locals to dispose of their trash responsibly and comes every day to keep the area clean.
This being my last day in a long chain of sightseeing adventures, I was feeling a little unappreciative of the historical and archaeological significance that lay before me in Baalbek. Woe is me. The centuries began running together in my head, and it didn't help that the Roman temples of Venus, Bacchus and Jupiter were surrounded by Mamluk fortresses and had been partially destroyed to make way for Christian churches built by emperor Theodosius.
Though Baalbek was not a particularly important city in history, it was chosen as a site for these impressive temples because of its position between important N-S and E-W trade routes, as well as two rivers. Additionally, the land on which the Jupiter temple is built is the highest point in the Bekaa valley. LP tells me that the temples were important also because they were an effort to remind the Baalbekian people of their devotion to pagan gods in the face of the oncoming threat of Christianity, and consequently Baalbek became one of the most important places of worship in the Roman Empire. As the empire converted to Christianity under Constantine, construction ceased (began in 60 BC, still uncomplete at this time in 324, never completed), then came pagan emperor Julian, then crazy Christian emperor Theodosius who converted the temples to churches.
I was impressed to see that so much of the temples and massive columns (some built from one piece of granite) still stood after centuries of devastating earthquakes (though only 6 of the 54 remain in the temple of Jupiter, the temple of Bacchus is better preserved). The site received little attention for a few hundred years until 1898 the German Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the site and sponsored its preservation and excavation (the Bacchus temple features graffiti from the 1880s, in both Arabic and English, though I don't know if its authentic or not). Baalbek is one of the sites I remember visiting with my family when we were there 11 years ago, though I remember it very differently-- much more spacious and removed from the city. When I arrived this time, I was surprised to see that is just off the road in the city.
[side note: my digital camera officially died. more pictures forthcoming on film.]
Anyway- lunch at a hotel in Zahle, the usual spread of dips and meats and veggies. The dining room had about 6 other tables filled with groups of 5 or so men, smoking cigars and drinking arak (the national drink), there was only one other woman in the room. Then we went to Anjar, a small Armenian town, previously the Syrian military base. We visited its extensive ruins of an Ummayad city (est. 8th century), the largest in Lebanon, as well as the Armenian jewelry/souvenir shop at its entrance (they are famous for their silver work, our group bought accordingly). The city has evidence of architectural elements from the preceeding Roman, Byzantine and Hellenistic eras in its columns, public baths, mosaics, carvings.
Back in the van, listening to the local Hezbollah radio broadcast (the Jordanian man translated a little, they were talking about how "Lebanon doesn't need another war right now") and it began to rain. I was dropped around 6 back at the hotel and thankfully the rain had stopped so I could walk back to the house. I was very tired, a little sick, and happy to have no more sightseeing plans for a while.
Since then, it has been raining every day (Thursday to Sunday) and I think it will continue tomorrow. But its all sunshine and clear skies in Damascus!
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