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.

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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.