Part Three: Syria with the Parents: Aleppo

Tuesday morning my mom and I were on a bus headed to Aleppo. Thus far I had only crossed the border between Beirut and Damascus so the northern route was new to me. The bus was estimated to take six hours (930-330) with a stop in Tripoli. However, as we made our way north, it was clear we would be lucky to make it to the city before dark. Beyond the scheduled stops in Tripoli and of course at the border, the bus stopped numerous times on the way accumulating who-knows-what and stowing it in the luggage compartments; it reminded me a little of Chinatown bus rides from NY to DC. It was almost a joke, stopping every ten minutes, and just as we thought we were on our way we would be pulled over at some roadside shop again. The driver’s assistant/negotiator had his office in the front of the bus hidden under a prayer rug, piles of money, forms, papers and rubber bands.

Once we got through Tripoli it was a little smoother and not far from the northern border with Syria, but getting through the border itself was a madhouse. There were crowds of people in the streets, cars parked randomly across the lanes—I wouldn’t call the Beirut/Damascus border orderly but this was like herding cows. On top of it all, my mom didn’t have a Syrian visa since the policy is that if your father is Syrian your nationality is automatically Syrian (for once patriarchal systems come in handy!). The consulate assured her it shouldn’t be a problem as long as she brings proof of her father’s nationality (which she did with her birth certificate and his death certificate) but once we saw the state of the border we were a little nervous. Plus the border officials didn’t read or speak English, so the certificates meant nothing to them; luckily they took my mom’s word for it that she was reading the papers aloud correctly and after several trips to different officials and such she was stamped and we were (almost) on our way again. First we had to make more stops, including one with a conspicuously parked customs official, where the guy got off our bus with a wad of money in his hand in his pocket, got into the backseat of the car, then got out 30 seconds later. It was pretty entertaining at first but once we saw the hours fall away it started to become increasingly frustrating.

Thankfully the scenery was beautiful and we were sitting in the first two seats of the coach bus so we were high up and could see out the front window (which also gave my mom a prime seat for watching the goings on of the guy in front, as well as the crazy Syrian traffic and the number of times we narrowly escaped an accident). Leaving Lebanon it was snow-capped mountains with rolling green agricultural fields and small villages in the foreground, then driving north into Syria it became increasingly rural. We saw shepherds, wearing long robes and the keffiyeh wrapped around their heads, with their flocks of sheep or goats (sometimes the shepherd was a seven-year old child), the road lined with tall trees to protect the fields and every so often a village of crumbling concrete houses and a mosque, or small groups of tents (unclear if they are for the animals or the people, I think it depends on the region), or even in one region beehive-shaped houses.

Seven and a half hours later we arrived in Aleppo. Our hotel was in a renovated old Syrian house (they are all about 2-400 years old) with the picturesque courtyard, hanging vines and the rooms around the perimeter. Unfortunately most of the attention is given to the shared spaces and the rooms themselves aren’t that exciting, plus they usually don’t have windows to the outside because the traditional Syrian houses are focused inwards, to the courtyard. The outsides of the houses, which you notice as you walk through older areas of the cities, are uninviting and gray with no big windows or anything to hint of the beauty on the inside. We were surprised to find ourselves living in the ‘new’ part of Aleppo, which is distinguished from the old Aleppo in that it is only 400 years old, and not 1000+.

We spent the evening walking around the city amongst the throngs of Aleppans shopping. Everybody was out on the streets, and it was only a Tuesday night! The stores themselves weren’t very exciting, mostly inexpensive shoes and clothing, but it made for great people-watching. We ate dinner in one of the nicest restaurants in Aleppo, also in a renovated traditional house that was beautifully decorated, and were pleasantly surprised to find the bill to be about $26, and it was to be our most expensive meal for the rest of our time in Syria (minus a few special meals in Damascus).

From there we wandered into different shops, first looking at ‘oriental’ shops with collections of antiques and silverwork, then we were drawn to the windows of the gold jewelers. My parents had intended to pick out my 22nd birthday present while we were in Syria together—ideally we had thought of a set of gold bangles that matched ones my mom was given at my age—but as soon as we set foot inside the shops and learned that each bangle cost over $300, that was the end of that idea. Apparently the global economic crisis = cost of gold skyrocketing and alas not everything can be a bargain in Syria.

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The next morning we set out for a day of sightseeing, starting at the 13th century Mamluk Great Mosque (the site's first mosque was built in the 8th century but was rebuilt many times, then finally destroyed completely by the Mongols and resurrected to its current form) where we took a tour wearing gray-hooded cloaks. One of the main draws of the mosque is that it supposedly houses the ruins of Zachariah (father of St John the Baptist, whose remains we will see in due time), who is considered one of the prophets of Islam. The interior of the mosque has a big courtyard with rooms around the sides with one large room for the group prayer. In-between the main 5 prayers of the day you can see people reading on their own, studying in groups or just hanging out and socializing. We felt a little self-conscious walking around, not exactly sure if certain rooms were for men only or women only, but we could see that some of the rooms were set aside for men and women to clean themselves before praying (having originated in the desert, one of the major foundations of Islam is hygiene and even if there is no water to be found one must go through the motions of cleansing oneself before beginning to pray).

From the mosque we walked to the citadel, which was not difficult to spot as it sits atop a huge green hill, surrounded by a moat and set apart from the rest of the city. The scale of it is enormous and on the inside it truly is a city on a hill. The director of the citadel himself gave us a tour of the interior houses, palaces, mosques, hammams (complete with mannequins wrapped in towels demonstrating the functions of the various rooms). From the top of the citadel you could see a great panorama of the city in all of its limestone glory. It is the second largest city in Syria but the scale of it is much nicer than that of Damascus and it is also much cleaner, with fewer towering buildings and if there was a modern district we avoided it.

My mom began a conversation with our guide about the Armenians in Aleppo and by then end of our tour he was taking us to his brother’s shop to have a look. I can’t remember if he was Armenian or if his goods were or what the connection was exactly, mostly I think he just wanted to lure tourists to the shop. The shop was in an unmarked building, we walked through a textiles workshop and found ourselves in the midst of shelves and shelves of rugs, tablecloths, scarves and jewelry. We thought we might have stumbled on a bargain, perhaps having been taken directly to a source where most people don’t come to shop, but unfortunately everything in his shop was exorbitantly expensive—at least for us, the unwitting tourists. He did have beautiful and seemingly original designs with his jewelry, but it was only our first day in Aleppo and had no way of knowing if anything was what it appeared to be.

Eventually it became increasingly uncomfortable as it became increasingly obvious that we weren’t ready to buy any of his merchandise. They had put forth a lot of effort into showing us cloth after cloth after cloth and earring after earring after earring, but we backed out of the store, taking his card and promising to come back another time. But there are so many stores and so much of the same or even better merchandise to be found that most shopkeepers know you won’t be coming back. For us, shopping in the markets became a journey with no destination; with every store we visited we learned more about the quality of the goods and the range of choices and the impossibility of knowing if what you are buying is worth your money. Neither myself nor my mom enjoy bargaining, particularly when we have no personal knowledge of the value of anything in the stores and when you know that if the same item was in the US we would pay much more for it, but your mind gets trapped in the exchange of US and Syrian currencies and nobody likes to pay ten times more than necessary. We spent the rest of the day going in and out of stores and each time we were glad we hadn’t given in to whatever it was that we were admiring in the previous store.

We left Aleppo with just a few choice purchases, mostly made of a richly colored striped silk fabric that is used in scarves, cushions, make-up bags, clothing…just about anything. We also left with two boxes of Aleppan sweets for my host family to balance out the Easter candies my mom brought them from the states.