A Collection of Random Observations, II: Mornings, Guards, Chocolate Croissants, Smoking, Guns & Politics

Monday, 30 March 2009

First, my good friend Matt has posted some photos and observations from his visit to Damascus on his blog. Read on to learn about his experiences living and working in Mali, and about his travels around Europe.

1. Mornings

Most days I wake up at 7 am—or, to be accurate—set my alarm for 7 and hit snooze until 7:40. (My phone’s supportive—every ten minutes it tells me to “Snooze on.”) Once awake I flip on the heater, which I’ve started turning off in the middle of the night without remembering doing so, and go outside to make coffee before showering. ‘Outside’ is not an exaggeration—in a Beit Arabe no room is internally connected to another, so leaving my room involves direct exposure to the elements, still chilly in the mornings. I make coffee in a metal pot with a long handle, spooning the finely-ground coffee beans into the water with some sugar, then setting it directly on our gas stove. Once hot, the coffee foams up and I have to carefully take the pot in and out of the heat to keep it from boiling over. The coffee’s ready when the foam boils away—I set it on my desk to cool, then grab my towel and head upstairs for a shower.

Our shower doubles as the laundry room, a small box three meters square with a tile floor and plenty of hot water. Clean, I hurry back downstairs to my warm room, coffee, and general dressing. If I’m taking the service (death cab), I’m ready and gone by 8:15, walking due north for ten minutes and only paying 10SP ($0.20). If I’m taking a taxi, I leave around 8:30; the ride usually costs around 50SP ($1) including tip, and how much of that I pay depends on if I take one alone or with others. 

Since both service and taxi drop us off on the other side of a busy highway from the Uni, I cross the road via an underground tunnel with hundreds of other students, mostly Syrian. Damascus University’s campus spreads across the city, and my school (the Higher Language Institute) is near the College of Humanities and the School of Dentistry. The tunnel is lined with small bookshops selling pens and bookw, specialising in language dictionaries and biology books. Some days there’s also a man selling cheesy posters of flowers and babies—he hangs them on the tunnel wall in neat rows. On days when it rains, he has umbrellas propped open on the floor. At some point I'll need to take him up on it—the one I have now is terrible. 

I squeeze in through the front gate that funnels all traffic in and out of the campus through a single doorway. The long, low building to the left holds half a dozen photocopiers always crowded—evidently a shortage in materials means that students often copy whole texts or sets of notes on a regular basis. To the right is the Institute cafeteria, specialising in fresh sandwich-like things called sagh, filled with your (limited) choice of cheese, meat, a couple kinds of vegetable, or fake nutella. The bread is as fresh as can be—the guys stretch dough paper-thin on top of a round pillow, flip the dough directly onto a hot oven, and cook it for just a minute, then fill and serve.

Taking a right goes around to the front of the Institute and up the stairs past students lounging in a last few moments of fresh air and cigarettes before class. Through the doors, to the hallway on the left, down the gently circling stairs, and into one of several dozens small, efficient classrooms filled with individual desks arranged in a three-sided rectangle facing the front of the room. 

2. The Guards At the Campus Entrance

There are guards at the entrance. They have machine guns slung over their shoulders. They make Syrians show ID, but wave foreigners through. I am not sure what they are supposed to be doing, but the guns are big.

3. Chocolate Croissants, The Hunt For

We have three breaks during our four hours of class, each lasting ten to fifteen minutes. On the bottom floor of the Institute is a small room converted into a makeshift café that serves, for 10-20SP, a variety of terrible off-brand snacks and hot drinks. And croissants. I think the croissants are a day old, sent from a bakery nearby, and arrive in three varieties: olive (ew), cheese (okay), and chocolate (hallelujah). The croissants are mixed together on a table and only number 50 or 60 for several hundred hungry foreigners, turning the first break into a daily hunt for delicious snacking.

 The cue often stretches to the door, filled with polite Europeans used to respecting the person who arrived first. But this is Syria—no one cues. So you cut to the left, walk two meters to the middle of the line, reach through the crowd, and begin to examine the croissants. Cheese are easy to pick out, marked with black sesame seeds, and olive ones are supposed to bear an external warning olive, but chocolate croissants are unmarked and sometimes can be confused with their cheesy or olive-y brethren. Each croissant is individually wrapped in a plastic bag, so you poke and bend the croissant as much as you can to break through to the chocolate layer. Enterprising students feel for the Chocolate Vein or look for burned bits of chocolate on the outside. Cheese and olive croissants remain long after the chocolate ones have been taken, but those arriving late still pick through the remainders, hoping that a chocolate slipped past a dozen other eyes. But even after months of experience and careful examination, the first bite can still sometimes meet the unfortunate olive. A metaphor for life, really. 

4. Smoking

Everyone smokes in Syria. Everyone. (Well, everyone except my roommates and my current group of friends.) Cigarette vendors are everywhere, hawking their wares in small shops, on street corners, on the sides of highways, and between cars stuck in traffic. I have dutifully refrained, but after two months spent in the company of smokers, I find myself suddenly nostalgic for the smell. 

5. Guns & Politics

There are men with machine guns near any government building. You will probably never see a photo of them, because I have enough sense not to intentionally create problems. I am also not able to write frankly about things political or governmental because I would like to stay living here. Those who write anything against the government have a tendency to be asked to leave. 

In which I am Proud to be an American

Saturday, 28 March 2009, 9:30PM

Sometimes my book’s cultural bias goes beyond the subtle. 

The first few lines of my text on Literature Salons (i.e. meeting houses for literature and poetry) read: "Arab society had true and beautiful literature salons many centuries before the west. If you had heard about the salon Madam Dauphan or other literature salons in the 19th, 18th, or 17th centuries, then know that similar or maybe even better salons than these were found with the Arabs in the 8th century, 1000 years earlier."

Silly west. How behind the times you were. The previous chapter’s reading includes the line: "...scholars see Syria as the cradle of numerous civilizations in many different fields because it has been inhabited for a million years." Yes. A million. Way to go, Syria! You beat ordinary humans by over 500,000 years!

I love this country, I truly do. Especially Damascus, which I have embraced from the moment I stepped off the plane. During my break two weeks ago I visited Tudmoor and Aleppo with Matt, and every time I returned to Damascus I felt like I was coming home. But there are times when the why, yes, I am American, yes, George W. Bush was not a great president, yes, my country’s army is well-travelled, sorry about that, makes me want to crack and start asking people from where their computers and cell phones and cars and vaccinations came. Granted, Japan, and South Korea have taken the stress of innovation off of our hands, but still. Respect, damn it. 

There’s a tendency amongst the university professors and some of the foreign students to call the United States the original and ultimate source of all evil in the world. So, Aimee, using the word “to occupy,” does the US occupy any countries right now? Wow, thanks for reminding me, I was about to forget that I’m supposed to be ashamed of my nationality. Taiwan wants to rejoin China but the US won’t let it—comments, American Student? (Happened to my friend.) Israel, one-sided sword of destruction, buoyed only by fervent American support, strikes against innocent Palestinians. 

I exaggerate. But only just. 

I suppose it bothers me because I feel most patriotic while abroad—nothing like being an expat to make you appreciate your country of birth. And while the list of things I dislike about our history and current policies would be, well, quite long, we also made cars and planes and put a man on the moon. I like cheeseburgers and baseball and shopping for many different things in one store. I like that we have national parks instead of old buildings. I like that we do want to help people, even if it’s sometimes misguided and poorly executed. 

Anyway. The constant barrage of subtle condemnation is a little tiring. Here’s my favourite sign, only seen in one place so far around the Old City:

Lovely.

Had my midterm today—I think I aced the grammar (irregular verbs, hooray) but was iffy on the reading and rushed on the writing. I’m fairly certain I passed, but I’m not sure how well. We had class today to make up for the Thursday off we had last week to celebrate workers’ and/or mothers’ day, which, conveniently combined with daylight savings yesterday, means I both lost an hour and have a six-day week. But I am learning so much from this level, and especially from my teacher. She is painfully direct (‘You’re wrong.’) but is pushing me to a better command of the language than anyone previously. 

Other things:

•  Still very cold. And rainy. The roof of the empty bedroom is dripping water constantly—I think there’s a leak from the neighbour’s kitchen that is exasperated by the rain. The roof of that room is just plaster over wood beams, covered on the inside by a thick cloth, so the constant dripping of water is going to make the roof cave in soon. Last night I taped a knife to the floor squeegee and poked a hole in the cloth to let the water out faster, but the ceiling’s still saturated. Our landlord is aware, but thinks the problem is rain-related only and so does nothing. If I wasn’t changing out jars underneath the leak or airing out the room, the cushions that used to cover the floor would be moulding and the room flooded. As it is, the room is totally unrentable. 
  

• The one thing I miss about the US, besides knowing where I can buy what I want, is the ease of medical care. My body right now is slowly falling apart under the influence of I’m not quite sure what. I’m casually sick in several different ways but I don’t feel comfortable seeking out a general practitioner here.
  

• I have to pay $30 to leave the country. Exit tax. Ha.
  
  

The last month and a half, somewhat in order

4 February—A few minutes in Bosra, Syria (Pictures here!)

Bosra is a small town two hours south of Damascus celebrated for its impressive Roman amphitheatre. In a spur-of-the-moment trip, my friend P and I headed down via comfortable $2 tourist bus to spend the afternoon looking at 2000 year-old ruins. We didn’t get to the bus station until after 1PM, our bus didn’t leave until 2, and upon had only an hour and a half before our 6PM return bus trip. Unfortunately, the notable ampitheatre, displayed gratuitously on half a dozen posters in the bus station office, closes at 4PM. Oops. 

Nevertheless, P and I had fun wandering around old Roman houses. Syrian historical sites don’t have the same annoying regulations that plague so many ancient artifacts in the US or Europe in the name of “tourist safety” or “historical preservation”—my only faux pax came when I tried to climb over a wall that turned out to be someone’s house. We valiantly fended off eager would-be tour guides and happily scrambled around ancient walls and rooms that probably have deep sociological meaning to someone other than us. As the sun was setting the al-uwathen agharab ( اليوذن الغرب, which means “sunset prayer,” but really takes place before the sun sets so as to avoid the impression of sun worship) rang out and the ruins glowed gold.

P was after Roman coins, and after no success in the ruins themselves met a Bosrian man who just so happened to have lots of coins if we would only come back to his house. I tagged along to keep him company while he got ripped off, and ended up buying a necklace for $8, many times more than it was worth. By this point it was 5:40—we hurried back into town, caught our bus minutes before it left, and drove back in the dark to Damascus. 

7 February—I finally actually leave Damascus for a proper tourist trip. (Pictures here!)

I hate tourist trips. After my two weeks in Morocco, when my French program shut us in a bus and drove us around to tile and fabric shops in a misguided understanding of “cultural immersion,” and then, when my trek into the Sahara on camel ended up with my American friends and I sitting uncomfortably in a real Berber house, sheathed in plastic and fifteen feet square that housed two families, before going back to our “authentic” Berber tents full of blankets and comfort, I discovered that tourism makes me feel rich, elite, and separate. Of course, these things are more or less true in a relative sense, but it doesn’t mean I have to pursue activities that celebrate my rich elitism. 

However, I was rather impressed with the bare bones approach of my first trip with Arabesk. We set out at 7:30AM to visit a Crusader castle, a city with neat water wheels, and the ruins of Apamea. Most of the nine other foreigners on the bus with me had only just arrived in Syria, and I found myself being able to speak to the university and Damascus in general from experience—it’s hard to believe that I’ve been here two and a half months.

We drove for two hours, then up a winding road to Krak de Chevaliers. The castle is over 1000 years old and massive, with two distinct parts: an outer wall with 13 gates surround a complex inner fortress. Parts of the castle were built by the Muslims in the 11th century, but the castle was fully expanded and fortified in the 12th century by the Crusaders, who held it successfully against numerous attacks until they gave it up after a month of siege. We met our English-speaking tour guide out front and set off on a several-hour exploration of the major features of the Krak—unfortunately for my education, there were so many interesting staircases and rooms that I missed a lot of the history in exploring and taking photos. I want to go back on my own and really take advantage of my freedom to wander. [I did this last week. Details to follow.]

After Krak we drove for several more hours to Hama and ate lunch in a restaurant overlooking the Orontes River, then walked down to the river’s edge to visit the norias, giant wooden water wheels still used for irrigation. Their turning is supposed to make a mournful groaning for which the town is famous, but all wheels were silent that day and so we climbed over them a bit, peered into the disgusting water that flowed underneath them, and then got back onto the bus.

After going in circles a few times (literally—they like traffic circles here) while the driver figured out where to go, we were on the road to Apamea. We arrived around 4PM and started walking through the ruins with our second English-speaking tour guide. Apamea dates back to the second century BC, built by one of Alexander the Great’s generals and named after his wife. The town allegedly held 150,000 free citizens, which meant about 500,000 people total. It was damaged several times because of earthquakes, the last of which completely leveled the city. The main thoroughfare was rebuilt more recently, and covers at least a kilometer of ancient marketplace.

Once again I missed a lot of the history by going off to take pictures. By the time we reached the end of the rebuilt section of the ruins, it was already getting dark, but I got some really interesting photos taken with a slightly longer exposure time. After walking the full length of Apemea, we piled back into the bus and set out for Damascus. The drive was about three hours, and we stopped halfway for a break and some incredibly rich desserts that are a specialty of the region. They’re made by stretching and folding cheese until it forms a stretchy dough, then filling it with clotted cream and cutting them into bite-sized rolls. After a long day on the road we finally rolled back into town, and I eventually went to bed to start Level 4 in the morning.

8 February – 5 March—I take Level 4 at the University.

Level 4 was, in my opinion, easy, compared to Level 3, which makes the fact that I didn’t pass with as high a score as I would have liked mildly frustrating. My two teachers, Osama and Rawaya, were nowhere near as skilled as my Level 3 teachers, though Osama did grow on me as the course passed and had a knack for preparing interesting conversation topics that went beyond the [somewhat] boring book topics of: Syrian history, internet cafes, the environment and pollution, arab musical instruments, and employment troubles. But he didn’t so much teach as review, relying on us to first learn the material at home. 

Rawaya, on the other hand, holds a special place in my heart for being the single worst teacher I have ever encountered, and for having the most unpleasant personality of anyone employed in a field that requires at least feigning human emotion. She was simultaneously passive-aggressive, disdainful towards our inability to speak Arabic, and awkwardly confrontational; had no concept of the course as a whole; no ability to recognise that, for us, listening to recorded conversations in Arabic is actually quite difficult; and an almost magical ability to waste our time. Olaf and I skipped class one day, knowing that we were going to spend two hours reviewing the vocabulary we had already prepared at home and another two under the terminally frustrating lack of tutelage of Rawaya.

Some of my favourite moments with her include (all conversations taking place in Arabic, of course):

• Trying to explain the verb ‘to inherit’:

Rawaya: Does anyone here have a dead father? Anyone? Has anyone’s father died?

[Shocked silence blankets the classroom. After a moment I slowly raise my hand. She comes over to stand directly in front of me.]

Rawaya: So, your father is dead, yes?

Me: Uh. Yes.

Rawaya: [Turning to the class.] Okay. When her father died, my friend here inherited money from him.

[The shocked silence constructs a small house and moves in.]

Rawaya: [She comes back over to my personal space.] Did you inherit anything else from him? 

Me: ...

Rawaya: His eyes? His hair?

Me: ...an interest in political science?

Rawaya: Aha. [She turns to the class.] My friend here inherited both money and an interest in political science from her dead father.

[Shocked silence throws a party. My friends give me pitying looks.]

Rawaya: Let’s move on.

[I should note that I am very much at peace with my father’s death, and normally have no problems discussing either him or the situation that led to his death. But to have his death treated in such a callous and insensitive manner ended the brief hope I had had that Rawaya could possess any redeeming qualities.]

• Out of a general lack of interest in learning anyone’s names, Rawaya called everyone “my friend.” After a while, when it became apparent that Olaf was going to challenge her more than she was used to, she began to call him “Germany.” And expect him to respond. Once, he called her “Syria” back, after which she suddenly was blessed with the knowledge of his name. Others were not so bold, and she several times got away with calling the Japanese student “Asia.” 

• Rawaya, to explain the meaning of the verb ‘to influence’: “My thoughts are influenced by the writings of Hassah Nasrallah [the leader of Hizbollah].”

This on top of a daily barrage of finger snapping to get our attention, calling us lazy when we didn’t do her homework, and yelling “Good morning, hello!” when we did not immediately respond to her questions, made her four to six hours a week of instruction both dreadful and hilarious. You simultaneously couldn’t wait to see what she would do next and were filled with horror when she actually did it.

8 – 16 March—Matt R. visits!

This will get a more detailed writing soon, but until then, I was very happy to have one of my good friends from college visit for a week. We visited the magnificent ruins of Palmyra (where I got miserably sick far, far from any sort of bathroom), the much more conservative town of Aleppo, and the awesome Krak de Chevaliers, along with generally exploring Damascus and eating delicious food. 

15 March – now—Level 5

This level is much harder, but I can also appreciate how fulfilling it will be. Right now I am in a big upswing in Arabic, where I can feel myself tangibly advancing. I have reached a point of being generally conversant, even if it’s often broken. It’s exciting. But I am also mildly intimidated by the two presentations, each an hour, during which a partner and I both speak on prepared material and lead the class in discussion. I’m also not enthused about having six days of class in the third week to make up for Teacher’s Day today. But. I’m learning Arabic. I can speak Arabic. Yay.

9 April—I go to Berlin to visit Olaf.

Yay! 

Okay. I’ve spent four and a half hours in the internet cafe properly catching up on my internet life. I think I should go pursue some food and start studying irregular verb conjugations. Hooray.