Here.

5 January 2009 -- 10:30 PM

برامكة, Damascus

My computer just ate my journal entry. Damn broken battery. Let's see what I remember.

I am in Damascus. I really like it. I've never felt so immediately at home anywhere, which is bizarre since I'm also so way over my head.

Flight from New York to Cairo kind of sucked. I was rushed into the plane with the making of last minute phone calls and then was stuck in the back in a middle seat for an eleven hour flight, including an hour taxing from right over here to just over there. (We sat on a bridge that ran over a highway for twenty minutes -- is this normal?) Then about an hour into the flight we hit a terrible patch of prolonged turbulence that had me terrified for my life and clinging to the seats.

Then I saw the Pyramids! From the air! We circled around them! And then flew over the Nile! It was way rad.

Airport security in Cairo is crazy ineffective. I went through two screenings -- at neither did I bother to take off any metal, empty out my water bottle, or remove my bag of 3oz liquids and my computer. I beeped going through the metal detector both times; at the first no one cared, at the second, I was let pass when I pointed at my belt. Yeah.

Flight to Damascus was uneventful. I was fed the most delicious meal I had received yet on a flight, made simply of some cold seasoned chicken, two rolls, a piece of good cheese, a baby cucumber, a carrot, and an olive. (Despite my general dislike for the last three, I was still impressed.) I had wondered what flight path we would take considering the violence in Gaza -- we ended up going east across the Sinai then north along the Israel-Jordanian border. Then we landed. In Damascus. In Syria. And I am still here. I can’t believe it. I’ve written papers on this place. Israel’s just down there, Lebanon’s right over a mountain I can see from my street, Iraq’s to the east. It’s unreal.

Arabesk picked me up from the airport, and while Muhammad had a sign with my name and gave me his when he met me, I still basically climbed into a car with two Syrian men I had never met before. Happily, they were not American-kidnapping terrorists! (It's just shocking how many of those are around me at this very moment.) Instead, they drove me to my host family’s home. Evidently I get to bypass the traditional three days in a hotel while they find me a place to live, likely because I’ve already missed two days of class and will miss a third tomorrow as I get all my papers ready to actually register. My first day will be Wednesday; classes run 9am to 1pm Sunday through Thursday, and I’ll have two additional hours of private tutoring five days a week. It’s going to be a lot, but I can already feel the power of being forced to speak Arabic working. I’m reaching for forgotten vocabulary and retaining a good portion of the new things I’ve learned already. I can’t wait to see where I am in a month.

My host family is wonderful -- I’m living with a woman, Ghaada, and three of her children: Ghana, Ghenwa, and Ghanan. Her oldest daughter, Ghenwa, is my age and lost her father to prostate cancer the same year that I lost mine to pancreatic. They are all extremely kind and welcoming, and are valiantly putting up with my broken Arabic. I’m actually doing much better than I had expected -- I’ve been able to communicate about a variety of things, though I’m helped out by the oldest daughter’s English. But after 21 hours of straight travel, I’m exhausted from trying to parse together my limited vocabulary and make sense of their infinite one. I sort of shut down an hour ago and couldn’t think anymore, so now I’m hiding away in my room, continuing my Beatles immersion.

Any trace of the fear or nervous anticipation I once had vanished the moment I stepped off the plane in Damascus. I spoke to the customs agent in Arabic, both my bags arrived unscathed, Arabesk was waiting as I walked out -- everything is actually working. Muhammad took me on a walking tour of my side of Damascus and the Old City souk; I peppered him with questions on Arabic vocabulary and Syrian customs and tried to absorb everything around me. Once again there are shops in my life that overflow with spices, gold jewelery, dried fruit, dresses, spools of cloth, sticky perfume, tacky sunglasses -- it’s an astonishing concentration of commercial efforts. The streets are full of people and crazy driving, signs flash script that I can’t hope to understand right now, and passing conversation melts into gibberish -- but I’m happy. I finally feel alive again after months of stagnation.