On my own again.

Thursday, 29 January 2009

Had my first final today—I passed! Hooray. Onto Level 4.

I also broke up with my host family today and moved into a dar in the Old City with a German friend from my class. I promptly celebrated my newfound independence by staying in while everyone else went out to celebrate the end of class. Ah, freedom.

My new room is massive; I have no idea what to do with so much space. It’s also covered in a fine but thorough layer of dust—my first priority tomorrow is to go by rags so I can mop and wipe and generally work towards not constantly feeling dusty. The house is still being finished; it was just opened up to foreign students two weeks ago, so not everything is really working. Like the upstairs sink. Or the non-existent doorbell. Right now I am sleeping on a bare mattress that doesn’t fit to the bed, with a random blanket scrounged up from the netherworld of Syrian landlords. When I point out to my new landlord that I need a bed with sheets, and the other bed I was promised, and running water in the upstairs sink, he smiles at my naiveté and says, “Two days, not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, everything will be here.”

I am dubious.

Renting in Syria is very much an under the table process—I paid my landlord a month’s rent, and now I live here. Apparently one can make a living renovating and renting houses to foreigners. I am hoping that the constant flow of random Syrian men in and out of the house, or their continual presence in our living room-cave-type thing, is just a temporary side effect of the continued renovation. Right now it feels like I am intruding in someone else’s home.