Dimashq #3: Bosra

BOSRA: I’m not the only tourist.

I wake to the insane earliness of the day, when the sky is still dark, probably only half an hour after having been woken by what I always feel upon awakening, at first, is the most obnoxious thing in all the world: an imam reciting—almost casually—the Holy Qor’an on a loudspeaker from the Umawi Mosque down the street, letting a strange and seemingly disconnected tone fall upon each word. And it’s loud. And it’s constant. And I wonder when it will stop. And then after a few minutes of rolling in my hot bed, trying to escape the inescapability of this voice wafting in my window, I realize that I’m laying in a kind of time machine. I realize that the ancient, highly stylized Arabic, rising and falling and stretching unexpected vowels with bizarre nasal pitches, floating from the mosque must actually be a nearly exact transplant of the way illiterate desert Bedouin Arabs in pre-Islamic Arabia once recited their poetry and folktales, with repeated phrases and a significant tone hooked on to nearly every syllable to make it both possible to fully memorize, and hence orally transmit, and to play nicely on the ear. Imagining the ancient times when dudes wrapped in black robes with weird tattoos, under a tent in the bad bad desert chanted tales of battles between their many gods in this strange tongue makes me happy, and I go right back to sleep.

But I digress.

Up and at ‘em super early. The whole morning routine that you know too much about already. I open my freshly meditated eyes and the sun is risen and strong. After me and Anton the Dutch giant take our last gulp of tea and pop the plates in the sink, we out the door and through the winding alleys and then meet the small, blond, Italian and very patient Camilla by the mosque, then into the madness of the New City, where we meet small, brunette, Italian and very energetic Martina by the bus stop. The sun shines and fellas with greased-back hair and leather shoes walk to and fro’ with purpose, and it’s only 7:20 a.m. Not so different from Manhattan. City bus through the heavy city to the outskirts, wait around in a bus station parking lot where older gents with big bellies in button-up shirts recline on benches in the margin of shade and advertise their services to us gringos: “Ey monsieur! You want taxi Beirut? Amman? Monsieur…”, and then we grab tickets, link up with a party of young Italian women who don’t say a word to me or Anton, and hop on the bus of orange curtains and weak air-conditioning.

Fall asleep, and awaken in a town of horrendous white concrete block architecture, the result of poverty and geographic isolation. We headed south, towards Jordan. Catch a service van packed to the brim with humanity, and glide. We glide, like a bird with holes in its wings, along the rough highway. “Ya m3allim, mumkin twa’af hun?” ask the Syrians I sit next to and on top of in the van, we barely roll to a stop, one of them hops out at a spot on the road that seems to lead to nowhere, or perhaps beside a little settlement of plastic and concrete block bungalows lining a muddy footpath, and with no goodbyes we roll away. Land around the highway alternates between a few trees, dry fields, and tough desert patches. The Italians are intensely verbal, and their communication in a language I can’t understand but wish I could is non-stop. One of the Roman gals is actually an Egyptian/Somalian mix and just her eyes and hair are worthy enough of the title of Queen of Nubia, and I wish I could say more than just Bongiorno and Como estai. We keep on keepin on and the process of Syrians exiting the vehicle repeats itself. We roll past a few silly, enormous, New Jersey-style villas surrounded by walls and lush greenery, and sooner than I expect, we are driving amid the harsh outer reality of Bosra, which are streets which to my foreignness have no location, where the sun is intense and everything is dry as bones, and the occasional shopkeeper sits by the door of his business in the heat. We turn on to a cobblestoned street, and pass a huge mosque, one of the town’s many prides, and a moment later we halt.

We all hop out, the Italians still singing the language of Dante, and whaddya know? There’s a garden restaurant right beside the bus stop, out of which appears a Syrian of dark features who begins chatting away in Italian, solemn-faced, with our friends. A little bit of overpriced food and some serious water under the bamboo shade of the restaurant, and we venture out. We walk past the gargantuan qala3a (castle), and do not attempt to enter, because there’s already about half of our university class standing in a group with a guide spouting information at the entrance, and we wanna be a liiittle bit independent. So it’s into the ruins.

Huge, mostly collapsed, multi-story Roman (and maybe Byzantine) structures stand before us and around us. It’s madly hot. So hot and dry it’s nearly offensive to my sensitive Nordic skin, but the sun does not relent. The structures are tricky things to pull apart, in terms of who built what and when. We promenade beside a wide, glimmering reservoir that has fed the taps of this town as long as it’s been inhabited. Or just about. So we know that’s Roman. But as the eye slips over the huge columns that support nothing but open sky, and the greyish-black and awkwardly square stone block walls and little stone caverns built into the knolls, it’s hard to say what’s practical recent habitation, and what’s glamorous guidebook Roman ruins. As we cruise around on foot, me nearly limping from the damage the sun is doing me, it becomes apparent that some of the structures must have been erected within the last few centuries, or even more recently, for they stand several stories above the earth, with square windows and flat roofs and box-like building design. Much different than what I think are the Roman buildings, which sit lower above the earth (because they’ve got nearly two millennia of soil pile-up around them), and which are supported by domes, arches, and columns. Just about all the structures, whether new or old, are constructed of dark grey stone blocks, which must be because that’s the stone gathered most readily around here. At one point I approach a window just above ground level, which opens up on to two levels of rooms and storage spaces below ground level. A crooked wooden ladder leads one from the window to the ancient rooms below. But with the visor on my hat limiting my vision, I ram the window’s stone edge with my skull as I try to pass through, and it nearly knocks me to the ground and definitely disorients me. Up on a knoll a few minutes later, I try to snap photos of a dude in a long white robe and checkered red and white headscarf, looking like he is straight out of the Saudi Kingdom, who rides a tiny motorcycle through the trafficless streets of the ruin town and straight into the blue doorway of his little home sitting among the ancientness and closes the door. Totally convenient.

Later we poke our heads through a gaping hole in a wall, part of which is buried below ground level. We enter, for it leads to a shadowy refuge from the screaming sun. Within, there is a cobbled, domed ceiling sitting above a thick arch that holds the chamber together, and little hand-carved recesses in the walls of this circular space are empty, where ancient Christian idols must have once stood. Looking around, I imagine Christian worshippers from the fifth century praying in this little room to that all-powerful bearded fellow they think is in the sky. To my left is another little chamber made of stone blocks where sun shards stream through and look very holy. I’ll post some pictures.

Later still, as we try to reach some end destination that I just don’t seem to be understanding, we enter a petite mosque now in disuse. The story goes that the Prophet Muhammed rode a camel here, and the camel knelt on its knees for some reason, and now, if I remember correctly, the place is called mosque of the knees. Some little kids with dusty faces lead me down through a tiny door. Within, there is a carpeted chamber with candles and a recessed space like where an imam would stand to call the prayer. I ask the kids what it’s all about, and with sureness and speed they recount to me something about Muhammed entering and praying here. All the details are lost on me, and I am at once happy I can communicate in a basic way with the youngsters but also pissed I can’t understand the details about Muhammed’s holy presence in the mosque, and I get a feeling that Arabic is impossible. Around me: columns and a bit of open space. Above me: the sky. What is sweet about at least getting an ear for this wildly popular Semitic tongue is being able to hear the regional differences in the way people talk. With these kids, down here in the hot hot South not too far from the Jordanian frontier, there is none of this everything-pronounced-like-a-question-singsong-talk of the Damascenes, with a rising tone at the end of every phrase. Instead of changing the guttural qaaf sound into a glottal stop (like how Cockneys say “shit”: shi’) as Damascenes do, they turn it into a heavy G sound, so no bit’uulu heik, but taguulu heik (“y’all say that”), and they speak like ancient wise men because they preserve both TH sounds (as in “thanks” and “this”). Classic badass Bedouin style, as far as I know. They spout more info about the mosque, and then ask for a little charity as we stand around the stony walls of the place. I don’t have enough money for them all, and I’m followed by outstretched hands for half a mile.

Finally, what tourists come to see from far and wide: the qala3a. It’s a full-on Arab castle, with high high walls and a moat (I think) and little slits to shoot arrows from. It’s tremendous, and khaki, and dusty, like the head of an enormous robot giant sticking up from the earth. The thing was built in the tenth (?) century by the local Arab imperial rulers, if my history is correct. So I cross the stone bridge over the moat, pay a few lira to enter, and then mosey through the cool tunnels of the outer walls of the castle. Little light-hatches perforate the ceiling and penetrate the dimness. I mount some steps to explore a chamber off one of the corridors, and approach an arrow-slit window to peak out. Again, my hat obscures my vision and I hit my head so hard I’m knocked into the dust. I sit in the dust for a few moments, feeling injured but deep. Then it’s up to the top of the wall where I spy excavated Roman tablets piled along the footpath, with words written with lots of V’s, but at the same time I witness long inscriptions in Arabic script carved into the outer wall, and the contrast is intense. Roman frescos of men herding cattle, camels, and people harvesting grain are present. Down some stairs and out to the main prize, the belly of the castle, which is actually a huge Roman amphitheatre. In fact, the castle is simply high walls built around the exterior of the amphitheatre. Me and Anton and Martina and Camilla come out on one of the highest tiers of seats, where ancient cats in turbans without a lot of cash to spare must have bought the cheapest tickets to see the hippest new tragedy from Rome. The seats are still smooth like they had just supported the asses of spectators yesterday. Martina and Camilla chat in Italian and I wonder if any of their ancestors had helped build this enormous theatre. Probably not. Down some steps, and I look back up to see the arches that line the rim of the theatre, and it kind of reminds me of Yankee stadium. But what is awesome is the high, flat panels of stone that form the backdrop of the stage, angled so as to echo the thundering Latin dialogue out to the ears of colonial gentry. I wish I lived here. Anyhow, cross the orchestra pit, up the stairs to the dusty stage, play with the echoes of our sun-parched voices, observe an out-of-place Russian tour group, and after a bow to the cheering spectators, we bounce and make our exit backstage.

Dimashq #2: I'm thinkin

8/12/10
I’m thinkin. I’m usually thinkin, but today I’ve got a little bit more space in the schedule to allow some clarity of thought. I got out of class at the Jēmi3at Damashq, the University of Damascus, just a few hours ago.

What is special about this place? An important question to ask, considering I still have not left the city limits of Damascus since that day I recounted in my last post. That was nearly a month ago. The critical reader will exclaim aloud, “What’s special about living in Damascus?! You spoiled little punk! Living in Damascus is the special part!”
What I mean, however, is that there are moments like this one—as I sit on the beat and tacky furniture in the living room of my, relatively speaking, awesome apartment, situated directly across from the tomb of a saint whose name I don’t know, listening to Miles Davis on my laptop, slowly developing diabetes from biscuits with sugary jam and sweet Turkish coffee—that’s to say, moments of considerable comfort, when life here seems just too average. It happens to all of us though, I think, when one is constantly moving along in the ruts of a track of daily activity and one yearns to make a turn, and take the path less traveled by. Props to Bobby Frost on that line. The path is becoming well-worn, because the past two weeks have been school. School. School.
Wake up to the uncomfortable vibrating, irregularly-beeping phone alarm at 5:45am, the air in the ancient, dusty room finally cool by that time, lay in bed, struggling to keep eyes open as you stare up at the ceiling of the room, constructed of crooked branches and planks of wood that must date back centuries, the wallpaper at the ceiling’s edges peeling tremendously, and purple morning light filtering over the soil and stucco walls facing your window across the alleyway. You rise with difficulty, dress in the shabbiest of fashions, make a visit to the tiny, humid (why?) bathroom in your apartment, and return to room, where you ceremoniously arrange pillows on the floor and direct the fan at your already sweating body. Then you engage in an hour of disciplined breathing followed by a period of sahaj samadhi meditation. Then you yank your tired self up from the ‘60s-style linoleum floor of your room, and start piling dishes, cartons of juice, silverware, cheese, bread, various fruits, and jam onto your low living room table. Anton steps slowly out of the shower, dresses, and like a highly-trained Olympic breakfast team, you two organize the elements of food on the table, unwrap the bread, and begin chowing down on jam, fruit, tea, and other awesome stuff in such a sharp, systematized way that it would put Swiss watchmakers to shame. Between bites you make puns and mindless bathroom jokes in Arabic, like bukhsh et-tīz (“hole of ass”). The clock strikes 8:05a.m. and you remove plates and teacups and bags of grapes from the table and restore them to their places, brush teeth, and you out.
Mosey out the door, complain or sing praises of the current temperature, and slip through the silent alleyways of dust, meaningful Arabic graffiti, beautiful wooden doorways, and high walls, out to Qaimariyya street, one of the main drags in the Old Town, usually ripe with droning European tourists, but empty at that hour, save for bearded street sweepers wrapped in orange uniforms laboring over gum wrappers and cigarette butts. Along the cobblestones, up the steps, and a long walk around the gargantuan Jēmi3 el Umuwiyyīn mosque, the largest in Syria, its high minaret looking down at you like a wise old grandfather. Walk under a few pillars from an old Roman temple to Jupiter, and maybe as far as a quarter mile through an enormous suuq (market), just beginning to open its well-kept eyes at that time. Out into the ugly reality of the New Town, which is most of Damascus, past a giant fortress that traps tourists like flies on tape, past ancient women from far villages clad in black with mysterious tattoos on their faces setting up bags of veggies to sell on the sidewalk, through visible pollution, under an ugly grey highway overpass called Bridge of the Revolution (it’s a laughable name), up and over Revolution Street on a beat old footbridge, down, wait for the bus, hop on, pay the equivalent of less than 1 cent for the ride, and look around the bus for other gringo students from the University who usually don’t look back, just as they would do in Europe. The bus gets crowded. Immerse yourself in the scents of ripe man bodies wearing thick shirts standing around you in the morning heat. Look curiously at the two Somalian kids holding on to straps, their unique brown-red-black skin and curly-kinky hair and thin features making you wonder about the Horn of Africa, and listen closely to find out what language they are speaking with one another. Is it Somali? Or Arabic? What do you think? Tell me.
Step off the bus, through the dimly-lit tunnel under the highway, past the innocent young guard with an AK-47 at the University entrance, and past clots of Italians, Dutch, and French, with a few Syrians around the fringes, sitting on the steps, smoking in ethnically exclusive squads. Through the outdated hallways of stale air, 1970’s aesthetic, and fake marble, and up to the classroom. Look around you. French, Korean, Taiwanese, British, Spanish, and Turkish students sit in a semi-circle, ready for the 4 hours-worth of learning coming their way, sweating before the air conditioning is finally turned on. 5 minutes later the young, round-faced teacher, her head wrapped in a white hijab and body wrapped in waaaay too many layers to be comfortable in that heat, enters the classroom, hits you with a little Sabāħ l kheir, and you get going. 55 minutes of questions about what you did yesterday, review of the latest news in halting Arabic, questions about the homework, group vocab activities, then a 10 minute break.
You step out, hoping to speak in French to Fatima, the Muslim Algerian woman from France wrapped in full black hijab, and learn more about the country of her ancestors, but she is already on the couch in the hallway speaking to her young, bearded husband. You rush like a river with all the other knowledge seekers from around the globe over to the coffee machine, find that its still broken, and then out to the steps where the students come together in groups of conversation, falafel, and cigarettes, like oil droplets coming together in water, hiding from the bullying sun in patches of shade. You sit on the steps and just watch everybody, speaking not even a single word to any human sometimes, allowing the sun to bake you a bit on the marble steps as you gaze across the street to the school of dentistry, where serious Syrian students, all fasting because it is Ramadan, sit and lounge with books in hand. Maybe you will see Anton and you will get to talking, or maybe Lucia (pronounced Luthia), the pretty and flirtatious Spanish PhD student, will wave to you from the other side of the steps and say “Hola señor el americano…” But usually not, though you would like that to happen. So you sit on the steps, and if it’s a good day, you’ll feel an amazing sense of detachment and just watch everything, desiring nothing. True power. Then the students, clad in the hippest garb (except for these trendy new Aladin-pants all the women seem to be wearing), start to reverse leak back inside, you move with them, up the steps, into the classroom, back to your ancient desk, and repeat. This continues three more times, till the clock finally strikes 13h, and then you’re free to go home, buy some groceries in the intensely hot, dirty, yet very inexpensive market street, and do homework until its time to go to bed, because you have another busy day tomorrow.
So that’s been the routine of late. Sometimes I just wonder: when am I gonna break through? Through this language, in both its written form stamped onto the pages of national newspapers, and its oral form—quite different—sung from the mouths of Damascenes in a way that makes them sound like they are always asking a question. Through the social bonds and nets that tie language groups and personality types together during break time between class at the University. Through the borders of this country, not to mention simply this city, that have been cradling me for such a long time now. Yea it seems like a grand adventure everyday according to the way I tell it, but that’s cuz I got a special eye for the everyday. It is an adventure. But this adventure is getting old. Put my feet on some other streets.



ADVENTURE. small but necessary.
8/13/2010

“A huge carbomb exploded right here in February 2006, and killed the prime minister. Biggest carbomb I’ve ever seen. It actually blew out the windows at the American University up on the hill over there.” Yusef spits out all this information with an unimpressed matter-of-fact air about him, as you zip up and down hilly streets, towards and away from the calm Mediterranean Sea, in a giant 4x4 jeep that has no place except in American suburbs. He seems—though I know this is not so—to be almost happy to recount all of the dates and names as he gives me the Beirut Civil War and Political Assassination Tour, which I find fascinating. I think that’s why he’s into it, because I’m listening. I can’t capture all the names, nor the dates, nor the reason each person was killed, because the list is long and rapid-fire. As our red jeep swings through the dusk streets of the newly-constructed Beirut downtown, sitting quietly by the sea, built up in the last few years with the help of some multi-billion dollar foreign investment, where the avenues are often soulless and lined with more Prada shops than the Upper East Side, I see for the first time the war-town face of this place that I have been hearing about for literally my entire life, trying to hide under the heavy makeup of corporate reconstruction.
We pass, in the lessening light, timthēl esh-shuhedē’ (Statue of the Martyrs), who I guess, fought and died while fighting French colonialism in Lebanon (though I could have that history totally mixed-up), and as we round it and make a second pass, Yusef points out that some of the limbs of the martyr statues are still missing. They were blown off in the Civil War between the country’s sects of Maronite Christians, Palestinian refugees, Sunnis, Shiites, Phalangists, and others that raged from 1975 to 1991, much of the fighting in Beirut concentrated in and around the central downtown district. Bullet marks riddle their figures like action figures poked with needles. In fact, bullet holes mark almost every building I see in West Beirut, whether apartment buildings in middle-class enclaves or office buildings in the downtown district. We round the statue again, and cruise past the headquarters of the Lebanese newspaper En-nahaar¬, which has a huge banner draped from one side, displaying the face of it’s former editor, whose name I can’t remember (Hariri, maybe?), who was also killed in a carbomb attack. We zip up a hill, away from the fancy downtown lit like a movie set, past a beautiful Maronite church, white and orange and looking Greek in style to my eyes, surrounded by the wrecks of several large building, up into the residential neighborhood where Yusef says the Green Line was located. This line separated the Muslim and Christian populations during the Civil War, according to my very basic knowledge. Here we enter a large swath of half-destroyed buildings, flanked by a huge, round, weird-looking cylindrical theatre, which I think Yusef told me he used to attend to see movies back in the day. It’s abandoned now. Yusef says that when the fighting got really bad, artillery was brought in. Only shells falling from the sky could have done such damage. We keep on moving, and as we edge up another hill not too far from the American University, Yusef points out the silhouette of the enormous, high-as-heaven, Holiday Inn, which I can barely make out in the rapidly arriving darkness. I see in the towering, empty building, huge holes from tank shells that landed on its concrete flanks, and not one window is intact. Yusef, my chum who grew up amid this destruction, says that the Holiday Inn was the strategic prize during the war, for whoever could put snipers at the top could control a giant area of Beirut, and could remain King of the Hill as long as they commanded that building. The air conditioning in the jeep is much too high, and I’m getting chilly, but it’s much preferable to rolling down the windows and soaking in the layers of sea humidity that cover everything west of the mountains in Lebanon.
We keep on rolling, and very soon we are moving through some tight backstreets where tiny shops selling ifTaar (the after-sundown meal during Ramadan) sweets with signs in French, English, and Arabic, look merry, and the city begins to take on a more popular, working-class, possibly affordable character. We slow down. Making a turn onto an even smaller street, Yusef nods towards a mass of clustered, white apartments that look like they were glued together really quickly. This is the entrance to the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. Men sit on chairs around the edges of the zone, and children play in the street. Stalls at roadside sell I-don’t-know-what. As we approach, some powerful firecrackers start blasting behind a wall, and I hear the cracks and see flashes of blue light and wonder for a second “Holy shit. Is the Shatila massacre happening again?” But no. No one screams, because they’re just firecrackers, and besides, there’s no Israeli invasion at the moment, and no roving Christian Phalangist militias trying to kill “terrorists”. Complex violence. Fuck the French colonialists, Reagan, Eisenhower, Nettenyahu, the Israeli invasions of Lebanon, the PLO. Bush and Obama. Where’s democracy?
We make a tight u-turn. Yusef refuses to go inside the camp. His eyebrows are scrunched and his goateed face is concerned He seems to be a little unsure about our safety. I won’t argue. Not now, at least. Funny thing, though: as I ride a minibus back to Damascus the next day, packed with chatty Italian students from the University, some of the beautiful young women tell me, “Ah yes, Sabra e Shatila. The Palentinians. We walked in the camps-a. We did-a not have any-a-problems. Veeeery-a poor, though. Veeeery sad.” I asked them, “Would you call it a ghetto? I know the word has a different connotation in Italian but it’s…” “Yes-a. Definitely a ghetto,” they said, solemn-faced.

Dimashq #1: A Long Time Coming

WHERE TO BEGIN?—A COLLAGE
August 6th, 2010
It has been nearly three weeks since I set out from my homeland. I remember the day it all began, which I would say well represents how I’ve been living my life of late: ride into New York City with pop on his way to work, sit at the bar at the restaurant where pop works, speaking excitedly with ancient soul friend Emanuel, who had just returned from 5 & ½ months in Syria and the general Middle East. We were close and comradely, and we sipped coffee as our minds melded totally like Spock used to do on Star Trek. He told me of his home in the Old City of Damascus, the dialect his ears experienced on the streets of that timeless capital, and his deeply committed study habits at the University there. After I exhausted probing questions and artful comments and we were out of time, we departed from the restaurant, said our goodbyes with profound hugs, and I ran off to the home of an Iraqi journalist recently turned Brooklynite mom, tried to learn a bit of her native dialect, and picked up some aftershave and cash to run to her refugee brother living in Damascus. Walked from there through the incredible heat which I believed to be a preview of Syria, through Prospect Park, got lost, and made a terribly long, painful journey by foot to a bar in Park Slope, where I met strange friend Ian of blond hair and intensely monotone voice. Then we joined dearest friends Jason, of Jimi Hendrix style and over the top ‘70s jive language, and Sherlly, of cornrows, afro, thoughtful speech, and brilliance. It was a fine crew, but we were only able to remain together for less that ten minutes, squeezed tightly into the bar, watching the Spanish team teach the Dutch team a lesson in the World Cup final, before pop came through in sport jacket with car to spirit me away. Brownstones turned into wood clapboard rowhouses and factory shells which turned to rim-of-New York-tiny-homes-with-gardens suburbs, then the airport. Now boarding. Night. Air. Unconsciousness. Awoke in Reykjavik, Iceland, where, for the first time in all my voyaging, I was blank. I knew no Icelandic, nothing of the history or any cultural quirks, and didn’t even know what continent it was part of or what currency was used. An expensive Icelandic breakfast in the ultra-modern, Viking-longhouse-looking airport, then more airplane. Now boarding. Fog and grey Earth. Air. Unconsciousness. Awoke in Paris.

Paris
Taking the RER, the long-distance commuter train that runs through suburb towns and immigrant ghettos alike on the huge fringe of Gay Pareeee. Nearly everyone within frowned as we sped through fields, then tired civic developments from the ‘60s. It was crowded, and exhausted and grim as any commuter train in “the West”. Jo Shmo-types got on with shoulder bags and button-up shirts, and so did Fulani women with gold teeth wrapped in rich green and black garments who spoke in high tones and took up all the space necessary to be comfortable. One of the most beautiful, and typically Parisian, women in the world, perhaps the offspring of one of these West African immigrants, sat right in front of me. My stomach lifted high into my throat at her super-distant gorgeousness. She ignored my existence with averted eyes and white headphones plugged into the sides of her deep, dark face, with innocent, yet roughly braided pigtails descending over each shoulder.
Out of the métro system, and on the edge of death from exhaustion, I met the generous old boy, Kamal, my host, in polo shirt with backwards red Yankees hat, his hipster hair poking out from the edges and his Moroccan face unmistakable. We tossed my enormous bags into his unbelievably small one-room apartment. Later that day we walked all the way up the River Seine, and sat upon the quai, eating bad sushi. As the sun crashed over the Seine river amidst broken orange and gold clouds, we listened to a Bengali band crash little symbols and strum praiseful melodies as they chanted glory to Krishna.
Next day, the point of my visit to this European capital: Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO). Me and Kamal found the inconspicuous yet world-renowned little institute tucked away on some grey cobblestone street. Within, modest—yet tasteful—architecture, like an old high school from a nice part of town. Approaching the secretary of light skin and coarse curly black hair at the enrollment office. Slow, disorganized intro and questions on my part, and no-messin’-around rapid fire responses in French on hers. I found that if I wish to enroll in this sweet little institute for master’s level study in Arabic, I’ll have to promptly get on an enormous range of bureaucratic tasks, from embassy letters to grant applications to French proficiency examinations, and that I would no doubt have to take remedial French language classes before beginning my Arabic classes. A blow to the ego on the French proficiency part, but necessary all the same. I asked a couple we’re-both-human questions and found that the tired young secretary was recently a masters student in the Kabyle language, a Berber tongue from northern Algeria. Perhaps secretary was not what she had in mind after obtaining such a degree. Yet, in the same breathe from her powerful torpedo face, she told me that grants and scholarships are available for study and housing Paris, even for gringos like me. Rejoicing. She directed us through a small marble courtyard where we found another room filled with secretaries. They asked me about my dossier social which I had never heard of before, and I realized that the French educational system is way different than what I knew back home. One secretary printed out some scholarship and enrollment information, gave me a few colorful brochures that looked more like they were from a children’s dentist office than a specialized languages and literatures institute, and more incomprehensibly fast French was shot at me. But bless these ladies, working with me on one of the last days that the institute is open for the summer.
At home, Kamal told me we were going out with friends, and coming out of his tiny salle de bains minutes later I met two chatty friends sitting on the futon. There was Grace, a kind of hefty Congolese woman of shining smile and twenty years, and Ilham, a striking Moroccan woman with light skin and low-cut jet-black blouse. I felt dispirited and tired because of my recent encounter with theft back in the park, and I sat on the old red carpet trying to stay in one spiritual piece, watching—more than listening to—the animated conversation before me. I answered a few questions from Grace and Ilham, chuckled as Ilham exclaimed at my quiet stillness “T’es trôp sage, toi!” (“You’re so wise!”), and I made some jokes between Kamal’s machine-gun-who-knows-what talk from behind his laptop. Grace, I learned, attended INALCO to study Korean, which she speaks quite proficiently, says she, and Ilham studies advertising something or other and was gorgeous and she knew it and flirted with me.
We gathered forces after a while and headed slowly down Rue de Choisy, and met Lori, an Asian woman in glasses and fierce high-heels, by a Vietnamese restaurant. Inside, crowded by humans chowing down on cheap food in the damp tropical old-fashioned lighting of the place, I sat and continued to watch the stream of back-and-forth jive. Even as we sipped tea and ate dumplings and coconut—I so grateful for my rich and nourishing Vietnamese meal—I could not speak to them, for the talking and joking was too intense and fast and I had to focus on the food. But after I finished, I was quickly drawn into the conversation, and soon had a grip on its reins.
Back out on the street, me and Ilham repeatedly found ourselves together, yet distant from the group, talking with pokes and mock insults about racism, Moroccan Arabic dialect, and French snobbiness. Soon me and her and the whole group were on a clean and comfy bus to the River Seine, with Ilham sitting across from me, making constant hilarious jabs at my “snobby” French accent, and Kamal talking rapidly, Lori giggling, and Grace making fun of people I don’t know. Up by the River, we wandered through cobblestone alleys in the spic-and-span tourist zone, the girls singing bad pop songs in English, then we moved through a crowd of tourists, and watched a group of Moroccan men in t-shirts with drums playing Gnawa music. Minutes later, with tiny gelattos in hand, and still chattering, we headed down to the quai, the sun almost a memory at that point. Me and Ilham talked about her parents, and she told me about her ex-boyfriends and how, she doesn’t know why, but she just has a thing for American guys. Then me and Lori made jokes about Chinese accents in French, and I started to see that as Ilham cooled off on me somewhat, Lori was warming up. I just reminded myself that it’s all just fun and that I got to remain light and whole. On the quai, we sat around like vagabonds. I asked about where to find a cheap new camera, was told all the stores would be closed tomorrow for Bastille Day (?), and as bateaux mouches hauled tourists past on the river, Ilham talked loudly about her breasts.
A few days later, I took the RER in reverse, out towards the rising pink sun in the morning chill, past hamlets, factories, and slums. Got lost several times at the huge Charles de Gaulle airport. As I breathlessly went through the final stage of security, I witnessed an intense and obvious ethnic profiling on the part of airport security of all passengers who were even possibly Muslim, including those West African beauties in their heaven garments. Saddening, enraging, and disgusting, and if I can actually be disciplined writer, a poem will be forthcoming on that terrible scene. Now boarding. European morning sun. Air. Unconsciousness. Awoke in Istanbul. As I expected, even through I never breached the air-conditioned interior of the Istanbul airport, the place was weird. Not in a bad way. But everything smelled strange, and the Turkish language pressed into the mold of Roman characters was mind-stretching, at least for me. I saw a well-groomed tough dude with what appeared to be two wives, one covered by a full black niqab, and the other young and slightly less covered by red headscarf, yet very under-his-thumb looking. I think the guy was an asshole, for cold and calloused was his brown goateed face. Saw another West African woman in her traditional garb waiting at the gate with me, and thought how totally strange it was to see her here, in Turkey, that place stretched historically and psychologically between Europe and Asia in that no-man’s-land, which seems to be highly un-African to me, whatever that means. Further explanation forthcoming. Now boarding. Hot Mediterranean dry land. Air. Unconsciousness. Awoke over the terrifying inhospitable-looking deserts around Damascus, dotted by weak patches of agriculture. Immediately thought I must have made the wrong decision for a place to study Arabic and felt nervous as knives.

Damascus
Stood around, so intimidated in the small airport, waiting just outside the gate for my Iraqi journalist friend’s brother Seliim to scoop me up. Nowhere to be found. I asked some other fellas standing around if they were named Seliim, and they said no, but asked why the heck I was waiting outside the gate for him. Silly me, I had to go through customs first.
Standing in the customs line, I was surrounded by thick reality. Men with weathered skin in white jellaba robes stood around with gobs of passports and blue customs forms in their hands, directing old women in near total black niqab coverings on what line to stand in for passport check. The women spoke in high, nasal tones with one another, forming lines that, sadly, looked like kids lining up to go back in from recess, each with their hand on the shoulder of the woman standing in front of them. I believe that they were religious pilgrims, by their pious garb, group nature, and loads of customs documents. Masses of men in white or olive colored robes laid near-sleeping on the polished floor by the wall, some wearing red-and-white checkered headdresses, which I did not expect to see outside of the Gulf countries. Some women in black dresses, with hair covered, sat by the big window, fanning themselves. The room was NOT air-conditioned, and it smelled strongly of humanity. An old Brazilian man in front of me on the line tried to pry information from me in Portuguese, though all I once knew in that language has dried up and blown away. The line moved so irritatingly slowly that I had to try to calmly come to terms with the fact that Seliim, my hopeful savior who I’d not yet met, and my only connection in Damascus, had probably left after all the time that had passed since I arrived. Patience. Be where you are. Much time passed, I switched lines, listened to a Russian woman living in Oklahoma speak worriedly, and finally reached the customs desk. I tensed my body, squeezed my eyes shut like I would for an immunization shot with a huge needle, and handed my passport and customs form to the handsome officers. I waited. A little chatter in Arabic. No pain. They gave my passport back and smiled, saying something like “You are welcome in Syria.” Glory be! Back to worries.
On to the baggage carousel, which I was tremendously late getting to considering how much time I had wasted standing around. The baggage room was, to me, an absolute disgrace, with suitcases and bags scattered and piled everywhere over the floor in the artificially-lit room, the carousel snaking lazily out to the baggage trucks, where a little bit of broken sunlight leaked in. My guess is because so many travelers must wait so long for all the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, that bags just pile up. But they were thrown everywhere, with little apparent order, and I was immediately angry at the state of things. “Well, I may have to go find my bags at the lost and found because they’ve probably been here so long that they were removed” I thought to myself. Yet, I looked and I looked, and I found the two bad boys over in a corner. One of the pockets on one of my suitcases, however, had the lock opened and was still sloppily unzipped. Slightly pissed at the invasion of my privacy, yet relieved that I had found all my worldly possessions in this region of the world, I struggled to get my 90-pound backpack on, and strode slowly out to the reception area. One last little splinter of hope that Seliim had remained there to pick me up after all this time remained in my core, so as I walked out into the gated, warm, stale reception area, I moved slowly, hoping with this last splinter that if Seliim remained, he would recognize me after I sent him my picture the day before by e-mail. No calls from anyone in the crowd. As I was about to step out of the gated receiving area, glory came. “Sam?” said Seliim with thick accent, approaching me with his sunglasses perched on shaved head, polo shirt, rotund form, and merry smile like Santa Clause. I gasped for air, relieved. I thanked him repeatedly for waiting for me for two hours until he was tired of the thanks. He smiled his timid smile on big face and asked how my trip was and I said all the good things in the world because my savior had come.
We exited the humble airport at probably about 6:30pm, the sun low and orange over the palm trees, old cars, and dust. We sauntered over to a little ticket booth, Seliim asked for two tickets in this exciting new accent and dialect spoken by the Damascenes— though I wasn’t actually sure if he was simply speaking his own ancient-sounding Iraqi dialect with the ticket seller—we stuffed my bags below deck, and we mounted a huge bus. Within, Seliim and I spoke about the volunteer work he does with an organization that helps Iraqi refugee children in Syria (he cannot have official paid employment here as a refugee, a huge problem faced by three million of his Iraqi brothers and sisters in Syria), we talked about his sister in the States, my interests here in Syria, and about the new dialect I was about to encounter. As we rabbled, squeezed into the little seats, I watched the land around the highways turn from light fringe suburbs to proper suburbs of old concrete square buildings beyond dying pine trees planted at roadside, and it reminded me of my first arrival in Morocco. As we got closer to the city center, we spoke of where I might find housing, and Seliim pointed to a neighborhood outside our window called Jeremana, where he and tons of other Iraqis live, where he said he could find me a place to live. The place looked ancient and derelict, crumbling actually, like a slum, and I wasn’t so sure I could stomach such reality for a home immediately upon arrival. Then he pointed out another slum area of crumbling khaki walls and stated that that was one of three Palestinian refugee camps in Damascus. I asked what it was called. He said it was just called “Palestinian camp.” Finally, the huge mad highway gave way to real streets, and in a few minutes of turning and honking amid the terraced Damascus apartment buildings brown and black with soot, we reached the swirling bus depot.
We stepped out into the thick hug of evening heat and grabbed my bags as a torrent of beat yellow cabs honked for our attention and I was so tremendously grateful I had a friend here to guide me through the seeming madness of this raging hot authentic place. We walked a few meters over a grimy sidewalk and caught a taxi. Tossed bags into a trunk that wouldn’t close completely and we were off to Hotel Al Haramain, which had actually been recommended by a travel guide book and which Seliim was now pressing for. It wasn’t that far actually, and we cruised past the old khaki walls of what Seliim said was the national museum, made a right turn, and were swept up a ramp onto a huge highway. It felt like we were flying over the city, and all around us were big, tattered-looking (to my new eyes) buildings, whose widows caught the last of the shimmering orange-red evening sunlight. They reminded me strongly of the computer-animated depictions of 1980’s Beirut seen in the recent film Waltz With Bashir about the Isreali invasion of Labanon and the massacre at Shatilla. In that way, my entry into the heart of this new city was kind of chilling, aside from just bewildering.
Our taxi descended from its ride on the soaring highway overpass, we sped down the main drag, shēri3 eth-thewra (“Revolution Street”, the 3 representing that famous choking sound in Arabic), we pulled over at the crowded sidewalk, and, amid a stream of older men dressed just like they dressed in the 1950’s passing rapidly on the sidewalk, we exited the automobile. Pulled bags along strenuously, passed an incomplete and very-old looking building beside shēri3 eth-thewra that represented overly-hasty attempts at development, and turned out of the madness down some steps onto a street that made me think, “Right. Isn’t this what Damascus is supposed to look like?” The street was narrow and cobblestoned, lined with tiny, old-fashioned barber shops and tailors and little corner stores, and on the second or third floor of some of the building—made of stucco and inlaid wooden crossbeams, with shutters and terraces---the apartments actually stuck out somewhat from the buildings, as if they were a bunch of cubes stacked on top of each other haphazardly. A few steps up the street and we stepped into the simple, old, soulful Al Haramain hotel, and were greeted by a real smooth cat at the desk with thin goatee, whiiiiite skin, greased back hair, and a weird British accent. Ahmed. He and Seliim spoke as if they had known each other forever, which is how many native Arabic speakers sound to me, and Ahmed stated plainly that a bed was 500 Lira a night, which sounded tremendous to me but which I forked over. It’s actually only slightly more than ten American buckaroos.
Handed over my passport for checking, dropped bags at the entrance, and waded out with Seliim into the evening, up the inclined street, and into the dustiest, most depressing empty square lined with dormant computer and tech shops, and entered one of them. Seliim was looking for some software for something or other, and the joint looked like a closet lit by florescent lights. The guy with terrible facial hair and teeth but a welcoming face and open heart talked with Seliim about what he needed, asked him quietly “Min weyn esh-shebb?” (“Where’s the kid from?”), and I turned and answered “Min emriika” (“From the US”), he seemed pleased, Seliim bought his software, and we split. Standing in the empty square in the last light of Friday, yom l-jum3a, the day of prayer and rest that is the reason for the closed shops, I handed Seliim the cash his sister back in BK had given me. We meandered up to a building surrounded by rubble that was a sign of construction in progress, not war, where I hoped to use internet, Seliim told me I’d find the internet joint up a few floors, and we said we’d meet the next day. He sauntered off. I entered the building, climbed many sets of stairs but found no internet spot in the dim lighting, and in the dust and heat and declining daylight felt homesick and exhausted, and walked back to Al Haramain. Passed a few words with Ahmed, grabbed my backs, and headed up to the room.
I pushed open the ragged yet elegant huge old door to my room in the high-ceilinged, courtyarded home-turned-hostel, and entered. As if he was waiting for my arrival, a half-naked, Derik Zoolander-looking, Adonis-type dude was laying on his bed with an Arabic dictionary in hand, looking my way when I entered. Name is Naadir. We got to talking real quick as he lazily perused his dictionary, mid-section wrapped in a sheet, and I found that he was a Brit studying at the University of Damascus for the month of July. Son of an Islamic religious advisor to the British government. Of Yemeni, Pakistani, and Spanish origins. I learned that in a few days he was finished with classes, then headed out to visit family in Dubai, then taking it easy with more family in Kenya for the rest of the summer till school starts. He was wealthy and calm, and his face was so chiseled and without marks, and hair so salon-style, that it was almost funny, for he looked like the type I’d see in a Calvin Klein ad, much too delicate for the dirty streets of this town. He was friendly though, and I was glad to know another out-of-towner here.
A wide, nearly-albino fella was laying on his bed with headphones on, watching a movie on his laptop, totally oblivious to us… That is, until at some point in our conversation Naadir said loudly, “In’t dat right, Mats?” and the big Swede unplugged his head and turned our way to begin talking to us. His kind, peach fuzz-covered face was super smart, like a scientist, and I learned that, in a way, he is one, for he studies Islamic Science back in Stockholm. Mats is spending the summer in Damascus, translating excerpts of the Holy Qor’an into Swedish. He told us of his desire to enlighten his countrymen about Arabs, as well as Muslims, and to combat racism faced by the large Muslim immigrant communities of Somalis, Syrians, and Iraqis in his country, and his hope to break down what he says are xenophobic government policies in Sweden. Real nice guy, and as I spoke more with him and the male-model Naadir about life in Damascus and Syria generally, Arabic studies at the University, and cultural do’s and don’t’s, I felt my first toe push into the soil of this land, this culture, this history, my first connection with something about Damascus, and I began to wonder if it might be possible for me to survive and maybe make a life here.
Later that night, after I washed the grime off my face, I met some suuuper easygoing Portuguese guys that have been traveling the world since September 2009, who had seen the depths of places like China, Iran, Chile, Uruguay, Japan, and on and on. They guided me out into the night and we ate some terribly cheap salad and chicken at a little restaurant with an owner/cook who was quite nervous and shouted a lot. One of the Portuguese guys spoke English with an Aussi accent. Strange. Then we went up into a smoky bar filled with music and subtle prostitutes, and they recounted to me the true things they have seen around the globe on their travels. I slept very deeply that night.


Well, that was three weeks ago. It’s been a very slow, up-and-down process getting into the rhythm of Damascus life, but it’s an ongoing process I suppose, and I’m much farther advanced in my integration than I was that night with the Portuguese travelers and the nervous cook.
Since then, I’ve made friends with other travelers and students, met and befriended the Dutch man, Anton, who is now my roommate, perused the endless covered suuqs (markets) with Seliim at my side, had deep conversations about racism with a visiting Somali woman and her thin, intense brother, begun studying Syrian Arabic with a tutor, taken an AIDS test for University registration, looked for and found an apartment in a timeless alleyway by the largest mosque in Syria, battled heat and cockroaches in said apartment, gone to a party where everybody clapped and yelped and danced traditional Dibka with gusto, gotten the flu and a sinus infection, begun Standard Arabic classes at the modern-yet-ancient public University of Damascus, gone repeatedly to a Somali immigrant community center and spoken curiously with its director, started a language exchange with a hopeful young green-eyed Syrian medicine student from the University, run into my former Arabic teacher from the United States on the street, and have studied hard and laughed and discussed and understood new words and cooked great simple meals with my roommate. It is much too much to tell here, and for those of you who ask yourself why I painted such an overly-detailed picture of my arrival to the country and did not spend more time coloring in the events since then, I say that one must know where one has come from to know what progress one has made and to understand fully where one is in the present, if that’s not tooooooo vague-sounding. I also think that, as I begin to chart the course of my life here more regularly through writing, the blank spaces of this experience will begin to fill themselves in, should anyone care to read them.

Damn I have been here for three weeks and not yet left the borders of this crazy capital, but life’s been rich thus far.

beħki me3akun ‘ariiben? (Talk to you all soon?)