Dimashq #9: The Pace of Things

The Pace of Things

“Why I am I in this grim, grimy place?” I have to ask. The rain drops are coming down in a pitiful drizzle in the darkness of the avenue, tumbling off the bus windows after a moment of stability, as if they’re trying to hold on but can’t. It’s a wintry, disappointing dark outside, one that I was hoping to avoid upon my return to Syria, my head filled with visions of rich Levantine spring warmth. The man to my left in a tight black jacket and light beard steps out into the darkness as the bus slows and the back door opens. He yells to the driver in rough Arabic to stop at the roundabout up ahead, “'cuz the young guy going there doesn’t know.” It’s true. I’m way outside my narrow Damascus world out here in Duma.
My muscles are tensing involuntarily. I take a deep breathe and focus for a moment on my center, but a minute later my shoulders are back up at my ears and my jaw is tight like I’m about to take a blow. Another deep breathe, and I continue to wonder deeply why I put myself in such uncomfortable situations, or if I’m really doing anything at all that warrants such anxiety. Maybe I’m just “a sensitive guy”, as my old flatmate Anton brilliantly put it once, back in the early days of my stay in this locked-away Middle-Eastern land.
“belediya!” the driver yells. I hop off, and another kind fella (one of thousands of people I have come across in my life who help me across the bridge when I’m feeling feeble) guides me one block over to the courthouse. I give a ring to Ayham, my soon-to-be employer, exchange a dozen how-are-you’s that are never actually answered, and a minute later he swoops in like a smiling eagle to spirit me over to the ma3hed (“institute”). “ena ktīr ēsif” (“I’m so sorry”) comes constantly to my lips for… not seeing Ayham sooner after I came down from an enormous 30-hour voyage through three continents, for not knowing how exactly to get out to Duma, for… Nothing really worth apologizing for at all. I tell the light-faced, French-looking Ayham about my journey to Damascus, and the situation in my new house, and just before we step in the pretty door of the ma3hed, he turns and says with a little smile “3arabitak minīħa!” (“Your Arabic is good!”). O, right… THAT’S why I‘m in this place.
Within the quiet, florescent-lit, marble interior of the spot, we sit on leather chairs, he on the boss side of the desk, me on the employee side, and he gets going speaking to me about the teaching system here at the ma3hed. Every teacher works a dewra (“cycle”), and each dewra has so-and-so number of jelsa’s (“sessions”). It’s complex, and I’m not getting it all. Not so much for the speed at which he’s speaking, but just because I was never good at putting together multi-piece instructions like the ones he’s giving me now. “OK, these are not classes, they’re ‘sessions’, and I’ll be focusing on teaching the students English pronunciation and idiomatic expression” is about all I get from the bombs of instructions being dropped on me in Arabic.
I sit in my cushy leather chair for what seems like an ever-expanding drop of time, reviewing blankly the material within the WorldView English textbooks that Ayham gives me. Ayham puts my schedule together at his computer. I’m still tense as ever, and have no idea what I’m seeking as I flip through pages and pages of dialogues about travel and business and explanations of grammatical concepts in the textbooks. People come in and out of the office, like one thicker-boned guy with dark features, looking more Iraqi to me than the typical Damascene, who moves in and out, and every time says, “Nice to meet you, Mister Sam.” Ayham, after innumerable clicks and inspections of books around his computer, prints my schedule and hands it to me delicately, as though it were a page of the Qor’an. A few words between me and Ayham confirming my work slots over the next few days, I pack my things tidily into my backpack, and Ayham hurls me a smiling “Goodnaaayt Sam!” I don’t want to forget the secretary, Bēsel, who sits patiently in his sweater vest at his desk even at this late evening hour. I look his way and as humbly as possible, say “inshālla raħ shūfak ba3d tlēt iyēm?” (“God willing I’ll see you in three days?”). He looks me right in the eye and says with force “bi’izin illēh” (With the permission of God”). Yea boy, I’m sure such a serious affair as my coming out to work at your institute requires the full permission of God. We’ll see.

Since then, I’ve returned to the institute, trembling with nerves less and less every time, in the early morning when only old men in checkered red head wraps roam the streets, and in the evening with the commuters headed out of Damascus. I’ve begun to organize lesson plans for my very humble contribution to the English “sessions”. I’ve learned new grammatical vocabulary in Arabic that helps me explain concepts to the beginning English students, with thin mustaches of beginning puberty, or wrapped tight in sparkly hijabs. After my first session in the evening alongside Nāsir, a proud English teacher from Iraq who wears corduroy jackets and looks like he hails from the intelligentsia of 1960’s Baghdad, the fine fella of big words and dark skin gave me a box of sweets. He explained to me in his crystal-clear Iraqi Arabic that they are sweets made with a nut grown and harvested only in the north of Iraq, in the mountains, where it’s cool enough. He said they are sweets given only to close friends. After a heap of compliments in English about my “new Methods” and “experience” as an English teacher (not all completely deserved, I think), he handed over the load of sweets, and I felt rejuvenated having met such a big-hearted person in this new place. “Yes, Mister Sam, we are very happy to have someone of your level here.” Well, Nāsir, glad to be here too.

Dimashq #7: A Winter Day in Shēm

End Notes


The year is coming to a close. So is my time here, in this country that doesn’t seem to move, but through which I’ve moved a lot during the last five months.

I just finished lunch-fast out on the terrace of my room, my fingers getting sticky from the orange dribblings running off the rinds, my tongue burning a bit from the bread dipped in hommus spiced with some “oriental” pepper concoction, and my thoughts gaining speed, fueled by the lukewarm coffee I’m pouring from the rekwe (Arabic coffee pot). There’s no chair out there, so I sat with my ass on the dusty terrace, and pulled hunks of bread and fruit from plates I placed upon a stool. The little wall obstructed my view of the street, so I looked upwards, towards the clotheslines crisscrossing the terraces above me, the tired branches of a tree, some unimaginative, beat apartment buildings across from me, and the winter sun, edging around grey-white clouds. Car horns and bus engines rumbled anciently from the main street, shēri3 yarmūk, behind me, and the sharp nasal cries of butane hawkers and their clanging of wrenches against tanks, down in the alley below.

Me and everyone else in Damascus are well into the after-noon part of the day, yet my roommate Ed still lies frozen in sleep on the Bedouin padding in the living room, poisoned a bit from last night’s whiskey, obscure Arabic literature beside him. His two guests, a wicked-smart Brit and his Syrian Kurdish girlfriend, lie coughing and ill and semi-somnolent in his bedroom, just down the darkish hallways from me. The eternal drip from the shower echoes from the bathroom, and makes this apartment sound like a cavernous dungeon when everyone’s quiet.

Out on the terrace, just a few minutes ago, I had space to consider the splinters of reality that have been pressing into my mind over the last few weeks: I need a goddamn job, and one that furthers my aim of becoming a globally savvy, well-rounded journalist. I’ve been so unbearably fortunate all of my life to not only receive financial support from my family on many of my ambitious undertakings, but also to receive their moral, emotional, and intellectual support, but despite such fortune, I must start floating the boat myself. And that ain’t cliché, man, that’s me… that’s cliREAL. “Independent journalist” is not so independent when a non-employer has got the tab on your expenses. And, the key question: how to get that first foot in the door, in the first place, while there’s a crack, wrench it open with all your strength, and jump into that realm of a subject you’re passionate about and get PAID to document it, analyze it, and disseminate info about it? Right, most people who know a little bit about the game will say “Well, just get out there, start writing, and keep sending out your articles. Somebody will pick you up along the way.” Or, with a bit more awareness, someone like Vince, our wicked-smart British guest, says to me in our chat last night that the friends he has who are now making it as journalists, some working for sweet publications like The Guardian, just kept writing articles on a topic and sent them out over and over to publications, beating them over the head with writing until someone got the hint, read their work, and employed them, though he admits it’s a rare thing in a competitive world. OK, I guess I can do that. I just need to work on my assertiveness,
But what’s the first question I want to ask to guide an article or piece? Should I interview, research, fact-find, or investigate? Who do I talk to? What is that issue, in that place, that I want the world to know about and pay attention to? How can I make the issues that I focus on part of a larger struggle for democracy and justice? How can I make my work count for something larger than just my cultural interests and my paycheck? Some practical questions, and a couple BIG questions that take life experience to answer.
Sigh.


A Winter Day in Shēm
Well, I haven’t left the broad, crumbled arms of this city and ancient Arab capital since my last post, when I gave the scoop on Sweida and the Shatila camp in Beirut. But the last month has been plenty full, and there’s been no long bus rides across the breadth of countries or national borders—can you believe it? Just the daily routine.

December 12^th, 2010
Awoke today in my new apartment to the crisp grey wet sad of Yarmouk, my new neighborhood. The ‘a3da beduwiya (Bedouin seating) in this living room, composed of simple green pads arranged around the edge of the room, with back padding and arm rests, is an incredibly comfy place to sleep. Besides, Ed and Tray got the two bedrooms, and I’m paying less for my arrangement in the living room, so it’s all good.
The sky light, kind of dripping through the window at this morning hour, is grey—the first time I’ve not woken to crisp December sunblades jumping in the window since I moved a week & ½ ago to this neighborhood built on a Palestinian refugee camp (thus the full name used when asking directions is muķeyyim yarmūk: the Yarmouk camp), in a lot healthier-looking shape than the Palestinian Shatila camp in Beirut I saw last month. Damn, the air in the living room is so cold I can see specks of fog in my breath, and the daylight is so dim I just want to slip back into the padding… NO. Up and at ‘em. Morning routine, including brushing teeth over a white sink striped with grey stains and polluted with an eternal leak, and jump into the bathroom which is your average Palestinian all-in-one: cheap Chinese washing machine, shower, sink, and toilet. Back to the padding, set the pillows and tacky blankets up, and get into that hour of self-seeking meditating,

I open my eyes. Look out the window behind me and WHAT?! Huge snow hunks, like snowballs tossed down from the gods above. They’ve already coated the little street below the window in frosting, covering up the mild but permanent layer of trash strewn here and there, covered up the everlasting potholes in the asphalt and the chinks in the sidewalk concrete, and obscuring my view of the Yasir Arafat posters pasted to every other surface, his mediocre smile and Palestinian head scarf on display for all to see. I run into Ed’s bedroom and wake the sleeping beast.
“No, fuck off Sam. You’re not serious.”
I prance into Tray’s room and do the same. He moves, and mumbles, and is still again. Only after a good half hour of me in the kitchen putting eggs, veggies, mint, and black tea to work, do both of the young Brits ascend from their bedrooms, covered in long green Bedouin-style gelabiya robes, clashing with Tray’s red hair and Ed’s blond, chuckling and “Yea dat’s brilliant snow, in’t bruv?” at the unusual weather.
Breakfast cooked, I run off to the window, grab my video camera, and document the snow anomaly while it lasts, wishing a Merry Christmas to all the Christian Palestinians in the area. I commence and complete my breakfast, dress warmly, throw books into shitty torn backpack, and I push down the echoing stairs, past the walls of chipped concrete, and past the humming water pump motor and out into the awful cold, wet, slushy grey. It’s the kind of weather that, as my new sneakers become reeeaaal moist inside just crossing the street, makes me wonder why I haven’t chosen a more humor-giving, happy place to make my own, like my friend Sam Steinberger has done with green, fertile South America. I look both ways on the main drag, shēri3 yarmūk, past all the clothing shops that look snappish and clean and newer ‘an a baby against the aged camp sidewalks, ALL of which seem to have “New Collection” scribbled on their windows (new collection of what? Who’s supposed to read that?), and witness every single female in a tight hijab, many of the older ones wearing a lot more than that, including some fierce World War II-looking winter jackets. A land of squeeze, whether from the clothes people dawn, or by the hand of this sternly undemocratic government. Then I get a brief flash in my mind’s eye of the pictures that I just saw on the internet of my gorgeous acquaintance Nabou Gaye off in sunny Senegal land, all colorful and hijab-less, and again wonder what is it that keeps me in this region of the world. Why can’t I make things easy on myself and just settle in Cancún, get my tourism Spanish together, and spend the rest of my life writing for a hotel magazine, making the extent of my activism improving the working conditions for luggage porters?
Stick hand out, step back to avoid fumes and splashing slush from passing automobiles, and hop onto the little white van, es-servīs, that rolls to a stop ahead of me. Within, I squeeze bag close to me as I pack into benches with the rest of the discontented travelers around me: a soldier in camouflage fatigues and low hat, and a man in jeans with a scar by his eye, his hand casually rested on the knee of the soldier beside him, and several women in hijabs and those World War II jackets. Staring out at the passing buildings, I realize that I’ve forgotten a lot of the seventy-five or so vocabulary words for my lesson coming up, and so I frantically yank the list of words from my bag and chant them over and over to myself amid the cramped servīs, making every passenger around me wonder just what language this gringo is speaking to himself.
“qal,” said with force. “OK, that means ‘slaughter’. ‘foox’ is a special incense from the Puntland region. Got it.”
I hop out, trying to absorb the vocab and their meanings from the list even as I cross the street, pass the hot sweet corn soup vendors and smoking men with heads wrapped in red and white Bedouin scarves, and hop onto another servīs, handing the driver another ten Syrian lira. Five minutes later I’ve descended from the little white van, and stand with the list of vocab, shivering under a shop’s awning, chanting the words like a rabbi at the Wailing Wall, as the snow continues to fall. The hour arrives, and I move through the little side streets of Mesēkin Berza, the ‘hood where I ate ifTār with that Somali friend of mine and wrote about all those months ago, and children persist with their street games, even in the snow. As I approach the little purple door of Yūsef, my teacher, and poke my head around looking for a doorbell, a young man in beanie cap, likely a Somali, but skin like a Jamaican immigrant to New York, asks me, alarmed, in perfect English, “What are you doing?”
“Meeting my friend.”
“Yūsef?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, OK.”
Yūsef comes to the door, his dark, Yemeni-looking eyebrows scrunch, and he whisks me through the massive curtains keeping the little warmth there is in his apartment, and shuts the metallic door to his windowless cavern home. I seat myself with commando speed at the little couch with the little desk, observe the real old-fashioned black oil furnace with chimney pipe going up to the ceiling, result of electric heating being far too expensive for this man of humble means, and I pull out my notebook. Even as he heads back to the kitchen to cook up some special Somali tea, Yūsef says with his stern accent, “OK, so as not lose any time, we start about the new words. Now, tell me about what is būr?”
“Mountain.”
“Mmm, and rāħo?”
“Umm, luxury.”
“Gooood!”
And so on and so on.
I sit there at the desk, my feet hovering above the floor for fear of them touching its venomously cold surface, writing every word he says loudly from the kitchen in Somali, and then its English counterpart, my bitty voice recorder sitting beside my papers. He comes shuffling back in with a tray with glasses and a jalmad (kettle) full of tea, pours some for both of us, offers me sugar, but then drops some tiny sweetener pills in his tea.
“I cannot take sugar, you know? I have diabetes.” He mixes in the fizzing pills.
I only put one spoonful of sugar in my glass, all of a sudden hyperconscious of the tremendous amount of sugar I’ve been taking in over the last five months, and this precious thing I’m still holding on to called good health. So many fellas in this region of the world, poor or rich, educated or streetucated, wheeze for breathe, got rotten teeth and skin, are bald, and got a well-formed belly by the time they got thirty years, and I don’t want to slip into that, despite all my trying to just blend in with the crowd.
We sit. He faces me, me hunched over my note papers—real master-pupil type stuff. Conversations about the subtle differences in the words for “Take this” and “spoon”, which sound exactly alike to me, and the various systems for forming plurals, and we take baby steps into the realm of wada sheekeesi (conversation). What an odd language: thick and throaty as a dog’s bark, yet with tiny vowels at the ends of words that clip to completion in quick guttural stops, like a lot of Japanese words do. Couple that sonic aesthetic with my trembling attempts at proper pronunciation, and I look like a white guy learning Japanese in preparation for a trip to the Horn of Africa—strange.
Now, I’m good, I know that, but despite that, Yūsef acts Yoda-like with me, folding his hands and holding his praise with great restraint, but giving those little smiles at certain comments I make that let me know we’re making progress. He tells me about his clan in Mogadishu—where he’s from—and the wide spread of dialects across the Somali-speaking regions, to my immense disappointment, me having begun the study of this queer tongue with the thought that it was relatively unified and homogenous. Not so. Well I just got to bite my intellectual lip, and keep going.
A knock at the door, and Yūsef looks up with the alertness of a frightened deer. He peeks through the curtains, opens it, and with a machine-gun fire of guttural greetings in Somali, lets his boy Maħmūd, rounder and taller and smoother dressed than him, inside. I shout my new word, gal (enter) at him, we exchange some light little Syrian Arabic greetings, and he slips into the obscurity of the little room beyond this one. Before Yūsef sits back down, a recorded call to prayer comes floating up from the speakers of his computer, like as if we got a little mosque right beside the house, and he takes a look at his computer reverently, and closes an open program before sitting down.
So the lesson goes on as before, Yūsef’s hands stay clasped, I stay hunched over the papers, my hands spread tensely over the surface of the desk. As we experiment with a little dialogue, the lesson’s time winding up tight as a spool of floss, we play with the line “waa maxay naaneystaadu?” (“What’s your nickname?”), and he responds slowly with “naaneystaydu waa san dheere”, and I burst out laughing: “My nickname is long nose.” No brilliant comedy, but you know that feeling of elation that makes you giggle when you’re understanding something in a new and unfamiliar language, right? Just thought it was worth writing about.
2:30 comes, we talk for a few minutes past the minute hand, and throwing jackets and scarves on, we crack the door to Yūsef’s curtained fortress, and he witnesses frozen water falling from the sky for one of, if not THE first time in his life. Totally unimpressed at the Middle Eastern snowstorm, he says “O so much snow. We Somalis don’t like so much about snow. So COLD.” Maħmūd comes tentatively out the door in slippers, takes the camera that I shove at him excitedly, and snaps some mediocre shots of us two standing amid the snowballs from heaven.
Then we part ways, shouting jao (from Italian “ciao”: remember, there was an Italian occupation of Somalia for several decades), I snake back through the pretty little side streets of Mesēkin Berza, out to the always-humming highway, and grab a servīce. Within, we all shiver, steam rises off my damp clothes squeezed between other bodies, and some people wear plastic bags on their feet. Brave the cold in this stripped down van, strain to stay awake amid the soft lull of gear-shifting rhythms and easy stops and starts for mounting passengers along the way. Struggle back up the chilly steps of the apartment building, throw backpack down amid living room mess, and throw off wet clothes for nakedness in the cool air of the apartment, as the last bits of early blue sunset fade away from windows’ edge.


SOMETHING EXTRA
So, I penned this poem on the spot in a park in my teacher Yūsef’s neighborhood, just observing the to and fro’ of the ‘hood. Much respect to Gaby Canales for quietly urging me to get back to the poetry. It’s just an impression, and needs a lot of work, so please let the comments and critiques fall like hail.
In the park
On the edge
Of the car-strained
Puddle-busted street
shēri3 mesēkin berza
In the shade,
The last blade of sunlight
Scraping just half the neighborhood.

There’s a rhythm here
And it swells beneath the sandal scuff
Of each Somali woman in black hijab
From the quiet hand of the young beggar girl—sheħħēda
“allah yeselemak ya ekhi”
From the little boy who brushes past
Coughing sandpaper sickness from little lungs
From the NAPKIN in the fingertips of the old man
In a white head dress, wiping his lip
The Somali men, fresh and stale
Bearded and talking holy with cups of tea
Bits of orange on the edge of their kinks
—closer to god.

The rhythm’s always here
The highway always hums
80 meters to my left
The park always specked with trash
The minaret always pointed
Towards the moon.

But we stand before darkness
On the backside of falling winter
And the refugees will have to wait to get asylum
The Arab vendors wait for more passersby
All the immigrants wait for jobs
When winter passes, and long days
And grey smog slide back in.

Until then, we watch the last blade of light
With the old men, perched on benches in the park
Standing before darkness, the backside of falling winter.




----
It’s quiet now. Tray left about five days ago, back to his native island. Edmund and Vince and Vince’s Syrian Kurdish girlfriend left the apartment this morning, Ed and Vince headed south to Saudi Arabia on a cheap bus for Christmas. I got to do the dishes, put this entry onto the internet, stuff my scarf and dictionary into my bag, and get to bed. Last night in town, and I got a plane to catch in the morning. Curtis Mayfield plays on my computer, and he’s singing “The key to our success is we gotta see each other through…”

Peace, Syria.

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?)