a) Happy Birthday Xochhhhhhh! Lovelovelove
b) Yesterday was my first class at the UN Relief Works Agency. I was teaching at the UNRWA field office; there were around fifteen 30 to 40-year-old's, from both Palestine and Syria, who were trying to improve their spoken English. My “teaching” was just mostly prompting discussions and conversations, and then a little bit of grammar and sentence structure.
All of the women in the class were incredibly friendly and respectful, even though they were all tens of years older than me. The men in the class were nice too, for the most part, though at times overly nice. When I asked for everyone to briefly introduce and describe themselves, one man instantly made clear that he was single and was looking for a wife. Another man, who was married, was also very forward. He was talking to some of the others about me in Arabic, but I understood everything that he was saying. When one of the women in the class pointed out that he was already married, he responded with “Yes, but my wife is getting old.” He later pointedly commented that the best way to learn English would be to marry an American girl.
The teacher before me was from Holland, so most of my class' discussions were centered around me being from America. One man was very upfront with his opinions about America, and persistently asked me to share my opinions about various situations. He asked about the reasons for the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, about Americans only following what we are told by our media, about racism within America, and discrimination against certain religions. I tried to prompt discussion with all of these questions, but it kept on veering to political opinions and views on the media. Only this one man had any interest in pushing these subjects, and I definitely felt inappropriate prompting political questions. I just kept on repeating that the range of opinion in the U.S. is great and that of course the government's actions do not represent the opinions of all Americans. I tried to bring up the idea that even I as an American am discriminated against and looked down upon by certain people, sometimes in Syria. We spent most of the two hours talking about daily life, cultural differences and traditions, and television. A different man insisted that women do not listen to or watch the news ever, because it simply doesn't interest them. The women in the class, of course, were defensive and tried to convince him otherwise, but he became agitatedly unmoving about his idea that woman only were interested in watching soap operas.
The culture in classrooms is also very different in terms of answering cell phones. I know from watching a few of the Libyan students at Damascus University pick up their cells in the middle of class, and from talking to friends from Jordan who had witnessed the same thing, that answering phones in class is fairly common. About ten cells were answered in the two hours I was trying to teach.
c)Daniela and her friend came to visit, and being around her always makes me feel so positive :) but at the same time, many of my friends from Damascus have left in the last week. Adam's family arrives in Damascus in a matter of hours... this part of my year is really winding down.
Some of us went back up to the top of the mountain again, to watch the sun go down over the city. It really does give you the same feeling as watching the sun rise at the Lincoln Memorial... you just end up feeling so small, and thinking about life and the people you care about... looking at the orange and maroon clouds collide with the tops of the Damascus buildings gives me the same feeling of home as watching the sun frame the Washington in the early-morning distance. I'm glad that I don't have to say good-bye to this city indefinitely quite yet.
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