ma salama, ya damashq!

My last few days in Damascus were spent with friends and the intangible character of the city. On my final night, after enjoying my last sunset on the highest ledge of the Jebel, I joined my remaining Damascene friends at a restaurant that overlooked the Omayyad Mosque, smoking argileh and talking to amazing people, before heading off to dance to 80's music at Jackson's... as it should have been.

I've been asked a lot lately what I will miss most about Damascus. This has been 9 months of my life... there will be a lot to miss. Honestly though, number one is the people. Damascus weeds out most of the narrow-minded ones... the ex-pat community here is so special.

And then I will miss the city itself. When I came back to Damascus in January, I had a few days of complete uncertainty with my choice to return, bordering on regret. My brief stay in America had left me wanting more, and the two people I was closest to in Damascus had just left. Then one day I was walking down the main road from my Sharia Qassa house to Bab Touma. As the road leads into the square, a string of brightly colored flags hangs above the traffic. I remember looking around and fully taking in this perfect Damascene evening for the first time since my return. A billboard of Arabic script, the swarms of people, the houses scattered down the side of mountain in the background. Women dressed in nakabs, in red heels, in shirts that say “Another break fast with you?” and other meaningless, slightly sexual English phrases. Groups of shabab with gelled hair, men selling grilled corn on the sides of streets. The sound of the call-to-prayer. I remember watching the orange sun set behind a simple blue-roofed mosque and its neighboring minaret. After that, I did not regret, even for a second, my decision to come back to Damascus.

I often think that reverse culture-shock is exaggerated. Whenever I go “home” to anywhere, it only takes me a few hours to feel like I never left. But I know that when I buy something from a store or order something at a restaurant, my instinctual response will be “Shokran kateer” not “Thank you.” I am sure that at first I will be taken aback by all of the girls wearing shorts. When I say “Israel,” I will probably lower my voice, if I use its name at all. The clean streets, the lack of habibi music, the fact that I don't stand out at all... this will take a little while to wrap my mind around again.

But tonight I am staying on a couch in the living room of a hostel in Beirut, mere feet away from an awkward Tunisian teenager. It is my last day in the Middle East, probably for a long time to come. After walking again through the hills of the city, past the most spectacular mosque I have ever seen, past army guards, past Hezbollah flags, I am sitting in a cafe with what will hopefully be my last Turkish coffee for a while. An Enrique Iglesias song is playing. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

where red, green, and black meet pale blue

Special pass and cameras in hand, we drove through several UN security checkpoints and into Quneitra. A special guard was assigned to stay with Anna and I, in addition to our driver and his 5-year-old son. Quneitra is the town that borders the Golan Heights. It was almost completely destroyed with bombs and airstrikes during the war with Israel in the 1970's, which is apparent even at first glance. From talking with Syrians about Golan, I know that this is still a major issue for the Syrian people. Syrians feel adamant that Golan was rightfully theirs, and still belongs to them. It is more than a point of lost pride or desire for land; it is about the people who lived there. It is about how families were ripped apart when the Golan Heights became part of Israel instead of Syria. Women had to choose between their families in Golan, and their husbands in Syria, knowing that the choice was permanent. You had to say good-bye to one of them forever; there was no chance that you could ever cross that border again.

We drove straight to the border of the Golan Heights and pulled over near a group of men. Three of them were in the green army uniforms worn by so many men in Damascus, the Syrian soldiers. One of them was in a uniform of pale blue and white... he looked like a walking Israeli flag. The border between Syria and the Golan territory is a patch of road in between two heavily guarded checkpoints. On our side, Syrian and Baath party flags hang from the roadblock. Looking across the brief patch of pavement, there is a star of David and a sign that states, in clear bold letters, “Welcome to Israel.”

Quneitra itself is just a physical memory of the past. The old town is now just remains of bombed-out buildings that with time have become overgrown with weeds. It is startling to see so much destruction on both sides of you as you drive down the road. The main “attraction” of Quneitra is a hospital that was bombed during the war. Above the entrance, a sign reads “Golan Hospital: It was destroyed and changed into a firing, target, and training place by Zionists.” This sign, as read by a third-party, is phrased as such blatant propaganda that you have to laugh. But the inside of the hospital takes your breath away. Bombs have ripped apart entire sections, pillars have been torn down. More than that though, it is clear that at some point the inside walls were used as a make-shift shooting range. A misplaced bomb did not cause the destruction of this hospital alone; people with guns must have purposely. Bullet holes cover even more hospital wall space than the graffiti does.

Our cab driver had brought his son along because the little boy's only alternative was to stay home along. His name was Adain, and of course was more interested in the guard dogs than the ruins of the war-affected town. His father kept trying to explain the surroundings, describing in Arabic how bombs had come from Israel and destroyed the town, how everyone had to leave, how the hospital was filled with explosions. At first I thought that the man was essentially instilling in his son a hatred of Israel. I hate the concept of children on either side of a conflict being fed ideas that perpetuate a circle of violence. But from everything that I understood, the man only stated facts. He did not describe ideals or religion; he only recounted facts from past violence and war.

I will say though, this may have been the only time in Syria where I have felt out of place because of my American passport. It was clear from how many times our military guard said “One of them is American” that my nationality was a point of interest. Even our driver seemed unsure if the scenes around us would evoke emotion in me, and if so, which kind of emotion.

We ended our tour of Quneitra after seeing a church that was practically hollowed out. Before getting in the car, Adain ran full speed screaming at a group of cows crossing the road. We all laughed as the cows began bounding away from him. Next to the church was the single wall of a house, still upright. While graffiti lined almost every surface you could think to write on in Quneitra, on this wall was a detailed drawing. It was a woman who looked like she was wearing a hijab, smiling, and holding her hand up in a peace-sign. In an area where every piece of fallen cement reminds you of a bloody past, it was nice to see a message of peace for the future etched into one still standing.

treatment of children

There was in article on BBC News recently that dealt with keeping Syrian children in school. The life of a child here is so different from in the U.S. The happy, healthy children seem to dominate their parents in public. You will be sitting in a nice restaurant, and two screaming boys will dart under your table, while their parents sit smoking and chatting up a storm a few yards away, unaware or indifferent. However, in our Sharia Qassa house, we can hear the yelling matches that go on in the next-door apartment, and it is fairly clear that the mother of the house beats her children.

When we were at the pyramids, Kate and Bill rented horses to ride. Even with my complete lack of horse knowledge, I could tell that the horses were weak and badly cared for. The horses wouldn't run, even after being hit repetitiously with whips by the young boy who was assigned to be the guide. These were not just scraps of clothe, but whips with worn-in knots at the end. Kate said that eventually she couldn't handle the mistreatment of her horse, so she told the young boy that they wanted to head back to the stable and wait for us (after my last horse-in-front-of-the-pyramids experience, I opted for a camel, along with Jesse and Cooper). After desperately trying to convince Kate and Bill to continue riding, pleading with them that the horses would go faster, that he would ride with them, that they could have extra time, the boy broke down in sobs. Kate was taken aback, and asked him what was wrong, saying that of course they would still pay him. He pointed back at the head-guide, who was riding camels with us, and mimicked being hit. Nothing that Kate and Bill said, even when they gave him an extra-large tip and praised him to another man at the stable, changed the state of this little boy.

It's situations like those that I feel show the difference between child work and child slavery. In Petra, kids run around trying to get your attention, whether to sell you a necklace or grab your hand and give you a tour. But those kids are also the ones sitting in groups on rocks near the amphitheater, eating candy as they play with dogs. They are, without a doubt, being used as adorable wide-eyed tools by their parents to earn money. But there is a difference in my mind between pushing kids to manipulate tourists and forcing them to pull the rein of a horse with the knowledge that if no tip is earned, pain will follow. Neither is right or good, but they are different. Understanding this behavior is not cultural sensitivity, it is a cultural excuse. Some things I simply do not understand, nor do I want to.

night buses, sunsets, bedouin children

A roadtrip from Damascus to Amman... Petra... Wadi Rum... Dahab... Cairo. And then back.

We were pulled into an hour long dance-off to Usher's “Yeah” in a downtown Amman cafe, boosted ourselves up onto the ledges of Petra, felt the heat of orange sand blow against us in the valley of Wadi Rum, saw the moon sink into the smooth Red Sea.

Petra was a day of climbing and staring at the glare of the sun from cliffs. “Off the beaten path” is sometimes an understatement. I was led around by a little Bedouin girl pulling my hand. She insisted on using my and Kate's cameras to take pictures of everything, from dogs running in the dust to the inside of her mouth. In Wadi Rum, after a day of jumping from rock to rock and running down sand dunes, Jesse and I pulled our mattresses outside into the desert. We slept outside under a blanket of stars, the moon bright enough for you to read a book.

In a drastic contrast, Dahab was tequila sunrises and sheesha and sun and crystal clear water, and cats jumping onto your lap, and telling time by where the moon hung over the water at night. It was full of open-wall cafes and bars right on the coast, with mattresses spread along the beach. I stared across the sparkling Red Sea each day at (bizarrely enough) Saudi Arabia... as I lay on the beach... in my teal bikini... drink in hand. And was left feeling shway haram.

One long night bus later, and we were in the city of a thousand minarets. I have a weird attachment to Cairo. There's something homey for me about the trash-covered sidewalks that border Talat Harb Street. When I went to Cairo after my freshman year at GW, it was the first time I had left the US, and going back there always reminds me of that time in my life when I really started living.

Easter was spent in Egypt, walking around Coptic Cairo. I am far from religious, but churches always do something for me. I guess I've only ever been in churches for funerals, when I'm in need of some form of spirituality anyways. But that's what I get when I go into churches, no matter where I am. I always light a candle and think about the people who are far away and mean so much to me. I always light a candle and think of my grandparents.

After the Coptic area, we went into the oldest mosque in Africa. Everyone who I've met in the Middle East associates me, with my blue eyes and uncovered curly hair, with Christianity. When I stumble around mosques in oversized “special clothes,” I think the world can tell that I am not Muslim. By default, I become a Christian. In churches, especially the history-laden churches that I've visited here, I have seen such emotion coming from people. As I look at the texture of mosaics, women next to me kneel down, pressing their hands gently on the relics and whispering bible passages. Similarly though, in mosques, while I sit on the rug adjusting the hood of my “special clothes” and take pictures of the symmetrical courtyard, men near me pray with unwavering focus. These places have such beauty... they have sun shining through tinted glass windows with scenes of crucifixions... they have curved calligraphy in wooden walls proclaiming “la allah ila allah”... but in these places, the spirituality I inevitably feel comes from the faith of people around me.

I am not too worried about going back to Cairo. There is no doubt in my head that the smog, desert puppies next to the pyramids, and 24-hour bar at the Oedian will see me again... AUC offers an amazing graduate program at the Center for Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. Time will tell.

But for now, time cannot be trusted. In less than a month, I will be on a plane from Beirut to Boston.

I just finished a book called “Six Months In Sudan.” At one point the author describes his reasons for working in Sudan, and I've never read a statement that more perfectly encompasses my reasons, and the reasons of so many I know, to be here. “Pushed by the sharp thrill of being somewhere new and rare and exciting, pushed towards that free feeling where anything can happen. Pulled because I want to understand.”

A good friend of mine once told me that I “seek it out... I don't know what it is, but you seek it out.” This is what I seek out.

cyprus

After a night out on Gemayze Street and a day getting lost on the never-ending hills of Beirut, I finally met up with Catherine in Cyprus! We stayed in Agia Napa, a coastal city on the Greek side of the island. This place is like the Jersey Shore of Cyprus. The streets are lined with kitschy restaurants, little souvenir shops, clubs, strip joints, live music... during the summer, it is supposed to be the hot spot for drunken Greek youth. In March, it was me and Catherine and a dozen 70-year-old's who spent their time day drinking. I had a wonderful time though, surrounded by beautiful bays, and the clear water of the Mediterranean.

We spent our last day in Nicosia. A sign at the checkpoint dividing the Greek and Turkish sides claims “Nicosia: The Last Divided Capital.” From the woman standing behind the front desk at our hostel to the taxi driver who took us to Nicosia, we heard many talks of the “Turkish occupation” from Cyprus' Greek occupants. We didn't have a chance to hear what the people on the Turkish side thought about the division of their island.

You had to present your passport at the check-point in Nicosia, though you didn't need a tangible border to feel the division within the city. On the Greek side, Catherine recognized the brand-name stores from London, and I enjoyed a much-missed Starbucks chai latte. Contrastingly, moments after crossing the border, we heard the call-to-prayer echoing from a mosque. On these streets, I recognized the nameless shops full of heaps of clothing and piles of pistachio sweets, and the many advertisements for Effes beer, from similar alleyways in Syria.

Cyprus was sort of a spur-of-the-moment choice. From the taxis back and forth from Lebanon, where I was forced to rely on my own Arabic and bargaining abilities, to the many hours I spent at airports, it was also a fairly independent trip for me. In between a book and another Starbucks-style coffee, I saw a quote etched in wall at the Larnaka Airport in Cyrpus... something that I feel as a reality now for myself and for many of my friends:

“Every day is a journey, and that journey itself is home.”

syriati

I was recently talking to a few friends about the movie “Syriana,” which none of us has seen. “Syriana” means “Our Syria” in Arabic, and we were joking about what “Syriati,” or ”My Syria,” means to each of us. Because my Syria is not desert or bombs or hatred towards Americans or daily danger. My Syria doesn't have camels.

My Syria is living a block away from a KFC, and only a few houses down from a store called “Paris Hilton Fashion.” My Syria is getting sunburned while I study vocab on my balcony amongst the branches of the orange tree rooted our yard. It is passing 50 leera through seven different people on a bus, which I got onto with a running leap (because why would it come to a complete stop?), and knowing that my bus ticket will be passed back to me as well as all of my change. You will ALWAYS get your change back. My Syria is vegetables being sold on every street for basically nothing, and souks full of fresh fruit and clothes and roaming cats. It is playing backgammon in smoky cafes next to crazy men singing and chanting verses from the Koran, and argileh, and the strongest gin and tonics you could imagine. It is children on the street, their faces smeared with dust, who will simultaneously break your heart and infuriate you. After being followed for a block by a little boy begging for money, I offered to buy him food instead; he refused and told me to “fuck off.” My Syria is the turquoise tint of mosques at sunset, and pushing my way through crowded alleyways in the Old City. It is banana & milk smoothies, and crouching on micro-buses, and the constant presence of sweetened tea. It the long discussions about Arabic grammar that I kind of hate but actually get really into. My Syria is going out every weekend and stumbling home at 5am as you hear the call-to-prayer. It is my first manicure, for only $10. My Syria is bantering with cab drivers about the creation of a Kurdish homeland and why I'm not married. It is the sound of cats in heat, and Akon blasting from slow-moving cars, and the hisses and propositions of men on the street. It is the sound of my ipod so that I don't have to hear the hisses and propositions of men on the street. My Syria is water from the tap, because it hasn't made me sick yet, and sometimes ignorance is bliss. It is meeting field organizers from the Obama campaign, archaeologists, linguists, musicians, UN staff, students who are specializing in everything and have been everywhere. It is friends who are not only Syrian or American, but from all over Europe and Turkey, from Iraq, from Venezuela, from Japan, China, Korea, from Africa.

Good-byes don't really exist here, though it feels like they happen all too often. Who knows where any of us foreigners will be next week, next month, never mind next year? Permanence is a skewed idea here... at some level, I think everyone knows that we may be just crossing paths. My Syria is coffee and Arabic and music in the crowded streets and smoking and laughing and amazing people and just trying to figure myself out a little bit more.

blurred borders

I was at the ISP school last Saturday when an Egyptian film maker came in to talk with the students. There is currently a film festival for documentaries in Damascus and she had directed one of the films, called “startup.com.” In it, she painted the picture of a world where people united cross-culturally through art. This woman was inspired by the mission of ISP and wanted to meet all of the young adults from Iraq, who are displaced in Syria, and will soon be students in America.

Saturday's discussion with the Egyptian director focused mostly on what stories the students felt were not being told from Iraq. They all said that the media focuses unfairly on the negative, on the exceptions. Yes, there is a problem in Damascus with Iraqi prostitution, but what about all of the mothers who stay strong, raise families, and get jobs when their husbands aren't able to? And yes, many extremists cite Islam as a reason for their violent actions, but what about all of those people who, after being forced out of their countries, away from their homes and families, are able to find peace five times a day through prayer? I have never heard anyone talk about religion the way that one of my students, Ziad, did that day. He is one of the most attentive, open-minded people, who speaks about wanting to go to MIT in a flawless accent and laughs at all of my dumb movie references. I hadn't taken him to be particularly religious. But he said that at his mosque, he found a new part of himself. He spoke about finding a community when he felt like he didn't have one... about the sight of his mosque on Fridays, so clean and pure and white... about the feeling that comes when you are surrounded by people kneeling in unison, connected to each other through their movements, but connected to god on a very individual level. I have never heard anyone speak so openly and passionately about religion and his own faith in god.

The discussion also centered briefly around politics. The focus of this conversation was about how exaggerated and generalized sectarian conflicts have become in the media. They all said that before the war, communities mixed with Sunnis, Shias, and Christians lived peacefully. They stressed that the desire of the Iraqi people was peace in their homeland, not any sort of extreme religious ideals of isolation or superiority. According to these students, the people who are creating sectarian violence in Iraq, particularly Baghdad, come from gangs and don't represent any larger trend among Iraqi people.

Saturday felt a little different from most days at the ISP school... The students seemed more excited than usual. At first I thought their excitement was from the chance to speak with this amazing woman, whose roots were so similar to their own. She was the daughter of an American-Syrian marriage, grew up in Egypt, and after receiving an education in the U.S. she went on to become a talented director. Then I noticed the black ink stains on so many pointer fingers in the room.

Sunday, the following day, was the official Iraq election. The black ink marked that the students had voted in one of the local polling stations.

During the next class that I taught, I asked my students a little bit more about the elections. They were all first time voters, and their eagerness for this new-found privilege reminded me of myself in the fall of 2008. They stressed how long the list of candidates was, extending for pages, and how Iraqis all over the world were voting just like them. Jokingly, almost braggingly, they spoke about how easy the ink is to remove with bleach. At the polling stations, you must present a form of identification so that your name can be written down on a list, but the only preventative measure for multiple voting is this black mark on your pointer finger. A few of the students had friends in Iraq who had voted in two different regional polling stations.

Here are kids the same age as me. And among this group of youth, of first time voters, of refugees who were forced out of their country, you can find the same excitement that became such a part my life during the 2008 election. I remember taking a picture with my cell phone of the little check next to “Barack Obama” on my ballot. I remember at every dorm party quoting Obama, toasting: “Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.” Hope felt tangible to me. It felt like the youth around me were the driving force towards creating even the smallest amount of change in a world so big.

The feeling is the same with these students. Their expectations for the results, and probably for the legitimacy of the election, are certainly different than mine were a year and a half ago. But whether you are an 18-year-old Iraqi boy proudly displaying a blackened finger, just hoping for a change in the homeland that you haven't seen in years, or a 19-year-old American girl walking in front of the White House in a pin that says “Yes we can!”, the feeling is the same.

dust storms and iraqi students

A few friends and I visited the amphitheater at Bosra a few weeks ago, and I just got back from a weekend in Palmyra yesterday. I think I've been to most of the famous Syrian sights now... all I have to say is that Europe doesn't have shit on the Middle East. Our weekends mix requesting Jay-Z tirelessly at clubs with jumping around sandy ruins at the world's oldest civilizations. Even simply driving through the desert, past the “Iraq: 100 KM” sign, you can find beauty in a dust storm. About an hour of my drive to Palmyra was made up of limited vision and thick, gray dust surrounding the bus. When we got to Palmyra, dust made the light around us switch seamlessly from day to night, even though the sunset was brief and in the distance.

I am currently about half way through this session at Damascus University, and also teaching a class at an organization called the Iraqi Student Project. It's a program started by two Americans, Theresa and Gabe, after they had traveled all over Iraq in the 1990's. It is designed to prepare exceptional Iraqi students for university in the United States, and network with universities in order to obtain scholarships for the students. ISP reminds me so much of Banaa, an organization started at GW, with similar scholarships for Sudanese students. These two groups give incredible opportunities to students living as refugees from two of the most politically unstable and violent countries in the world, with the goal of providing empowerment through education, and ultimately the hope that these students will provide new, peaceful leadership in their home countries. I am truly inspired by both ISP and Banaa.

My class at ISP is Advanced Writing... I'm actually sort of shocked that Theresa thought I was qualified to teach this class. The students in my class are all applying, with realistic expectations, to Ivy League universities. However, while they could school me any day on the laws of physics, they have trouble with the meanings of words like “personification” and “hyperbole.” Their written and spoken English is beautiful, but they obviously all have to push a little harder to cut out some linguistic mistakes. This class is definitely bringing out the literary-nerd side that I've always had. The students are all around my age, some slightly younger, and everyone in my class grew up in Baghdad. These are some of the most naturally talented people I've ever met, and also some of the sweetest. And I think they actually find my awkward jokes funny, which is always a plus.

u.s. ambassador!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8519328.stm

I'm friends with enough people working in the embassy to know that all of these changes have been a long time coming. From the amount of staffers and military working at the embassy, to being in the process of transforming the Ambassador's Suite from a game room into an actual living space, it looks like the U.S. and Syria are about to have a very different relationship.

round 2 in the city of jasmine

Went back to Amurrrica, got myself a Cosi asiago bagel with cream cheese, some Thai food, plenty of memorable DC moments... now back to the grind in Damashq.

I've come back to the exact same city, but a completely flipped around life. I'm in a new apartment (a new crazy landlord?), new people, and new choices of tutoring vs. classes, teaching vs. maybe a few new opportunities? And I feel like I had to say good-bye about two minutes after saying hello to all of those people back home who matter most. But while the plane ride back to Syria may have consisted of some tears and “Black Balloon” on repeat, all it took was a walk through an Old City alley for me to realize how happy I am to be here for four more months. I think this is where I'm supposed to be right now.

Last night, my friend (now room mate!) Kate and I had dinner with an incredibly personable, gay Australian man who works as an archaeologist here. The dinner was made up of great conversation, ranging from topics of the security around the Golan Heights to the style of our mutual Swedish friends. The part that really stuck with me though was our discussion of sexuality and gender, the connotations of which drastically verge when comparing Syrian and Western culture.

The concept of sexuality here is completely turned around from the idea that my own American culture has ingrained in my mind. Syrian men seem to spend more time primping than women, their hair wet with gel, their pointy leather shoes shiny, their clothes too tight and bedazzled. And this must seem sexy to at least a fair amount of women here! Oppositely, so many of the women here are stunning, yet instead of noticing the natural beauty of the Syrian women all around, men choose to stare, mouths open, at the Western women who pass by. I could be wearing an oversized turtle-neck with no makeup and still get more attention than the stunning bronze-skinned women walking next to me.

Though a Syrian man would most likely flaunt a relationship with any Western woman, it seems so many other relationships breed second lives here. Speaking to Kate's Australian friend about his experiences with both waiters who hit on him and Syrian women who use him as a secret confidant, it became even more clear how little the surface really shows. Homosexuality, or at least homosexual sex between men, is clearly present, no matter how undercover it is. A Syrian man might have a second life with a male partner. A Syrian woman might have a second life revealing her fantasies to Western male friends, who her Arab girlfriends will never meet nor hear of.

A friend of mine recently spoke to me very convincingly of a “third gender” in the Middle East: western, primarily white, women. I can speak from simple experience... my outward appearance has never mattered more. In addition to any stigma that comes with being a woman, “Western” seems to translate in so many people's minds into “sex.” I know that I am looked at as a prostitute most of the time when I walk down the street without a man by my side. When Kate and I walked home from our dinner with her Australian friend, it was quite late at night, though our walk home was in one of the safest and most liberal areas in Syria, and was well lit. Every. Single. Car. Pulled over as we passed. And the men inside of the cars would hiss intently for us to come over and have sex with them.

These are all harsh generalizations, and I've met so many wonderful people who have proven them wrong. For every frustrating moment, I've had a million wonderful experiences. But in my day to day life, being female has never been a bigger part of my identity. At the moment, none of this is coming from a bitter or broken place; it's just where my mind's been at.

from sunrise at the lincoln to sunset in damascus

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.

christmas in the air?

First of all, so much love for Jess. She left Damascus a week ago, and it's not the same. There have been so many laughs and great times with this girl... she is one of the sweetest and funniest people I've ever met. Beyond excited for London oh TEN!

Christmas is in the air in Damascus... ironically? Most of the streets that I walk down, at least in the Old City and the area around Sharia Baghdad, are filled with shops selling ornaments, wreaths, and Santa hats. There are mini Christmas trees next to posters of Al-Assad's face. It's a lot of Christmas cheer for a city with a 10% Christian minority.

Lately, I feel like I've been having more serious discussions with my friends, mostly veering towards cultural differences. I've had more talks of religious tensions, the treatment of women, how events are framed in both Western and Syrian news sources. The honeymoon period of living here ended a while ago, though I still love this city. I feel like whenever I'm in a group of women my age, we end up talking about our many similar harassment experiences. Everyone who I talk to seems to feel the same way... whether it's someone touching you on the street, following you in a car, or just the constant intense staring, the harassment has, understandably, worn a lot of girls down. After four months, I can sadly see that I am more constantly on edge. I know, from stories and much personal experience, that harassment in Damascus is much less prevalent than in most Middle Eastern cities, but it is still grating. I've started walking most places with my ipod just so I don't hear as many comments.

One month from today, I'll be back in the district! Instead of walking down the street eating falafel from a stand, next to a car blaring music with lyrics like “Habibiti, ya albi, ya amri”... I'll be eating Chinese food with my girls listening to some ridiculous rap song near the monuments. I could not be happier for this brief return to normalcy.

Sayyida Zeinab...

BBC News- Damascus bus explosion kills three people
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8392369.stm

There has been a lot of confusion about what actually happened yesterday... it went from a terrorist attack with the extremist group already pegged to a tire explosion. It's still not clear, from the media or the government officials, but ultimately it's just incredibly sad that several people including a 13-year-old boy were killed. And I'll just say that not many tire explosions cause the type of destruction that was seen at this gas station, especially on a Shia holiday in front of a holy Shia mosque.

transatlanticism

Last week I sort of had a moment, when I was watching “Lost in Translation." It's such a good one... but shit. I was watching it in a basement in Syria, where I've been for over three months, not three days. And where my problems aren't elliptical machines that are too advanced or being confused by sushi similarities, but the lack of running water one day, and electricity another day. It's just ironic to watch something about cultural differences and isolation during a week trip to Tokyo when you are sitting in the middle of a Syrian winter feeling kind of burnt out.

Props to Myles for figuring out how to fix the electricity... finding copper wire in the Chinese Cultural Center, shaving it down, going into this random room of our building and somehow reconfiguring the fuses?? Without electrocuting himself? Major props.

A few days ago I went to this beautiful monastery called Marmousa with Myles, Kate, and a bunch of Kate's friends and room mates. It was in this mountain around two hours outside of Damascus, built into the rocks of a cliff, and surrounded by nothing but vast desert. It took us a while to climb up the steps to the church, but upon reaching the building, you overlook the most surreal view. The deep red desert sand and blue cloudless sky, with the moon out in daytime. It was stunning, but we've seen so many absolutely indescribable and stunning things here, that I wouldn't think it would affect me all that much. It completely did; it was just so peaceful and endless. The monastery was set up so that you can stay overnight for free if you just pitch in washing dishes or cleaning a bit. And the church was one of the most comforting places I've ever been. It had these old, brightly colored paintings on the wall, none of which had been renovated. Most of the paint was chipping away, but it was just so homey and unintimidating. It was small too, so only a few people were in it. No one was quiet because of rules or necessity, we were just quiet because we wanted to be respectful. Someone was in the corner reading, and cushions were set up along some of the edges to sit. After we explored and were waiting for Kate's friends to come back, I went back in by myself and sat in front of this tin tray with candles in it. Most of them were just melted wax lining the bottom, but 11 candles stilled burned... I just sat there for a while and thought about my family. My whole family, friends included. There are people back home who I've been thinking a lot about, from those who have recently died to those dealing with family sicknesses to those who are just so strong in everything they do. I've never been religious, though I've always had my own sort of spirituality... I can count the times that I've prayed on one hand, but this was one of them.

Probably not any time in the immediate future, but maybe in a few years, I would love to go back and stay there for a few days. All you would need are some books and maybe a journal and a camera. I feel like you would just be able to sit for a week and write poetry.

Speaking of being thankful for friends and family... We actually had a really nice Thanksgiving last week. We went to one of Myles' friends' houses, with a bunch of other Americans... and actual Thanksgiving food! Not gonna lie, Myles and I made the most EPIC stuffing ever... we were scared all day that it was going to be a complete failure, but it was actually really good... someone may have said it was the best stuffing he'd ever had... shockingly enough haha.

fi kahera

Cairo to visit Sarah!
Had a brief stop in Jordan with Kate, got to see Dani and Andrew (always so much fun!)... then after frantically deciding that buying plane tickets was easier than a 30 hour bus/ boat ride, we went to misssssr! The night we got there, it was the last Egypt-Algeria soccer game, and Egypt had to win by two goals to even re-play Algeria and have a chance in moving on towards the World Cup. We watched it in an outside sheesha cafe with Sarah and a bunch of her friends. Everyone was showing more Egyptian pride than any sort of nationalism I've ever seen, with face paint, chants and screams, capes made out of flags... everything around us was red and black and yellow and white. Even the cars were painted, or had kids hanging out of them holding flags; all of them were honking one distinct cheer. Sarah and I joined in with the face paint and cheers, and I completely caught the nerves of everyone around us when it seemed like Egypt would only win with one point. Then in the last few overtime minutes, Misr scored a second goal, and the whole city erupted. My only comparison to the hours that followed is D.C. after Obama was elected last year, with chaos in the streets and complete joy spilling over in front of the White House. Thousands and thousands of people filled the streets of Mohandiseen, with torches and fireworks, more flags, cheers of “Misr!!” echoing everywhere. I can't imagine how crazy downtown must have been. People covered the street, and spilled out of the cars that managed to drive by, or just sat on top of them. We saw one car slam into another, causing maybe ten kids sitting on top of it to jolt into the street. The fireworks swirled everywhere, low to the ground, showering everyone in sparks... but it was a beautiful night to be a part of, and no one around us was hurt at all. The chaotic street celebrations lasted hours longer than I thought they would.

Over the next few days, Myles, Adam and I visited the Citadel and pyramids and Coptic Cairo, all of which I have been to before, but they never lose their power. You never feel any less small when you stand looking over the edge of the Citadel, seeing the Giza pyramids miles away, and the mosques of Cairo intermixed with the buildings and streets. It was nice to be with Myles and Adam for their first time in Cairo, seeing all of this. It's also bizarre how well some people remembered me from my last two trips to Egypt. One of the store owners in the Coptic area said that we were “old friends from the last few years.” Even weirder, some guy who worked at the Citadel not only remembered me, but knew it was my third time visiting the Citadel, because of my blue eyes.

Possibly the most epic moment of the trip was riding horses in front of the pyramids at night... I didn't know until that night that horses scare the shit out of me. It was dark when we got to the pyramids. The four of us, as well as several of Sarah's friends and a few guides, piled onto these Arab horse and were simply told to start riding. So we went off into the Sahara desert, with no instructions, and I had never even sat on a horse before... yea. My horse was partially blind, and kept on trotting away from the rest of my group. I learned, after several border-line panick attacks, that every time it lowered its head, it would begin to go faster. Definitely had a moment when I realized that if it wanted to, the horse could just start running into the dark Sahara, and I really had no way of stopping it. Most of the way to the campsite, Sarah and I were just frantically saying “Shway shway, habibi!” and “Mish bisora!” because at the time it seemed to make sense that speaking Egyptian Arabic to the horses would get them to do what we wanted? Then on the way back, one of the horses started bolting forward, and got the others to gallop unexpectedly as well. Next thing I know, I see one of the horses running figure eights up and down the sandy hills with Sarah's friend on it screaming “It won't stopppp!”... and I see Adam walking towards us, after being thrown off of his own horse, with wild dogs approaching... Myles' horse was also crazy, trying to kick all of the others. I managed to not freak out at the end when my horse broke into a gallop across a field and had to stop short to prevent us from crashing into a wall. Altogether, it was an, ahem, interesting introduction to horse riding.

We had some really fun nights out, at the Cairo Jazz Club, a second Egypt-Algeria soccer game (Egypt lost... sad), and of course I got to see my girl Sarah and my friend Steph, and meet some really cool people. And we finally ate American-style food, which we have been intensely missing... bagel sandwich. Omlette. Pancakes. Oh man.

Sarah came back to Damascus with us, after a brief but eventful stop in Jordan again. Adam lost his passport, and there was a definite hour of panic when we tried to figure out what to do. Our airport cab driver ended up calling Kate's hostel and bringing it back to him for some money, والحمد لله. We spent a longgg time on the Syria-Jordan border in the middle of the night while Kate, Adam, and Sarah tried to get new visas. Finally, after a solid four hours and a few drinks from the duty free store, when went back to Damascus. Went to the Omayyad mosque, and to the top of the Jebel at sunset, two things that I am SO happy to have finally done, and shocked that its taken me this long to get to. I wish Zahara could have stayed here with us :( She is greatly missed.

Also... we moved. Long, complicated process that may or may not be over yet... we have a really... eclectic?... new apartment in the basement of a building on Sharia Baghdad. It has a little courtyard where three massive cats hang out, and is covered with blue paint, about 12 couches, and fake flowers. We live about 20 minutes outside of the old city, so it's still easy to go back and visit our old stompin' grounds.

what? it's cold in syria?

So. Context of my life right now: it's pouring out and freezing; I of course didn't anticipate either so have no warm or waterproof clothes or shoes. Soaking wet from walking home from the bus stop. When I get home our gas tank is empty, so we can't cook or heat water. My room, which is realistically a closet-sized shack with a broken window on our building's roof, is not only heatless but it is now leaking. We have no entertainment: no dvd-player, no new books, and no games. We now basically have no way to dry ourselves, warm ourselves, or cook. So I am sitting curled up on a bed in Syria, basically unable to leave my room, a cup balanced next to me to catch to rain drops that would be on my pillow, finishing the seventh Harry Potter, which i've already read this month, and eating blue cheese dressing with a fork (though to be honest I couldn't be more thrilled to have finally found this). Good times, good times...

Going back and forth between feeling like I could live here forever and really missing home. I had a moment in a cab yesterday, when I was coming back from shopping at Sham City Center, the western supermarket (finallllly have some peanut-butter and soup!), and I was looking out of the window at all of the specks of light that cover the mountain next to the city. And I realized that I could really live here. For more than just 8 months; I could see myself getting a job here in the future. It's such a simple thing, but I know that when I get back to the U.S., I am going to miss the mosques. They bring such intricate beauty and tradition to the city. Whenever you drive around in a bus or cab, you drive by tens of sparkling teal and ivory mosques, though they may neighbor a market or hotel or even Costa Coffee. And when you walk on the streets, you see girls wearing 4-inch red heals with a matching Chanel hijab next to women in covered completely in black clothe. There is just such a richness to the culture of Damascus that I love, and such diversity. Even the terrain of the city itself: the Jebel, with scattered buildings covering it, towering next to the city; the viney allies of the Old City; the desert-rimmed highways of Mezzah. The only constant pitfalls to my life here are the slightly lessened living standards, the language barrier, and the harassment that comes from being a woman. The living standards and language barrier just cause me to push myself, and in my opinion, everyone can use more of that... The harassment comes and goes, at varying levels, and never gets any easier to accept. But it has given me a sort of anger that has if anything has led to empowerment, and the hard-set idea that every woman is entitled to complete respect. This empowerment is only enhanced by the strength and sassiness and opinionated demeanor of every woman I've met here.

The tough part is really missing my friends and family. In the last week, three of my very best friends had their birthdays, two of them having their 21st birthdays. It sucks not to be back with them. That, compiled with being sick and therefore emotional for the last few days, has really made me long for everything I'm missing. Sitting in my best friend's basement for hours, walks around the National Mall, random texts about music lyrics, laughing at our own awkwardness, eating Chinese food or soy buffalo wings and making lists :) Haha, no better moments in the world than these. I just miss beeeeing with all of my best friends, and talking to them. Could not love them more <3

roadtrrrrip

We rented a car and drove to the Euphrates River last weekend! Went up to the North-Eastern area of Syria, through Homs to Al-Thura and Lake Assad and then Deir Ezour, about 45 minutes away from Iraq. I saw amazing, still half-buried fortresses and an entirely different Syria than I'm used to. While driving to visit all of the sites, there was such contrast between the lush Euphrates surroundings, with farms and animals and mud instead of sand, and the barren desert, so much like pictures of neighboring Iraq. The first night while driving back from the Qal'at Ja'bar fortress, we stumbled across a hostel that was really just a house full of random shabab and friends of the owner. There was no toilet or shower at all in the hostel, just a hole in the ground. We ended up chatting with the owners and their friends outside for a while with some tea and sheesha. They were very friendly and open, but the conversation took an inevitably awkward turn when they started asking why so many people in America dislike Arabs, with our also inevitably awkward apology in broken colloquial. The conversation finished with the pointed mention of how the only unmarried man in the group prefered American women, something that happens all too often. Still, nothing but good memories of the hostel.

The next day when we left, we had two po-po friends in a white car following us; this was the first time that has happened. We eventually asked them who they were (even though we knew, and the were unexpectedly honest. The two men ended up being very friendly and helpful; at a few points when we were lost, they let us follow them for a while instead. They were with us through about half of the second day, and then we accidentally left them at a falafel shop. The third day, when when we crossed the famous dam, which is also placed on the Syrian 10 cent coin, we were stopped again by guards outside of the bridge. After a while of being detained, our friendly po-po returned in their white car to follow us again. By then we were basically on a first-name basis, so we were all chill.

The fortresses at Rasafa and Qal'at Ja'bar were so un-earthed, it was an archeologist's dream. Everything we were standing on was just layered above cathedral-sized halls; an underground world buried in dirt and sand.

After Rasafa, we drove further down the Euphrates, past cows and cotton fields, to another ancient fortress. We ended up on the wrong side of the Euphrates, and not being sure if we could drive across the river, we parked in the sand next to a family's desert-patched yard. They, for good reason, just stared at us and our silver car quizzically on our way back and forth. We hiked down a grassy path made by a pipe to the river, walking along the bank before we came to a bridge. A truck saw the five of us and slowed down so that we could run half-way across the bridge and jump in. There were more guards at the end of the bridge, and of course we prompted a lot of questions: one British and four American kids, who know a decent amount of Arabic, who rented a car and were driving around the area outside of Iraq, yet instead of driving to the fortress, decided to park it in a Syrian family's yard and hitchhike. Not our brightest moment.

Again, the view of the Euphrates valleys, and the fortress itself, were breathtaking. The next day we explored an island in Lake Assad for about three hours. We were the only ones there, and after swimming, we picked up shards of pottery around another ancient, run-down look-out tower. I've seen so much beauty since I've been here... I'm so lucky.

This was the Syria that everyone I know, myself included, seems to think of automatically. The North was the stereotype that Damascus so defies, of conservative dress and intense religion, where foreigners are rare. The people live the rural life of hard work and border-line isolation from the rest of the world. It was different from any lifestyle I've ever been around.

2 months in...

... and it's really started to feel like home. It's been over a month since my last post, and not only have I completed my first session at Damascus U, but I've made friends who I can tell will be very long-lasting, had a crazy Eid in Beirut, settled into the Old City, and seen more of the beauty that is Syria.

The days spent in Beirut, and Lebanon in general, were some of the most fun and memorable days I've had. The city itself was stunning; on one side there is the ocean and on the other there are huge green mountains, with a strip of white city in between. The streets and architecture and general culture felt more like Europe than the Middle East, but then you would see a mosque and remember where you actually were. We saw amazing things while staying in Beirut, like the underground limestone Jeita Grotto caves and the ancient city of Byblos... but it was our nights in Beirut that made the trip so epic. We managed to find Jemayze street, filled with bars and music and life, on our first night, and returned on our second and third nights as well. Too many laughs to even remember, talks of finding a boat to Cyprus in the early morning hours, ending up at the Radison Hotel instead of the Regis Hotel all to often... I'm so glad that Jess, Myles, Adam and I made this trip. We spent the last day in Tripoli, and ended up taking a boat out to an "island" that really just turned out to be a chunk of cement about 10 minutes into the sea; then, of course, we managed to find the one bar in Tripoli and re-live the fun we had in Beirut.

I can finally say that I've seen the diversity of areas within Syria as well now. Roula, one of the daughters from our family, took us to a city called Ma'loula for the "Holiday of the Cross." Ma'loula is the last place in the world where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is spoken. We arrived at night, and it was the craziest holiday I've ever experienced. This Syrian holiday consists of the tradition of throwing fire off of the cliffs surrounding the city. Yea. So the tops of the cliffs were all ablaze, and then tires which had been lit on fire were thrown down the cliffs. Into the CITY where people's HOUSES were. When we got there, Roula's friend just turned to us and said "Keep in mind that if you see a fireball coming at you, you have to run..." Fireworks were going off constantly and all around us, at times almost hitting us and covering us in ash. It sounded like we were in a crossfire... for some reason I loved the adrenaline though.

Last week, I went to Aleppo with my friend Kate and a few other girls. Aleppo was such a livable city, and made Damascus seem cosmopolitan in a way I had never felt before. We explored its amazing underground souk, and sat on top of the Citadel until the sun was setting. The citadel overlooked everything... the view was just of hundreds of mosques, thousands of buildings and winding streets. Somehow, even though almost of the buildings were the same tainted gray, it seemed like such a colorful view.

And finally, a few days ago, Myles, Adam, and I made it to Crac de Chevaliers. We've seen so many ruins lately that I honestly didn't have crazy expectations for Crac, but this castle was one of my favorite places that I've seen thus far. It was much bigger than I had expected, and it was filled with tunnels and beautiful connected halls. I felt like a little kid on a playground, just exploring the underground areas by holding up lighters and finding ways to climb through the chipped-away windows. This was also the first time I've had a real view of the Syrian countryside.

الأردن

Jordan. Was. Beautiful. And amazing. The drive down was kind of a mess (we chilled for many hours with a twitching, coked-out cab driver who hadn't eaten or drank anything all day because of Ramadan) and the first night we encountered our first reallllllly sketchy situation in downtown Amman, involving the three of us being led into an alley and me being propositioned for sex. But the city was beautiful in a very different way from Damascus, with the houses of Amman layered on hills. Then on to Mount Nevo, where Moses was supposedly buried... the Jordan River, where Jesus' baptism was held, and where we were literally feet away from the West Bank... the Dead Sea, which which just frickin crazy, you literally could not sink even if you put all of your effort into it. That night we spent back in Amman with Dani (!!! yayyyy <3 ) and Myles' friend Andrew, who is the sweetest guy ever. Next two days we were in Petra, and the beauty of Petra is honestly beyond words. It is just a canyon with elaborate natural splits in beautifully colored sandstone, and then you turn the corner to see Roman tombs and palaces cut into the rock. I have never seen anything like it.

Now we are back in Damascus, and we all luckily made it into level 4 Arabic at Damascus U. The only bittersweet part about being back is that two of the closest friends we had here, Simone and Alice, both left Syria while we were gone. Startin to really bond with our family though, the two woman in the family are hilarious.

home from lattakia

Home in Damascus from Lattakia! There was something kinda poignant about reading "On the Road" during our bus ride through the Syrian country-side :)

Lattakia was beautiful, the beach on the Mediterranean was exactly what you see in pictures; just clear water, white buildings jutting out from the mountains on the coast, ports lined with teal mosques. The city had some great restaurants, but one of the biggest differences from Damascus was that the restaurants actually opened after sun-down, because of Ramadan. Here in the Old City, the rules about Ramadan are fairly flexible.

One more day here fi Damashq (and our Arabic placement exam, gahh), then off to the Dead Sea!