Sunday, October 28, 2007
Hashing
I accepted an invitation from British ex-pats for an evening 5-mile jog through a desert canyon. They advertised it as the way to a reward: a case of Sakkara (Egyptian beer) at the finish. Sweaty, exhausted and happy, we sang rugby songs and celebrated our scandalous attire. Look ma--no pants! I felt like a super-slut in my running shorts. We then headed to Lucille's for arguably the best burgers in the Middle East--my first bacon-cheeseburger in months, maybe years. Beautiful. To top it off, we then went to the local McDonald's for milkshakes I wouldn't have touched at home. Delicious.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Eid el Fitr: PETRA!
Day 5
After hitting up a palace, synagogue, and church, we hired a taxi to take us back to Jordan. At the duty free shop we already knew so well, the taxi driver bought a dozen cartons of cigarettes. He then proceeded to hide the cartons in the lining of the car trunk, the removable ceiling, and under the seats. He then asked if we'd carry additional cartons in our bags. (Each person is allowed one carton of cigarettes). At first we said "Hell, no!" But after discussing it, we agreed to each take the legal limit of one carton. At the border crossing, he was jumpy to get across without being searched, so he shouted to the soldiers, saying, "Look at these girls! They speak Arabic!" It apparently worked, because they smiled and waved us through. When we arrived in Amman, and began negotiating the price of the trip, we used the smuggling as ammo, at which he agreed to a third of his original price. We then hired another taxi to take us to Petra.
Day 6
Petra: in a word, incredible. While it's unclear how old Petra really is, there is evidence that dates it to the sixth century BC. It is thought to be a Nabataean settlement at the center of a vigorous trade route. There is frustratingly little known about this magical kingdom that is famously described in a sonnet by someone called Burgon, as "a rose-red city half as old as time." This description is surprisingly apt, given he never saw Petra.
Examples of a sophisticated society, like the tapered pipes for carrying water that engineers wouldn't solve again for hundreds of years after Petra's demise, are everywhere. If approaching the site through an eerie narrow gorge, to emerge suddenly into the glow of the treasury facade isn't enough, seeing the architectural extent of the site is humbling. Petra's decline is attributed to the period's transition to sea-trade, which effectively isolated and impoverished Petra, depriving the bustling city of revenue. Fast boats and changing trade are a sad and unsatisfying answer to the disappearance of such a brilliant city.
Afterwards we napped in a tent cafe so that we could see the sunset in the rose and orange-hued mountains. I woke up to find two Bedouins counting pills for a drug deal. I was deeply surprised and unnerved by the pills.
When we returned at night, candles in glowing paper bags lined the mile-long canyon path to the treasury. We were asked to make the hike in silence. As close to a religious experience as I expect I'll ever have.
Day 7:
In the drive back to Amman, we stopped briefly at the Dead Sea and splashed around in the warm and painfully salty water. You open your eyes and they get pickled. That's a mistake you make once. It was probably the least refreshing ocean swim ever. From Amman, we caught our plane back to Cairo.
After hitting up a palace, synagogue, and church, we hired a taxi to take us back to Jordan. At the duty free shop we already knew so well, the taxi driver bought a dozen cartons of cigarettes. He then proceeded to hide the cartons in the lining of the car trunk, the removable ceiling, and under the seats. He then asked if we'd carry additional cartons in our bags. (Each person is allowed one carton of cigarettes). At first we said "Hell, no!" But after discussing it, we agreed to each take the legal limit of one carton. At the border crossing, he was jumpy to get across without being searched, so he shouted to the soldiers, saying, "Look at these girls! They speak Arabic!" It apparently worked, because they smiled and waved us through. When we arrived in Amman, and began negotiating the price of the trip, we used the smuggling as ammo, at which he agreed to a third of his original price. We then hired another taxi to take us to Petra.
Day 6
Petra: in a word, incredible. While it's unclear how old Petra really is, there is evidence that dates it to the sixth century BC. It is thought to be a Nabataean settlement at the center of a vigorous trade route. There is frustratingly little known about this magical kingdom that is famously described in a sonnet by someone called Burgon, as "a rose-red city half as old as time." This description is surprisingly apt, given he never saw Petra.
Examples of a sophisticated society, like the tapered pipes for carrying water that engineers wouldn't solve again for hundreds of years after Petra's demise, are everywhere. If approaching the site through an eerie narrow gorge, to emerge suddenly into the glow of the treasury facade isn't enough, seeing the architectural extent of the site is humbling. Petra's decline is attributed to the period's transition to sea-trade, which effectively isolated and impoverished Petra, depriving the bustling city of revenue. Fast boats and changing trade are a sad and unsatisfying answer to the disappearance of such a brilliant city.
Afterwards we napped in a tent cafe so that we could see the sunset in the rose and orange-hued mountains. I woke up to find two Bedouins counting pills for a drug deal. I was deeply surprised and unnerved by the pills.
When we returned at night, candles in glowing paper bags lined the mile-long canyon path to the treasury. We were asked to make the hike in silence. As close to a religious experience as I expect I'll ever have.Day 7:
In the drive back to Amman, we stopped briefly at the Dead Sea and splashed around in the warm and painfully salty water. You open your eyes and they get pickled. That's a mistake you make once. It was probably the least refreshing ocean swim ever. From Amman, we caught our plane back to Cairo.
Eid el Fitr: Syria and Jordan
We flew to Amman, Jordan, with idea, but no firm plans. Five friends, each with a backpack of clothes, passport, and camera, $200, one week, and a return ticket to Cairo; it was, in two words, foolproof adventure.
Our idea was to spend our first night in Jordan, and then try to cross the border into Syria on day two. After spending a few days in Syria, we would travel down to Petra for our remaining time. Our back-up plan, if we couldn't get past the Syrian checkpoint, was to go to Israel.
Day 1: Amman--a modern, hilly city, with better food than Cairo.
Since we took different flights, out plan was to meet up at the El Basha hotel. After landing in Amman, Sarah, Alyssa, Eliza and I piled into a cab and gave the driver the name of the hotel. "El Basha? Mafish hadtha funduk fi Amman. Mumkin El Pasha au Pasha Palace?"
"Mafish!? Lakin fi kitaabi hinaak El Basha. Hina!" I said, showing our driver my Lonely Planet guide.
"La'a. Mafish." He slowly explained to me again that while said hotel didn't exist, there were two others that it could be--El Pasha and Pasha Palace.
Crappers. Our phones didn't work, and our meeting place didn't exist. We decided to go with Pasha Palace, since it was downtown, and hoped the other girls would figure it out. They did :)
Amman is a big city, and after wandering the downtown, we hired two taxis to take us on a tour of the city. We paid two and a half dinars (a dinar is like a euro) to drive all around the city. We drove past an ancient Roman amphitheater, camps of Palestinian refugees, the downtown bus station, the fancy Turkish bath (open to men only), and the posh neighborhoods people often just call "Paris."
We ended up at a rooftop cafe/bar that was part night-venue, part bookstore. Perched above the city, we drank shai to Dido and techno rock, and watched Rastafarian guys and emo intellectuals discuss seemingly life and death matters.
Jordanian society is complicated--a volatile mix of educated and illiterate, rich and poor, Palestinian immigrants and Jordanian natives. While in Damascus, I received two very different perspectives: one while sharing a sheesha with a Jordanian professor and the other while wanderign the great market with a Palestinian medical student studying in Amman. The professor said he felt that Jordan lacked a strong national identity because people's tribal identifications were stronger than their attachment to the country. He said this was problematic, because it fostered nepotism and resentment especially towards the Palestinian refugees the country harbored. After being offered social services and given full rights, he said, they, once working, would in turn only hire fellow Palestinians. He didn't say whether the reverse was true, but when I asked the Palestinian medical student, he assured me it was. The medical student seconded the resentment Jordanians feel towards successful Palestinians, and agreed that tribal affiliations did trump any sense of national identity.
Day 2: Destination Syria
Despite our wonderful evening in Amman, we were anxious to get out of this sun-baked modern city, so we got up early and hired a microbus to drive us to Damascus. We apparently, however, didn't get up early enough, because it was still Ramadan, which meant that after sunrise, we forfeited any chance at finding food. We walked up and down the streets of downtown Amman to find everything closed. We eventually found a Kanafa shop, which sells a pastry with the consistence of couscous, but is more like cornmeal soaked in honey. Kanafa? No thanks. Hungry? Why yes! So we bought two kilos.
We arrived at the Jordan/Syria border a little before noon. We hadn't gotten visas in advance, since we'd heard rumors that it was possible to buy them on the border, and the Syrian embassy in Cairo was no longer issuing them. We stood in line. The border official told us to go to the building next door to get photocopies of all our passports. We went next door and stood in another line. Got the photocopies. Went back to the original line. Stood in line. The border official then told us that our photocopies would be faxed to Damascus, where they would be checked. If we were cleared, permission to get the visa would be faxed back. We were told it would likely take four hours. The waiting began.
We started off sitting on benches in the corner. Then, to relax a little, we moved to the floor. When we got tired, we took naps. This evolved into lying on top of our pile of backpacks. It felt a little rude to lie down in public in the dirty lobby, especially since it was filled with Saudi and Jordanian men dressed in long white galabayas, and red and white scarves. But we were so exhausted it got too difficult to sit or stand. I woke a couple times to the flashes of cameras while men posed in front of us. When we got hungry, we dug into the Kanafa. As it neared four pm, which was approaching iftar time (the sunset meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan), we began to pester the official about the status of our background checks. No news, he said. This was bad as it was the last day of Ramadan, which meant a very special feast. People would be driving hours to connect with family members for this very special meal. This meant that everyone would be leaving the office soon. So, while the lobby cleared, men prayed outside, and people hurried home, we celebrated our iftar over our kanafa. Our other meal option was in the duty-free: cheap alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate, and perfume. What's not to like?
Three more Americans had shown up by then--Roger and Luke, studying Arabic in Amman, and Michael, a PhD student studying Sufism. The $5 six-packs of Heineken in the duty-free were tempting, but I doubted a kegger in the checkpoint parking lot would help our chances of getting a visa. So we stuck to the kanafa and chocolate.
Our driver had left before iftar, joining the exodus of people returning home. Rumor had it, however, that there would be taxi drivers on the Syrian side of the border willing to take us to Damascus.
We slept more in the lobby. I made friends with the bathroom attendant. We ate more kanafa. After iftar ended, we pestered the official some more. Still no news. At 11pm, we were finally awarded our visas--twelve dollars each, except for our poor Canadian, who had to pay fifty-six. Unfortunately by 11pm, all the taxi drivers had left. We were glad we'd made friends with the three guys, because hitching was our only option. Six blonde girls hitchhiking from the Syrian border to Damascus at midnight probably wouldn't be a good idea. Six blonde girls and three American guys hitchhiking to Damascus isn't particularly recommended either. We fortunately found a Lebanese student who was willing to take us. He said he was driving from Saudi Arabic to Beirut, and had hired a driver with a second car to lead the way so he wouldn't get lost. We suggested that if we paid for his guide, their two cars could carry all of us--half of us with the guide, and the other half with him. They dropped us off in Damascus for 40 dinars.
We spent our first night sipping tea and smoking sheesha, celebrating our entry into Damascus. Damascus is everything Cairo isn't--spectacular historical architecture, clean, relatively tourist-free, with quaint, cobbled, cafe-lined streets that get tangled and then lost in the market. We heard no English, but a dialect of Arabic much closer to Modern Standard Arabic than in Cairo. A dialect I could actually understand to some extent. And people that could understand me! My Arabic would really improve if I lived there. Very tempting.
In the hostel we met up with three friends of the American guys we had met on the border--a Jordanian professor of nutrition, an English Palestinian at medical school in Jordan, and an English reporter working at a magazine in Amman. We joined parties, and were now twelve and nicely balanced by gender, a happy arrangement on both sides. (The annoying thing about the Middle East is that their company was much more critical to our freedom than vice versa.) We stayed at an old mansion that had been converted into a hostel. Four dollars a night got us mattresses and blankets on the roof, as well as a communal toilet-shower unit--very space efficient! The guys had gallantly offered us their room, but we preferred our city view.
Day 3: Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, perhaps since 10,000 BC! It is almost spooky to walk around the dusty streets knowing I am such an insignificant blink in this timeline.
Damascus has some of the world's most incredible mosques. The city's Umayyid Mosque is famous for supposedly being the resting place of John the Baptist's head. One of the largest mosques in the world, it is also considered one of the oldest continuous sites of Islamic prayer. Erin is in an Islamic Art and Architecture class, and was thrilled to recognize stuff from her classroom slides.
Nearly all the mosques in the Middle East have black linen head and body coverings that are offered to tourists, or rather women, at the door. The guys are fine as long as they're not wearing shorts or wife beaters. For us girls though, we found it rather cool to cover our t-shirts and jeans and step into the Middle Ages.
We later split up to visit a smaller mosque deep in the food market. The food market, comprised of thousands of little canvas awnings and carts of fruit, pirated DVDs, bread, meat, has narrow aisles and is packed with families buying stuff for the evening meal. It is far more claustraphobic than the great market. We posted 100 syrian pound reward ($2) for whomever in our group could finish a plate of sheep testicles. Sadly, we saw no one tempted.
After visiting the mosques, one of the guys wanted to buy a Syrian sim card for their phone. At the vodaphone store, the owner wanted a copy of someone's passport. I was the only one with a copy left, so I offered mine. For some curious reason, vodaphone would only issue the simcard if I was fingerprinted.
After the vodaphone store, we wandered around the market, looking for the rest of our group. We passed a pair of UN peacekeepers, recognizable in their blue berets. Sights like these were the few indications that not everything may be as carefree and peaceful as we might assume. While there I read about honor killings in northern Syria. The article described a teenage girl who had run away with her lover to escape an arranged marriage, and was now in hiding, for fear her family would kill her. In Damascus there was a noticeable lack of women in the streets, but it didn't strike me as that different than in Cairo. In the Cairo metro, I'll ride the empty women's car, and when I leave the train notice the remaining dozen or so cars are packed with men--an amazing number differential. This speaks to the fact that in most of the Middle East, it's hard for women to get our of the house or be independent. The world outside the home belongs to men.
After wandering the market, the twelve of us headed to a mountaintop restaurant overlooking Damascus to celebrate the last iftar of Ramadan (Syria had one more day of Ramadan than Jordan). For the scandalous price of $13 each, we feasted on salad and chicken, and soup and dates and pastry. Afterwards, content and happy, we shared sheesha and tea and exchanged hilarious "most embarrassing moment" stories above the twinkling Damascus cityscape.
Day 4: Code: cake=alcohol Disneyland=Israel
Syria and Israel are basically at war, so it's never a good idea to openly discuss Israel in Syria. A few taxi drivers asked if we were Israeli or liked Israelis. Our safe response became: We don't know any Israelis, so we don't know if we like them or not. Hence our code: cake=alcohol and Disneyland=Israel. We said good-bye to Alyssa and Sarah the next morning as they left to go eat cake in Disneyland.
Sufyian hired a fruit vendor to take us in the back of his pickup on a tour of Damascus. For $12, he drove all twelve of us around the city for hours, allowing us to take in all the sights that had been too far away for hoofing. We were too much for the truck's little engine at times, so we pushed it up the hills. At one point, Ed had the brilliantly embarrassing urge to play cultural ambassador, by making a sign that read, "We love Syria" (نحب الشام). He held it up to all passersby. We figure he had a 95% success rate. Pointing kids, laughing taxi drivers, and old women gave us the thumbs up. In a country of few tourists, a pickup full of western students seemed to catch people's attention.
During our truck tour, we visited the tomb of Zaynab bint Ali, a major destination of Shia muslims. Zaynab bint Ali translates to daughter of Ali (Prophet Muhammad's nephew). The mosque was divided in half according to gender, of course, with the tomb in the middle. On the women's side, the amount of emotion was astounding. There were women actually clinging to the edges of the tomb and sobbing. Hani informed me the the men's side was far less dramatic.
In the mosque I met an Iraqis woman and her daughter, who had recently come from Baghdad. She spoke perfect English, and had studied economics in University. Many of the Iraqis who make it out of Iraq today are the wealthier, educated class. Because of this, Iraq is suffering from a major brain drain.
One thing I really loved about being in Syria was that I could comfortably talk to people in the street. I used my Arabic in a way I've never been able to in Cairo. In Cairo, it's frowned upon for young women like me, even tourists, to talk to strange men. For more than a few seconds, and people act as if you're flirting so aggressively you're interested in marriage. In Syria, there was none of this. The butt-pinching, however, was out of control--which was interesting since I've never been touched in Cairo. So the jury's still out. As Eliza put it, walking through the grand market in Damascus was like walking through a butt-pinching machine. The main perps were adolescent boys, though we did get the occasional creepy old man. On my path through the market, I had to use my elbows and upper arms on these kids and yell "haram!"
At night, we went to a tiny bar in the Christian quarter of Damascus. The twelve of us filled half the room. We sipped our first beers in months and listened to a local band play wonderfully eclectic music. Made me nostalgic for home. We sang along to a few, including, No Woman No Cry, Hotel California, and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. They then played some local music and the bar owner pretended to belly dance for us.
Our idea was to spend our first night in Jordan, and then try to cross the border into Syria on day two. After spending a few days in Syria, we would travel down to Petra for our remaining time. Our back-up plan, if we couldn't get past the Syrian checkpoint, was to go to Israel.
Day 1: Amman--a modern, hilly city, with better food than Cairo.
Since we took different flights, out plan was to meet up at the El Basha hotel. After landing in Amman, Sarah, Alyssa, Eliza and I piled into a cab and gave the driver the name of the hotel. "El Basha? Mafish hadtha funduk fi Amman. Mumkin El Pasha au Pasha Palace?"
"Mafish!? Lakin fi kitaabi hinaak El Basha. Hina!" I said, showing our driver my Lonely Planet guide.
"La'a. Mafish." He slowly explained to me again that while said hotel didn't exist, there were two others that it could be--El Pasha and Pasha Palace.
Crappers. Our phones didn't work, and our meeting place didn't exist. We decided to go with Pasha Palace, since it was downtown, and hoped the other girls would figure it out. They did :)
Amman is a big city, and after wandering the downtown, we hired two taxis to take us on a tour of the city. We paid two and a half dinars (a dinar is like a euro) to drive all around the city. We drove past an ancient Roman amphitheater, camps of Palestinian refugees, the downtown bus station, the fancy Turkish bath (open to men only), and the posh neighborhoods people often just call "Paris."
We ended up at a rooftop cafe/bar that was part night-venue, part bookstore. Perched above the city, we drank shai to Dido and techno rock, and watched Rastafarian guys and emo intellectuals discuss seemingly life and death matters.
Jordanian society is complicated--a volatile mix of educated and illiterate, rich and poor, Palestinian immigrants and Jordanian natives. While in Damascus, I received two very different perspectives: one while sharing a sheesha with a Jordanian professor and the other while wanderign the great market with a Palestinian medical student studying in Amman. The professor said he felt that Jordan lacked a strong national identity because people's tribal identifications were stronger than their attachment to the country. He said this was problematic, because it fostered nepotism and resentment especially towards the Palestinian refugees the country harbored. After being offered social services and given full rights, he said, they, once working, would in turn only hire fellow Palestinians. He didn't say whether the reverse was true, but when I asked the Palestinian medical student, he assured me it was. The medical student seconded the resentment Jordanians feel towards successful Palestinians, and agreed that tribal affiliations did trump any sense of national identity.
Day 2: Destination Syria
Despite our wonderful evening in Amman, we were anxious to get out of this sun-baked modern city, so we got up early and hired a microbus to drive us to Damascus. We apparently, however, didn't get up early enough, because it was still Ramadan, which meant that after sunrise, we forfeited any chance at finding food. We walked up and down the streets of downtown Amman to find everything closed. We eventually found a Kanafa shop, which sells a pastry with the consistence of couscous, but is more like cornmeal soaked in honey. Kanafa? No thanks. Hungry? Why yes! So we bought two kilos.
We arrived at the Jordan/Syria border a little before noon. We hadn't gotten visas in advance, since we'd heard rumors that it was possible to buy them on the border, and the Syrian embassy in Cairo was no longer issuing them. We stood in line. The border official told us to go to the building next door to get photocopies of all our passports. We went next door and stood in another line. Got the photocopies. Went back to the original line. Stood in line. The border official then told us that our photocopies would be faxed to Damascus, where they would be checked. If we were cleared, permission to get the visa would be faxed back. We were told it would likely take four hours. The waiting began.
We started off sitting on benches in the corner. Then, to relax a little, we moved to the floor. When we got tired, we took naps. This evolved into lying on top of our pile of backpacks. It felt a little rude to lie down in public in the dirty lobby, especially since it was filled with Saudi and Jordanian men dressed in long white galabayas, and red and white scarves. But we were so exhausted it got too difficult to sit or stand. I woke a couple times to the flashes of cameras while men posed in front of us. When we got hungry, we dug into the Kanafa. As it neared four pm, which was approaching iftar time (the sunset meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan), we began to pester the official about the status of our background checks. No news, he said. This was bad as it was the last day of Ramadan, which meant a very special feast. People would be driving hours to connect with family members for this very special meal. This meant that everyone would be leaving the office soon. So, while the lobby cleared, men prayed outside, and people hurried home, we celebrated our iftar over our kanafa. Our other meal option was in the duty-free: cheap alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate, and perfume. What's not to like?
Three more Americans had shown up by then--Roger and Luke, studying Arabic in Amman, and Michael, a PhD student studying Sufism. The $5 six-packs of Heineken in the duty-free were tempting, but I doubted a kegger in the checkpoint parking lot would help our chances of getting a visa. So we stuck to the kanafa and chocolate.
Our driver had left before iftar, joining the exodus of people returning home. Rumor had it, however, that there would be taxi drivers on the Syrian side of the border willing to take us to Damascus.
We slept more in the lobby. I made friends with the bathroom attendant. We ate more kanafa. After iftar ended, we pestered the official some more. Still no news. At 11pm, we were finally awarded our visas--twelve dollars each, except for our poor Canadian, who had to pay fifty-six. Unfortunately by 11pm, all the taxi drivers had left. We were glad we'd made friends with the three guys, because hitching was our only option. Six blonde girls hitchhiking from the Syrian border to Damascus at midnight probably wouldn't be a good idea. Six blonde girls and three American guys hitchhiking to Damascus isn't particularly recommended either. We fortunately found a Lebanese student who was willing to take us. He said he was driving from Saudi Arabic to Beirut, and had hired a driver with a second car to lead the way so he wouldn't get lost. We suggested that if we paid for his guide, their two cars could carry all of us--half of us with the guide, and the other half with him. They dropped us off in Damascus for 40 dinars.
We spent our first night sipping tea and smoking sheesha, celebrating our entry into Damascus. Damascus is everything Cairo isn't--spectacular historical architecture, clean, relatively tourist-free, with quaint, cobbled, cafe-lined streets that get tangled and then lost in the market. We heard no English, but a dialect of Arabic much closer to Modern Standard Arabic than in Cairo. A dialect I could actually understand to some extent. And people that could understand me! My Arabic would really improve if I lived there. Very tempting.
In the hostel we met up with three friends of the American guys we had met on the border--a Jordanian professor of nutrition, an English Palestinian at medical school in Jordan, and an English reporter working at a magazine in Amman. We joined parties, and were now twelve and nicely balanced by gender, a happy arrangement on both sides. (The annoying thing about the Middle East is that their company was much more critical to our freedom than vice versa.) We stayed at an old mansion that had been converted into a hostel. Four dollars a night got us mattresses and blankets on the roof, as well as a communal toilet-shower unit--very space efficient! The guys had gallantly offered us their room, but we preferred our city view.
Day 3: Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, perhaps since 10,000 BC! It is almost spooky to walk around the dusty streets knowing I am such an insignificant blink in this timeline. Damascus has some of the world's most incredible mosques. The city's Umayyid Mosque is famous for supposedly being the resting place of John the Baptist's head. One of the largest mosques in the world, it is also considered one of the oldest continuous sites of Islamic prayer. Erin is in an Islamic Art and Architecture class, and was thrilled to recognize stuff from her classroom slides.
Nearly all the mosques in the Middle East have black linen head and body coverings that are offered to tourists, or rather women, at the door. The guys are fine as long as they're not wearing shorts or wife beaters. For us girls though, we found it rather cool to cover our t-shirts and jeans and step into the Middle Ages.
We later split up to visit a smaller mosque deep in the food market. The food market, comprised of thousands of little canvas awnings and carts of fruit, pirated DVDs, bread, meat, has narrow aisles and is packed with families buying stuff for the evening meal. It is far more claustraphobic than the great market. We posted 100 syrian pound reward ($2) for whomever in our group could finish a plate of sheep testicles. Sadly, we saw no one tempted.
After visiting the mosques, one of the guys wanted to buy a Syrian sim card for their phone. At the vodaphone store, the owner wanted a copy of someone's passport. I was the only one with a copy left, so I offered mine. For some curious reason, vodaphone would only issue the simcard if I was fingerprinted.
After the vodaphone store, we wandered around the market, looking for the rest of our group. We passed a pair of UN peacekeepers, recognizable in their blue berets. Sights like these were the few indications that not everything may be as carefree and peaceful as we might assume. While there I read about honor killings in northern Syria. The article described a teenage girl who had run away with her lover to escape an arranged marriage, and was now in hiding, for fear her family would kill her. In Damascus there was a noticeable lack of women in the streets, but it didn't strike me as that different than in Cairo. In the Cairo metro, I'll ride the empty women's car, and when I leave the train notice the remaining dozen or so cars are packed with men--an amazing number differential. This speaks to the fact that in most of the Middle East, it's hard for women to get our of the house or be independent. The world outside the home belongs to men.
After wandering the market, the twelve of us headed to a mountaintop restaurant overlooking Damascus to celebrate the last iftar of Ramadan (Syria had one more day of Ramadan than Jordan). For the scandalous price of $13 each, we feasted on salad and chicken, and soup and dates and pastry. Afterwards, content and happy, we shared sheesha and tea and exchanged hilarious "most embarrassing moment" stories above the twinkling Damascus cityscape.
Day 4: Code: cake=alcohol Disneyland=Israel
Syria and Israel are basically at war, so it's never a good idea to openly discuss Israel in Syria. A few taxi drivers asked if we were Israeli or liked Israelis. Our safe response became: We don't know any Israelis, so we don't know if we like them or not. Hence our code: cake=alcohol and Disneyland=Israel. We said good-bye to Alyssa and Sarah the next morning as they left to go eat cake in Disneyland.
Sufyian hired a fruit vendor to take us in the back of his pickup on a tour of Damascus. For $12, he drove all twelve of us around the city for hours, allowing us to take in all the sights that had been too far away for hoofing. We were too much for the truck's little engine at times, so we pushed it up the hills. At one point, Ed had the brilliantly embarrassing urge to play cultural ambassador, by making a sign that read, "We love Syria" (نحب الشام). He held it up to all passersby. We figure he had a 95% success rate. Pointing kids, laughing taxi drivers, and old women gave us the thumbs up. In a country of few tourists, a pickup full of western students seemed to catch people's attention.
During our truck tour, we visited the tomb of Zaynab bint Ali, a major destination of Shia muslims. Zaynab bint Ali translates to daughter of Ali (Prophet Muhammad's nephew). The mosque was divided in half according to gender, of course, with the tomb in the middle. On the women's side, the amount of emotion was astounding. There were women actually clinging to the edges of the tomb and sobbing. Hani informed me the the men's side was far less dramatic.In the mosque I met an Iraqis woman and her daughter, who had recently come from Baghdad. She spoke perfect English, and had studied economics in University. Many of the Iraqis who make it out of Iraq today are the wealthier, educated class. Because of this, Iraq is suffering from a major brain drain.
One thing I really loved about being in Syria was that I could comfortably talk to people in the street. I used my Arabic in a way I've never been able to in Cairo. In Cairo, it's frowned upon for young women like me, even tourists, to talk to strange men. For more than a few seconds, and people act as if you're flirting so aggressively you're interested in marriage. In Syria, there was none of this. The butt-pinching, however, was out of control--which was interesting since I've never been touched in Cairo. So the jury's still out. As Eliza put it, walking through the grand market in Damascus was like walking through a butt-pinching machine. The main perps were adolescent boys, though we did get the occasional creepy old man. On my path through the market, I had to use my elbows and upper arms on these kids and yell "haram!"At night, we went to a tiny bar in the Christian quarter of Damascus. The twelve of us filled half the room. We sipped our first beers in months and listened to a local band play wonderfully eclectic music. Made me nostalgic for home. We sang along to a few, including, No Woman No Cry, Hotel California, and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. They then played some local music and the bar owner pretended to belly dance for us.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
falling elevator...
This afternoon, Eliza was heading up to the apartment. She got in the elevator on the lobby level, and it went up about a floor, and then fell to the basement. She was fine, though shaken up, and her back was sore. I've vowed to take no more elevators in Egypt, and our bawwab is offended. He can't understand why I won't trust him that his elevator is safe. I give him the "uhhhh huuuuuh." look, and he puts his hand to his heart, showing how much it pains him that we use the stairs now.
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