A time for resolution

Around a dinner table on the 30th of December, some French friends and I were trying (with little success) to decide what to do for the New Year. They left at 1am, and ten minutes later I received a call saying “shall we go to Maalula?” - I immediately replied in the affirmative. Rendez-vous at 9:30am.

Having rented an apartment from a friend of David’s, a party was had to see in the New Year. Some Syrian friends came up from Damascus for the night, bringing arak, a narghile and with fireworks being produced at midnight. Childhood memories of televised Bonfire Night safety campaigns came to mind as rockets were fired from hands and we threw small petards at each other on the balcony.

New Year’s Day was spent hiking in the wonderful hills surrounding Maalula towards the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Our walk saw us scrambling up little cliff-faces, crossing arid plains, and descending into lush, valleyed oases. It took the moonlight to see us back into Maalula, having underestimated the 30km (or so) loop we ended up taking, the illuminated crosses on the cliff-face guiding us home. What was initially to be New Year’s Eve in Maalula turned into a three day break, hiking and climbing with some great people.

Getting out of the city was refreshing, and during the time in the hills I spent a lot of time mulling things over. The trip really gave me back the taste of traveling, and put in question my Damascene intermission. We’ll see what these next few weeks bring as 2010 begins in the heart of the Middle East.

Sayyida Zeinab [ii] (سيدة زينب ٢)

As well as welcoming many Iranian tourists, Sayyida Zeinab is also where the majority of Iraqi refugees live. I have talked about the massive influx of Iraqis into Jaramana, but the people living there live in rather more affluent situations then their compatriots in Sayyida Zeinab.

Whilst walking around, I met an Iraqi woman and her nineteen year-old son who had fled here because of the sectarian violence in Iraq. Her family had all been killed, the only thing she had left was her son. He had been kidnapped and a ransom demanded for his return. Whilst he was held captive he was beaten, the scars he bore will remain engrained on his cheeks for the rest of his life.

They had somewhere to live here, but no means to support themselves, she said there were no jobs for people like them. Upon learning that I was English, she expressed her hope to go to the UK, although she held little hope of arriving. I felt incredibly guilty of the actions of our government, and the lack of support that these people now had from the mess that we had created. I didn’t know what I could say, or do. She asked if I knew how she could go, but my experience of these matters is virtually non-existent. I suggested the UNHCR, having recently read that they plan to support 167,840 people here in 2010, although she said she had tried to little avail.

The Iraqi government is trying to entice people back to the country, advertising cash incentives to help people rebuild their lives. The Syrians, who have been incredibly welcoming to the large numbers of people crossing their border, are starting to close-up. People I have spoken to have said that they would prefer to stay in a tent at the border than return to the situation that currently exists in the country.

The photo above is from a little, one-room “youth-centre” in the back-streets of Sayyida Zeinab as dusk was turning to night. In this room, children played Sonic the Hedgehog on old computer console, and the portrait of Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, watches over the ten or so people huddled around a fußbal table.

Sayyida Zeinab [i] (سيدة زينب ١)

After having visited Iran last year, my first trip to a Muslim country, I had a rather skewed idea of what most mosques resemble. The mosques there are incredibly ornate affairs, with highly decorated interiors, and the exterior decorated with turquoise blue tiles and adorned in intricate Arabic calligraphy. This is not the norm in the majority of mosques I have seen since.

The district of Sayyida Zeinab, to the south of Damascus, attracts bus-loads of Iranian pilgrims to visit the large Shi’ite mosque there, which houses the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab — granddaughter of Mohammed — from whom the district takes its name. I was therefore interested to see what this Iranian-built mosque resembled.

The district was also the site of a recent incident here in the Syrian capital. I was at university on the morning of the 3rd December, when fellow classmates began receiving concerned text messages: “Are you ok? There has been a bomb-blast in Damascus.”

Western news reported this explosion, citing the name of the area, but to friends & family back home, the only name that registered was Damascus, where their loved ones were currently residing.

I immediately checked the news when I got out of class, where the BBC & the Guardian were reporting that there was an explosion on a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims to Sayyida Zeinab, but that reporters were not allowed near the site.

As the day progressed, the information was revised; the Syrian officials initially reporting that no-one had died, but the last I heard, it was 6 dead. The official line was that a tyre on the bus exploded whilst being inflated. Word on the street here in Damascus was that foul play was at work. The event also coincided with the visit of Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Conspiracy theories abound.

When I first considered coming to Syria, some people close to me reacted with “are you out of your mind?” and to a certain extent, I can see why. The only articles mentioning Syria in the news recently relate to things like Damascus being where senior figures met to plan recent explosions in Iraq, that the Palestinian leaders of Hamas reside here, and then this, the first explosion since September 2008. Yet being here, this sort of thing never crosses my mind. The place feels incredibly safe, and the people very warm and friendly. Frankly, I feel more threatened walking through parts of London or Paris than I ever do here.

A not so Merry Christmas

I wasn’t expecting Christmas to marked this year: being far from my friends & family, and far from religious, the date held little significance. And having initially been ignorant of the significant Christian population of Damascus, I also didn’t expect to be reminded of it much in the city. Yet in certain quarters there were oases of Christmas lights in the city, reindeers adorned the sides of buildings. The kitsch-ness of it all could compete with the suburban cull-de-sacs of England.

Christmas songs even made an appearance — Fayrouz, the celebrated Lebanese singer blared from one shop, with her Arabic version of Jingle Bells.

I had been invited to a Christmas party on the 24th (we forget in England how for many countries, it is Christmas Eve when celebrations take place) and I was looking forward to it, not least because of the promise of the Turkish kebabs that Gonay would be preparing. Far from the traditional roast turkey and roasted chestnuts, admittedly.

However, on the night of the 23rd, I eventually fell victim to the Jaramana water. Having been obstinately refusing to drink bottled water since I saw the litter it produced on the beaches of Tartous and Lattakia, I had been drinking the tap-water in Bab Touma. In Jaramana, this is a definite no-no, even for making tea.

I found myself violently shivering & hallucinating during the night of the 23rd, and spent Christmas Eve & Christmas Day horizontal, or locked in the bathroom. Christmas dinner was a banana. My family phoned, but I was unable to speak. Friends offered to come round, but this was a time to be alone. I just had to sit this one out.

As a friend pointed out in an email, at least I didn’t have to deal with the hoards of Christmas shoppers of London or Paris.

Out of the Old Town (جرمانا)

Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jaramana — a district in south of Damascus — which initially had a population of around 100,000 Christian and Druze Syrians, doubled its population to 200,000 with the influx of Iraqis, largely Iraqi Assyrians.

After a month studying in Damascus, my rent was up with the family with whom I had been living in the Old Town. I heard of an apartment that would be free in Jaramana and so jumped at the chance to take it.

The guy renting it had told me he couldn’t wait to get out; he spent most of his time commuting up to the Old Town or to University, and Jaramana lacked the luxuries he wanted in life.

I couldn’t wait to get in. For me, being in the Old Town for my first month facilitated many things, but I didn’t feel like I was getting a real experience of what life was like here. Every time I left my house, I would bump into people I knew from the University, the shop-keepers all spoke English, and the winding alleys in the Old Town were full of cafés and shops aimed at the tourist market. This was not why I was here.

The first evening I was there, I went out to pick up some food, and the first fruit & vegetable store I entered, I was greeted not with “Hello, Mister”, but “Ahlan, habibi” (roughly, “welcome, my dear”) — things were looking good.

Jaramana’s main street, where the twenty-minute ride on the servees would drop me, consists of hundreds of shops, yet they all fall into perhaps two categories: clothes & shoes, or kebabs & patisseries.

This first night there I heard pounding Arabic dance music, and set-up outside a clothes shop there was a sound-system with a DJ and a huge spot-light sending a column of light into the night sky. A few people were hanging around next to it, with some children dancing. Only a block away, the same scene existed. Tuesday night entertainment was not at the disco, but outside the local butcher.

A few more photos of Jaramana here.