In planning how to entertain me during my visit, Hannah had decided that I should have a real "Arab experience," as she told me, and so we were to visit Damascus, Syria for a few days. This is a city I'd heard about in my classes, but never particularly imaged visiting any time soon. I had an image in my head, but no realistic expectations. To make matters even more uncertain, we would be going on our own. Hannah had enlisted the company of two guy friends as added security, but they both backed out. A little nervous but confident in ourselves as strong, independent women, we did not let this stop us.
So we headed off, ready to take a peek at a new world and, while we were at it, get our passports stamped. We arrived at the border crossing, with our American passports in hand, prepared to wait anywhere between twenty minutes and twelve hours. I'd been told plenty of stories before we left, none of them consistent with each other, but none of them particularly encouraging. While travelers of other nationalities have little trouble getting through (we saw some Canadian backpackers pass by while we sat reading) Americans are made to wait while they send our passports to the city to be checked for something. Who knows what? In fact, we were only there for about two hours before our passports were handed back to us.
We were walking across the border, content with our fortuitous start, when a pleasant-looking gentleman pulled up beside us in his car and offered us a free ride to the city. Hannah turned to me and we thought about it for a moment before deciding that this was just a little too suspicious for our liking. We told him no thank you and he drove away, leaving us thinking that he was probably just a kind man but that it was better to be safe than sorry.
Thus I found myself, a few minutes later, questioning my judgment as we then climbed into the car of two Syrian soldiers who also offered us a free ride after we had taken only a few more steps. They arranged themselves so that each one was sitting next to us, Hannah in the front and me in the back. Of course they didn't speak any English so Hannah gallantly spoke to them, telling them about our big, strong boyfriends in Lebanon. All the while, the one sitting next to me only watched me, smiling and occasionally saying a few words in Arabic to which I could only shrug and smile. It was a very long car ride and not just because they were driving far below the speed limit. We were relieved to see finally see the city in the distance.
They dropped us off on the side of the road, paid a taxi to take us where we wanted and bade us farewell. Laughing and relieved, we got into the taxi and told ourselves that, as bizarre and unwise as they may have been, we would never have gotten a free ride had the boys been with us. It was the first of many perks that would come our way as two girls alone in Syria.
We had the taxi take us to the souk, where people were as plentiful as the goods of varying quality being thrust at us and where light spilled in from bullet holes in the ceiling, making it look like a star-filled sky. It was here that I began to understand what it was that Hannah had wanted to show me.
We strolled around the market, which escaped the starry metal sky and wound itself around the mosque. The noises of deals being made mingled with laughter and drifted over the roofs of the many shops containing an innumerable amount of merchandise. I felt like Harry Potter the first time he visited Diagon Alley, dazed and wishing I had more eyes look at each colorful scarf and silver bracelet and at once admire the mosque I had read about in books.
Hannah was on a mission to find perfume so we found our way around some side streets until we came to a shop whose walls were lined with glass bottles of richly colored liquid. Upon finding no one behind the counter, Hannah called out and we found, to our embarrassment, that we were interrupting his prayers, but he was very gracious and tended to our odor-related needs. He mixed our preferred scents through a complicated system of syringes and bottles, spraying us occasionally to assure our satisfaction. We came away, still un-showered but smelling like a garden’s worth of flowers.
I suggested that we visit the mosque, as I had studied it in an Islamic art history class and had never entered a mosque before. We donned the required tourist robes, removed our shoes and stepped into the scared space.
Though it’s as ancient as any cathedral, there was so much more life in the mosque than in any religious space I’d seen before. Children played in the courtyard and groups of family and friends sat in the shade and socialized. It was so unlike most historical sites in that it wasn’t filled with tourists (though we were there, evidently) but with people living their lives. Of course, the mosque is beautiful in itself, especially the intricate mosaics that cover the walls of the courtyard.
Finally, the real adventure of the trip began as we entered a quiet corner shop near the mosque. The owners were two mustachioed gentlemen who offered us tea and showed us their impressive collection of jewelry and coins. The more interest we showed the more they trusted us, showing us items that, well, weren’t for sale exactly. After we had been in there for quite some time (and after Hannah had purchased something), one of them told us he was going to show us his private collection. He took us to a gated passageway across from the mosque and up several flights of stairs. At the top was a rooftop apartment of sorts, the likes of which I had only seen in Aladdin. After this point, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures as he led us into the room where they keep their very impressive collection of items-that-are-not-for-sale-exactly. Trust me when I say that this was one of the most surreal situations I have ever been in.
When we returned they declared that they were going to take us out to dinner. We ate that night with two Syrian men in a smoke filled restaurant lit by multi-colored Christmas lights and crowded with large Syrian families. The table was constantly filled with more food than the four of us could possibly ever have consumed.
As the men smoked their cigarettes and ordered us shisha (hookah), Hannah and I looked at each other and we knew that this too would never have happened had her friends been here to protect us from such encounters. It was a brilliant night. Our entertainment was a modern twist on a whirling dervish, as well as several Syrian musicians, of course, the people around us who were loud and celebratory and made funny faces when they smoked their shisha.
After dinner we walked with them around the streets of Damascus as they told us of their exciting lives and less than legal business ventures. We found ourselves entering a nice-looking hotel, under which there turned out to be a night club they frequented. There we met and danced with American ex-pats closer to our age until late into the night.
Our night did not end there, however. When we returned to our hostel, we found the three guys who worked there awake and talking at the reception. They sat us down and we joined their conversation. Well, Hannah did, but I was incredibly tired and mostly observed the conversation that wound around various topics of love and politics. The one guy who was about our age began to regale us with his romantic woes – the American girl who had returned home and left him broken hearted, with nothing but his sad poetry. He and Hannah got along well. As we were going to bed in the early hours of the morning we said farewell and the poet told us he would meet us the next day.
He did not disappoint. As we were leaving the hostel he ran up to us and informed us that he would be spending the afternoon with us. We walked around the old town and through the souk. (We even initiated a tense introduction with a mustachioed man.) We had lunch in a quite park populated by old men where he and Hannah read each other their sad poetry.
As we meandered through the crooked alleys throughout the afternoon, he went back and forth from lamenting his lost love and expressing his affection for Hannah. This being not the first time I’d been Hannah’s third wheel, I could only be amused and entertain myself with my camera. However, apparently keen to show off his artistic abilities in as many areas as possible, the poet asked to borrow my camera. I reluctantly obliged. With him clicking away and me nervously watching him, we continued to wander through the streets, now much more quiet as it was a Friday.
picture taken by a Syrian poet
By the time we reached the Christian quarter it was nearing time to leave. (The love declarations were beginning to try me.) He very kindly helped us find our bus back to the border, said his soulful goodbuys, told Hannah that he loved her and walked away.
We crossed the border on foot as a thunderstorm raged in the nearby hills. It was a rather perfect background to the reflective thoughts I’m sure we were both thinking. The twenty four hours we had just lived through were like something from a dream, or rather, like a story – some parent’s story from their youth.
This is my impossible story of adventure in Syria. And none of it would have been possible if the boys had been there.
Next: What exactly is that volcano doing over there? UH OH.
(read Hannah’s more succinct and slightly feminist account of this story)
