Syrian Dialect Classes at the Italian Institute NOT in Italian
I just started Syrian dialect classes at the Italian Cultural Center here. Knowing that the classes are at the Italian Cultural Center, one might assume that the classes are in Italian, but that's where you'd be wrong. They're in English. Unfortunately, an older Italian woman who showed up for class Sunday evening made this assumption. She spoke no English, which made class rather difficult for her. A nice Italian woman I've met before, Melena, tried to help her out by doing some translation for her, but this obviously wasn't the solution.
After learning some question words, like who, what, when, where, and why, our teacher walked around the room and asked us to read them off the board. She asked the Italian woman to repeat after her and the woman translated the words into Italian. We couldn't help but laugh, although we truly felt sorry for her; it was cute. After the teacher moved on to work with another student, she noisily rattled on in Italian, presumably talking about how she thought the class would be in Italian, not English. She left during the break and didn't come back.
This class is great. The teacher is really good, she allows you time to form your answers and to sound out words, she calls on people individually and works with them, and she explains things very well. In contrast to my Arabic class at the language center at the University, which this month has often made me unhappy and upset because my teacher stinks, I feel positively buoyant after my dialect class. The contrast between the two classes has made me realize just how important having a good teacher is.
Feeling Cranky
I get all types of cranky: cranky when I get hungry, cranky when I'm sad, and cranky when I lonely; I'm sure there are other instances. Today I was a rare kind of cranky: hungry, sad, and lonely.
I've lived abroad a few times now and I know this feeling will pass, but it's always a struggle when I get cranky because I'm sad and lonely. I have enough experience now to know that the feeling will pass and that next week I'll be back to feeling good about living here, but today was just hard. I realized that, even though I have some pretty good friends here, I don't have a friend to talk to about girl stuff like boy problems or worries about the future, many of which revolve around relationships. And I needed that today.
In 'The Nanny Diaries' Kraus and McLaughlin, Nanny, frustrated with her job, wishes that there were a dial a friend service and you could ring it up and a ready-made girl friend would show up with margaritas. That's what Damascus needs; that's what I need right now.
You might wonder what I'm cranky about. The hungry part is obvious. Well, my friend and I were on our way to eat and a guy he knew stopped us and asked us 1) to translate an e-mail for him 2) what level of German I'd be in at the Goethe Institute here and 3) to stop by his shop so he can teach me Aramaic. In typically Syrian fashion, this was all rather quirky and pleasant but took up a good 45 minutes, by the end of which I was cranky hungry.
I was sad cranky because I had a pretty fabulous time with a really nice guy on Thursday and towards the end of the evening he told me that I'm a lot of fun. I will pre-emptively note, for all the people out there who would say that this is a positive thing, that for me this is not. I've been 'fun' for ages; coupled with being 'nice', this means that I'm a nice friend. Meh. So I'm just sad cranky to hear that yet again. And then I wanted to talk about this with a girl friend, but I realized I don't have one to talk about that sort of stuff with here. That made me lonely cranky.
I think the whole situation is just exacerbated because I'm feeling a little down about learning Arabic. I feel like I'm not learning very much, and though I've been studying for almost two months now I can't really speak, and I feel slightly embarassed about it. To make things slightly worse, my teacher this session is pretty bad, which is tough on my motivation. Even though I do my homework, she doesn't often correct it, even when I ask her repeatedly.
So here I am, feeling cranky, which I'm sure will pass.
Mike the Fantastic
I've been fortunate to meet a lot of really nice people in the past few months but one of the nicest people I've met was also the first person I met, Mike. He came with my friend Stephanie to pick me up at the airport, even though he had never met me, paid for our cab back to Damascus from the airport, and carried my two large suitcases up four flights of stairs at 5 in the morning. That alone makes him a great guy, but he's not afraid to stop there.
Mike's from a suburb of Atlanta; he's half-Syrian, half-American and lived in Switzerland for several years when he was growing up. He studied biology and he loves talking about evolution; it's one of my favorite things about him because he ties it into everything rather fluidly and convincingly.
The way Mike acted when I met him was actually indiciative of the sort of person he is. He's quite caring. I just spent a long weekend with him and our friends Hilary and Rami in Tartous, a city on the Mediterranean coast. His father's family is from there and Mike seems to know half the people in the city, and if he doesn't know them, he's friendly enough that he'll know them eventually. Walking around with him is a little like what I'd imagine walking around with a celebrity is like. I felt a little like a princess, being in Tartous with him. He made sure that we had a place to stay and were well fed, comfortable, and happy.
He's not just like that in Tartous, though. From the moment I got to Damascus he's made me feel at home here, which is one of the reasons why I do feel so comfortable here. He introduces me to people, he shows me nice places, we make silly bets (which I always win), he helps me out with Arabic, we go play backgammon, and we make each other laugh a lot. I know my life in Damascus would be much less fun without him.
When you have such fantastic friends, I think you have to let them know how fantastic they are. My friend Jessica from college likes to make toasts when she goes out to dinner with friends, and I really like her method: she toasts each person individually. When Rami, Mike, Hilary, and I went out to dinner in Tartous one night I suggested we do that, and Mike said one of the sweetest things I've heard someone say about me. He said I have one of the most beautiful personalities of anyone he's ever met, which is just wonderfully nice. I get tremendously bashful when people say things like that about me.
I did toast Mike but feel that my toast perhaps didn't match his. So I'll say that Mike's one of the most caring, fun, exuberant, and wonderful people I've met And I'll tell him that when he finally gets back from Tartous, which I hope is soon.
Back to Damascus for Christmas
Nic came back to Damascus with me, and though we were both sick (he more so than I), we managed a few really great days. We didn’t manage to wake up in time to go to any Christmas services, but we walked around the Christian part of the Old City, Bab Touma, in the afternoon.
I had told Nic that Damascene women generally dress rather conservatively but Christmas seems to be the exception to that observation. Women were decked out in short skirts, stilettos, and everything tight and glittery. I was rather surprised, and Nic momentarily believed that women in Damascus don’t dress much differently than women in Beirut.
We walked into a church, I believe it was Jesuit, and saw a really enthusiastic marching band, which was rather charming. After that we walked around, then realized we should eat some dinner. Unfortunately it was too late to go to the place I wanted to and make it to our traditional Christmas movie, so we ducked into a restaurant in Bab Touma and had a rather horrible dinner. It was probably the worst dinner I’ve had in Damascus; we did make it to see Ocean’s Twelve, though. I was quite happy to see a movie on Christmas, which is my personal Christmas tradition, and we did get some popcorn, so being able to carry out one of my Christmas traditions somewhat made up for the dinner.
Two days later Nic and I went to Maaloula; I’m glad that we visited it. It’s a small town outside of Damascus and I think the major attraction there is the opening in the cliff that was the miracle of St Thekla; it’s also one of three towns where a form of Aramaic is still spoken. After walking through the opening and climbing up the mountain a bit we met a family from Baghdad (the town is full of Middle Eastern tourists, which is a nice change). Afterwards we walked back into town and, in our pursuit of a bathroom, ended up asking a guy walking down the street where a bathroom was. He invited us back to his house and we sat around with his wife and their two little boys for a while. Nic had been hoping a family would invite us in for tea (he had even bought some biscuits in anticipation of this, so this really made him happy. It was completely delightful. The man played us his traditional flute and we talked about Aramaic. He, his wife, and his two sons all speak it.
After leaving their house, Nic and I wandered off into some back alleys and came across four of the most adorable kids, two boys and two girls, probably all around 6 to 8 years old, who were delighted to see us and happily took some pictures with us and laughed when we showed them the photos on my camera. They kept excitedly asking me and Nic questions, only some of which we understood (I think they were speaking in dialect), and ran after us once we started walking off. A man in one of the houses above where the kids were running around us opened his window, baby in hand, and motioned to us to come up, so we walked up some stairs and across a balcony to his apartment. He and his wife welcomed us in and introduced us to their two little girls and two of their friends who were visiting. We sat around chatting with them and had some wine and coffee, which just proved to me that Syrians are undoubtedly the friendliest people I've met. It's quite something to be so hospitable to strangers. While we were talking the man’s sister and her husband stopped by; the sister, Lena, studies English at the University of Damascus, so I told her we must get together. She gave me her number and we’re going to meet to practice our Arabic and English!
That day was so fantastic. Just about perfect.
Nic rocks
Before I went to Beirut, I didn't know Nic very well. I had met him at my going away party in London at the end of October and we hit it off. He told me he was planning to do an internship in Beirut over his winter break and wanted to come to Damascus, so we exchanged e-mail addresses and kept in touch.
I wasn't nervous about going to visit him in Beirut, but I definitely hoped that the same dynamic we had at my going away party would still be there, and luckily it was. We traveled together well and made each other laugh a lot, even though we both got sick. Sometimes people get really cranky when they're sick, or when they're around sick people, but we managed to not let that affect us that much. He made sure I was warm and made me oatmeal one morning when I wasn't feeling well. I think that's pretty fabulous.
Nic's a really friendly, enthusiastic, open person, which really makes for not only being a good friend but also for being a good traveling companion. I think a lot of people wanted to talk to us simply because we made a rather odd couple - a tall, blond guy and a short, South Asian woman - and they wanted to know what brought us together. Nic used that as a vehicle to get into conversations with people, which made our trip a lot more interesting than it would have been otherwise.
I think it's pretty rare that you meet someone and you hit it off immediately. I felt like that happened with Nic and I'm glad that it did.
Beirut!
Two days after my classes ended and a few days before Christmas, I went to Beirut to visit my friend Nic, whom I met at my going away party in London. He was in Beirut for a month, doing an internship with a human rights lawyer. He's American-British and he's doing his Masters in International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS, just like I did last year.
Beirut is a pretty amazing city. It’s amazing because most people there speak at least two languages, Arabic and French, and many speak Arabic, French, and English, and they combine all of them in conversations and with equal fluency. It’s a beautiful city, right along the coast; even though a lot of it is rocky, it’s still stunning. There’s a long pathway that winds along the waterfront and in the evening fishermen stand out on the rocks, people are jogging, tea and coffee vendors meander along the path clanging cups, and people bring their shisas and sit on benches and smoke. Nic and I walked along the coast the first night I was there and shimmied over some rocks so we could stand near the water and watch it crash just below our feet as waves came in.
The city itself is pretty interesting because it’s so different from Damascus, which is just one country over. It’s cosmopolitan and clean, and the city seems to be rebuilding and renovating pretty quickly from the civil war. You still see a lot of buildings with bullet holes and other war wounds and often they’re right next to buildings that have been beautifully restored, but there are just so many gorgeous areas in Beirut. The city was particularly festive, since I was there just before Christmas. I think I really liked that the city is pretty and, although chaotic, significantly less chaotic than Damascus. Damascus definitely has its charms (although I struggled to explain them to Nic), but Beirut is pretty wonderful, too. I think I’ve added Beirut to my list of cities I’d like to live in.
I spent a lot of my time in Beirut walking around and enjoying being able to do that. You can walk around in Damascus, but Beirut is a bit different because you can walk along the ocean or just walk around neighborhoods and the air isn't quite as polluted or hazy as it is in Damascus. I did some really American things, like go shopping (I needed new sneakers, and you can only get Adidas in Damascus) and go to Starbucks for a nice, strong cup of American coffee. I was also craving some non-Middle Eastern food, so Nic and I went out for sushi one evening; he also took me to a blues/tapas place which was quite nice. It was nice to once again have chorizo after eating chorizo quite often last year because of the steady supply of it from my Spanish landlady. Nic had planned to visit me in Damascus while he was interning in Beirut, so in anticipation of that, I showed him how to play backgammon one night while we were at a traditional Middle Eastern coffee shop.
