Four days left. I cannot believe I’m leaving so soon. Four and a half months has flown past and I could happily stay a bit longer.
Christmas here was an experience. The Christian area around Bab Touma acknowledged the festive season. In this area some of the houses were covered in lights, there were Christmas trees twinkling through the windows, the shops sold varyingly tacky amounts of Christmas decorations, and on the last few days leading up to Christmas there were men dressed up as Santa wandering the streets carrying large bunches of balloons and handing out flashing toys to children. However, step outside of the area around Bab Touma and you’d have no idea it was Christmas at all. I know it’s completely ridiculous that in the shops in the UK the Halloween decorations have barely been swept aside and the Christmas ones are up and by the time you get to Christmas you’re sick of hearing “I wish it could be Christmas everyday day” but I did miss the Christmassy build up.
Most of the students also studying at Damascus Uni went home for Christmas but there was a small group of us who stayed. We had a few Christmassy gatherings at my house, made mulled wine, lit the open fire in our kitchen, cooked potatoes in the embers, roasted chestnuts and drank hot chocolate. Very cosy! We also had a few traditional Christmas dinners with some of our Syrian friends because there was no way I was going to survive the Christmas period without at least a couple of proper roast dinners! My brother and dad made it out here (despite all the issues with Heathrow and the snow) for a week over actual Christmas day. Mum still isn’t over her phobia of flying so opted to stay home. We did some traveling around Syria while they were here so on Boxing Day we found ourselves in the middle of the desert watching the sun setting over the expansive ruins of Palmyra. Not your average Boxing Day.
Then we visited Hama, a pleasant city whose main attraction is the huge, extremely old, wooden water wheels found at intervals along the river there. On our way back to Damascus we also stopped at the impressive crusader castle, Krak de Chevaliers, where my brother and I reverted back to being about 10 years old and went scrambling around through twisting passageways and over precarious ramparts! In this case they really have got it right in Syria – no health and safety, nothing fenced off or out of bounds, no barriers to keep you back from the edge…much more fun! National Trust take note please!
New Year was in many ways a much bigger affair than Christmas in Damascus. On New Years Eve we decided to start the evening with a party at mine. There was a mass exodus of Italians from Damascus just before Christmas, or so it seemed, because my Italian housemates and all their friends returned to Italy leaving my house unusually italianless! My Norwegian housemate Marie also went home and although my friend Ola moved in there was only the two of us in the house so it was a good opportunity for hosting parties. After fajitas and punch at mine we headed to a Palestinian friend’s house party which was packed! This was nothing compared to the streets outside however. The alleyways of the old city are crowded and narrow at the best of times but on NYE they were literally swarming with “shabaab” (young guys). Ola and I left the houseparty to go and meet a friend and were forced to beat a hasty retreat as we were surrounded and somewhat manhandled by about 50 inappropriate 15-20 year old lads. Not nice. Other than that though it was great night!
Term at Damascus Uni began again on the 3d of Jan although this appeared to be an extremely lax start date. Those students who had returned in time turned up on the first day back to be told that none of the teachers had come in because it had been decided the day before there would be an extra day of holiday. Standard Damascus Uni. Nice of them to notify the students. Then, even when the teachers decided it was time to start teaching again, most classes only consisted of about 4 or 5 students for the first week. I don’t think people were in much of a rush to return and start classes again! I had decided not to return to uni after Christmas. It wasn’t really worth it just for 3 weeks and I decided I’d learn just as much chatting to my Syrian friends every day and getting on with the assignment I needed to do for Durham. For my assignment I’d decided to review a Syrian film I saw during the Damascus Film Festival that had been quite controversial and received a fairly negative reaction. This turned out to be a good decision because although it was a nightmare getting hold of the relevant material I ended up meeting a lovely (but extremely intense and quite possibly genuinely insane) journalist woman who then introduced me to various other journalists and even the director of the film who I got to interview. All this gallivanting around and meeting various people for tea/coffee (certainly left me bouncing off the walls at the end of the day with the caffeine intake) but didn’t leave much time for me to actually write the assignment and I’m still yet to finish (ahem start) it.
I managed to squeeze in a brief visit to Lebanon before I left which was amazing! It was really great for me to be back and catch up with some of the people I worked with in 2009 and enjoy some fantastic Lebanese hospitality. I really love Lebanon. Mountains, beaches, forests, sea. The almost Parisian glamour of Beirut to the traditional conservatism of the countryside. Certainly Lebanon is a country of contrasts. True they are not always positive contrasts that ought to remain unchanged. For example, if you compare the bullet ridden streets of a Palestinian camp with the modern, elegant streets of Downtown Beirut. However, for me, despite its problems, Lebanon is a wonderful country. Much of Beirut seemed exactly the same as when I was last there and it was nice to travel to somewhere familiar where you didn’t have to spend time working out how to get around or how things work. I’d forgotten how different Beirut is to Damascus though with its much more scantily clad inhabitants and Arabic that can be incomprehensible unless you’re expecting the large volume of English and French words scattered with no logic or warning throughout the speakers’ sentences. Unfortunately since the collapse of the government there and the controversy over the Hariri report it’s uncertain how long Lebanon will remain as it is now. Chatting to people while we were there, a few days after the government’s collapse, many were of the opinion that it is now a matter of “when” something will kick off rather than “if”. We’ll see. I know many Lebanese have an extremely blazee attitude towards always being on the brink of another outbreak of violence but it just doesn’t seem fair for this country to be ripped apart by conflict yet again.
Back to Syria. So I’m actually back in the UK now. Like i said, the above was written a few days before I left but I never managed to post it. I was sad to leave Damascus. Syria can be an extremely frustrating country at times especially when it comes to bureaucracy but overall I really enjoyed my time there. This is certainly not my last visit to the Middle East and if all goes well I should be returning this summer – in sha’allah. But for now, yalla bye Dimashq!
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