I do work here, honest!

Contrary to what some people appear to believe I am actually working here in BA. Apparently because there are currently no pictures of BA on my facebook some of you have your doubts that I’m even in BA and think I’m just gallivanting about the country and making weekend trips to Uruguay (because that IS documented on facebook and facebook is of course the law – if it’s not facebook official it’s not official after all. What crap. If you ask me, we (and I do include myself in this) should all stop wasting so much of our lives on facebook and go out and experience the real world some more. But you didn’t so I’ll move on.)

Anyway at risk of falling into the narcissistic trap of using this blog to go on about myself (which is not my aim)or as a vent for nothing more than mundane ramblings I will briefly account for my actions the last few months. I arrived with nowhere to stay and no plans other than “find a job so I can afford to eat”. Actually I lie, I did have a bit more of a plan than that, it was more like “find a job that pays well enough that I can afford to eat steak…a lot.” So anyway I’ve ended up living with said Argie at-first-strangers-now-friends of the long winded connection sort.

I work for an IT company in the rather nice but far too expensive to buy my lunch there part of the city that is Puerto Madero, the harbour. The company is expanding to do more business in the US and hopefully Europe so wanted someone to translate stuff from Spanish to English, proof read existing material in English and do an English version of their website. Proofreading technical IT manuals is not exactly the highlight of my day but perks are my hours are flexible so I can pretty much turn up and leave when I want, I work from home some days, speak Spanish in the office, get paid and It’s not quite full time so I have time for other things such as…

The English classes that I teach. A couple a week to some of the guys who work for the IT company and some for another company that just wanted a native speaker to give conversation classes to its staff. The rest of my week/weekend after that is made up doing touristy stuff around the city (museums, markets, sightseeing, the odd day trip out to the provinces to escape the city, mate in a park or coffee with friends, prep for classes, intercambios (language exchanges) with a few of my Argie friends, frequenting the odd milonga or tango class, going to the theatre, a bar or boliche etc. It’s a hard life.

I looked into various volunteer work things as well but had to wait till I knew how much time my job and classes would take up then either bureaucracy stuff didn’t work out or I now can’t dedicate enough time to it as I’m leaving for Peru in a month. Bit annoyed with myself about that but there we go. (Failing to volunteer I mean not going to Peru). The deal with Peru is I’ve decided to go back to Pisco where I did some volunteer work 3 years ago after the earthquake and visit the families we lived with, see some old friends and visit the previous projects we worked on. It means this last month in BA is going to be a little crazy as I have to do extra classes and work to make up for the fact I said I’d still be here for the whole of June but it’ll be worth it! VERY excited to be going back to Peru. :D So, next blog entry could well be about Peru rather than Argentina but at least you now know that I really am here!

You fly to the other side of the world and your bedside reading is…"Frome – A Special Town".

I kid you not. So in other words, literature about a town 15 minutes down the road from where I just came from!

For those who have never heard of Frome it’s a little town in Somerset. Anyone reading this who is not from Somerset might not find it that interesting so perhaps go read someone else’s blog, muse over what to eat for dinner, trim your toenails or whatever form of procrastination/timewasting that so takes your fancy. Those who are from Somerset will know that views on this town range from it being “quaint and full of history” to “a bit inbred and chavvy”. I shall not pass judgment as I do not wish to become embroiled in a debate between “Froomies” and “Non-froomies”! (Being an Ex-froomie myself I have somewhat conflicting allegiances!)

Anyway the story behind my finding myself in Argentina with a book on my bedside table (which would actually be the floor but for the sake of this blog we’ll just say I have a bedside table) that recounts the “delights” of Frome is this:

Here in BA I live with 2 Argentine friends who I didn’t know from Adam before I came here but who my family has an extremely long winded, tenuous connection with (our neighbours’ daughters’ husbands’ parents’ friends’ daughter. Actually…I’m not kidding, that genuinely is it!) Anyway the first thing I noticed on the bookshelf in the room I’m staying in when I arrived was the afore mentioned book about Frome. The explanation for this is that the neighbours’ daughter I mention above lives in Frome. I had a quick flick through this book – some examples of a few of the chapter titles are:

“What’s so special about living in Frome?”

“An outstanding Education”

“Commerce transformed”

“Employment prospects”

“Frome at play”

“The media are alert and alive”

And other such intriguing titles. Interested? Want to affirm, contest or reminisce over some of what is implied here? Well you can pop over to Argentina then and ask my friends if you can borrow it! Perhaps the world is a lot smaller than we think after all!

Better late than never... i'm working on Argentine time now!

Yes i know i’ve been here 3 months and have only just got round to posting a blog entry. I could bore you with excuses (I’ve been too busy, had limited internet access, the dog ate my first attempt) but quite frankly I don’t have one.

So Buenos Aires... where on earth do you start? There are already like a million blogs, articles, travel pieces etc on the internet about BA. Some rave about how it’s a party city that never sleeps where you don’t think about stumbling out of your 24/7 party hostel and going to a bar until about 11pm and then God forbid that you should get to a boliche (club) before 3am! That would mean shaking your hips to all that Reggaeton for a fair few hours (you’re unlikely to get home before 6 or 7am).

Some focus on the rich abundance of art, culture, theatre, dance and music - whether it’s an account of the numerous museums, art exhibitions and libraries or a critique of a show at one of the multitude of theatres that line Avenida Corrientes. Perhaps they mention La Bomba del Tiempo, a drum show that takes place every Monday night without fail in Abasto with a different guest each week. (I have to say it is pretty cool!) Or perhaps the Feria de Libros, the biggest book fair in the Spanish speaking world held in BA every year (BA was appointed World Book Capital 2011 by UNESCO doncha know) or El Ateneo – a majestic bookshop in an old theatre!

This brings us on to what Carlos Gardel would turn in his grave if we forgot to mention… Tango! Whether that be a slightly staged, touristy version you’ve glimpsed in Caminito in La Boca, an expensive show with dinner or some of the real, passionate, gritty stuff you stumbled upon at an authentic milonga.

Some accounts of the city may be the produce of someone who’s spent their time volunteering here or who shunned the glitz of the inner city and spent time in the appalling poverty of the Villas (some say well on their way to becoming as notorious as the favelas of Rio – not a good thing) that surround the outskirts of the city. These authors who are certainly not the owners of a pair of rose tinted spectacles might also mention the high crime levels and violence of the city and its provinces. They won’t just tell you about the impressively skillful pick pockets or guys who will gladly “look after” your car wherever you decide to park it for a small fee (you better pay them if you don’t want to come back and find it mysteriously vandalized. They’ll also fill you in on the darker side of the city: mafia gangs, women being set on fire (surprisingly standard domestic violence), kidnappings, as well as all the standard drugs, muggings, attacks, you get the idea.

Some wax lyrical about the aesthetics of the city.

Beautiful parks, lakes, the brand new glamour of Puerto Madero the harbour area, the boho boutique-café-or-bar-on-every-corner area that is Palermo, the hustle and bustle and shiny high rise buildings of the Microcentro, the almost Parisian feel of Recoleta, chilled out leafy Belgrano, multicoloured La Boca, artesan and old fashioned San Telmo, landmarks such as the Obelsik on the 10 lane death trap that is Avenida 9 de Julio, Recoleta Cemetry, the Flor de Metal, the list goes on and on.

Those who appreciate the pleasures of the city with their taste buds rather than their eyes focus on the gastronomic offerings of the city. Asados, parrillas, (bbqs Argie style where there is simply SO MUCH MEAT), milanesas (a cut of meat or sometimes compacted veg covered in breadcrumbs and fried) , empanadas (bit like small Cornish pasties), picadas and fiambres (salami, chorizo, hams, cheeses, olives, pickles, crackers and bread all laid out on a board), locro (a hearty stew), alfajores (two pieces of biscuit with dulce de leche in the middle covered in chocolate), dulce de leche, medialunas (moon shaped croissants) and other pastries, cakes and delicacies, wine, fernet -THE argentine alcoholic drink-(have it with LOTS of coke if you don’t want a face that looks like you just had to eat nailvarnish remover mixed with fermented vinegar) and of course mate!

Or finally they might fill you in on the daily life of a Porteño. Battles with the rush hour traffic to get to work (it may be cheap but with there being some form of strike or demonstration blocking a road almost every other day your chances of said mode of transport actually getting you to your destination on time may well be slim). Café-ing it up and with your café con leche and medialunas at Merienda time (4/5pm tea). If you’re a student, going to uni for your 3-4 hours of classes, typically between 7 and 11pm and yes, that is quite likely to be after you’ve already been at work since 9am. Dinner, consisting of lots of meat and not so many vegetables (a generalisation but often the case) either at home or out with friends at 11 ish perhaps. Then, depending on the day of the week, perhaps a bit of studying, tv, family time, out to a bar with friends or even a brief siesta before heading to a boliche around 2 or 3am. Yeah that's right, you live here for a while and you learn to function on a lot less sleep.

So there’s not a lot left for me to tell you about really is there... You could just go read one of those.

Yalla bye Dimashq!

N.B I actually wrote the following a few weeks ago but only just got round to posting it!

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!

“If politics asks it’s only my smoking” and other stories. Northern Iraq.

So Northern Iraq or Kurdistan, depending on who you are and what you like to call it is possibly my new favorite place in the Middle East. Certainly in serious contention with Wadi Rum or being sat on a rooftop in Damascus, with some good shisha, watching the world go by.

For a country that’s viewed by most as dangerous and (as recently and inaccurately demonstrated by Top Gear in their Christmas Special) somewhere to wear protective body armour, fear for your life and escape from asap it was actually the most hospitable place I have ever been to and I have never been so well looked after in my whole life! Unfortunately I was only there for 5 days at the beginning of December but I’d hve gladly stayed longer. Obviously you’d have to be extremely naïve to deny that many parts of Iraq are extremely dangerous and are unlikely to be your number one choice for your next summer holiday. Even in Northern Iraq (generally more peaceful and safer than the rest of the country) we decided to give the city of Mosul as wide a berth as possible seeing as it’s been declared one of the most dangerous places in the world at the moment.

However, my experience of Kurdistan (I call it this because everyone I met during my time there was Kurdish and so I experienced Kurdish culture and in many ways it did feel like a separate country to the rest of Iraq) was of a stunningly beautiful place full of exceptionally friendly, helpful people, eager to welcome foreigners and rebuild their country and lives. It’s an amazing place and our trip encompassed stunning scenery (despite a little more rain than I’ve been used to over the past few months), the art of Kurdish cake making, wading barefoot through rivers of ice cold water on the holy pilgrimage site of the Yazidi sect, more tea than I’ve ever drunk in my life, lashings of hospitality (no not ginger beer), first hand stories of the impact of war, a whole coach load of Turkish smugglers, some more tea, the beginnings of what will become some rather smart, modern cities and, oddly, a surprising amount of Norwegian.

For anyone who likes looking at maps (mother) to briefly summarise where we actually went I’ll outline our route. We crossed from Syria into Turkey at the Qamishli border after an overnight bus from Damascus to Qamishli (the Syria/Iraq border is too dangerous), then travelled from Nusabin in Turkey to Silopi and then crossed into Iraq. From Zakho on the other side of the border we went to Dohuk. Dohuk to Sulaf and Amedi/Amediya, Amedi via Lalesh to Erbil/Arbil then back to Dohuk. We intended to get as far as Sulemani/Sulemaniya near the Iranian border but because we spent so much time with the family we met in Amedi we had to leave this out.
Four is the ideal number for traveling when it comes to Kurdistan, mainly because you have to take taxis everywhere as public transport either doesn’t exist or is too dangerous. If there are four of you taxi fares are kept as low as possible. I went with one other British girl from my class at Damascus University and two Norwegian girls i’ve also met out here.

So our first glimpse of Iraq was of the mountains rearing up behind the Turkey/Iraq border. We spent a while looking at these mountains because there was a long queue at the border and despite our taxi driver managing to persuade someone to let us push in further up the queue (queues are a much more fluid concept in the middle east) we had to sit there for a good couple of hours. Most of the traffic appeared to be large trucks and lorries carrying various cargo. Once across the border we were invited to have tea in the office while our passports were dealt with and taught our first few Kurdish words (we couldn’t expect everyone here to understand Arabic). First impressions of Kurdistan were that it’s much greener than Syria and the houses are a lot more colourful. Many are painted in bright colours ranging from red and purple to bright green or yellow. At first we took a winding road through rock littered mountains then emerged out on to flat field plains and zipped along a highway flanked by telegraph poles, passing several sheep herders with their flocks. Somewhat of a juxtaposition of old and new.

Dohuk was our first point of call and it’s a fairly nice city. One of the main attractions (at least it’s popular with the locals) is Dream City, the theme park, which unfortunately was shut when we arrived! I was looking forward to a roller coaster ride! It was the middle of winter though and I suppose they weren’t really expecting hordes of tourists.
Arbil, the “capital” of Kurdistan, is another promising city. Certain areas of the city have undergone serious redevelopment; there are some lovely parks, a beautiful and huge bright blue mosque and central squares lined with fountains that are lit at night.

The old bizarre and citadel still remain but the quirkiest thing was definitely a larger-than-life statue of Popeye (yes as in the sailor man who eats spinach). It’s so well known that when we stopped someone on the street to ask directions to our hostel we were told: “continue straight on, take a left after the Popeye and it’ll be on your right”. Not until we passed said Popeye did we realize that we had not misunderstood his Arabic, there really was a Popeye. This all said, a large area of the city resembles one massive building site and this isn’t the case just in Arbil; it’s the same in many other parts of Kurdistan. I think in 5 years time many places will look extremely different and if relative peace and stability remain this area could become a very popular travel destination. Perhaps great for the economy and positive publicity for a country that’s had a lot of negative media coverage over the years but maybe not so great for those who like to travel off the beaten track or enjoy their scenery unaffected by swarms of people scurrying all over it. My advice, if you’re in the area and want to experience this amazing place, go visit soon! Although if you do, ignore everything the lonely planet says about this region – most of it’s wrong and seriously in need of an update!

On our way to Arbil we’d stopped at Lalish – the holy pilgrimage site of the Yazidi sect. Many people stop here, visit the temple and find out a little more about this small, previously persecuted group of people. There are only about 500,000 Yazidis in the world and their beliefs are a strange mixture of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. They believe they are descendents of Adam, not Eve (not entirely sure how this works?!), the sun is very important to them and all Yazidi graves face West and as well as God they pray to Malak Taus the Peacock Angel. Malak Taus is the fallen angel who according to their beliefs was later pardoned but their worship of this figure leads many to believe the Yazidi are devil worshippers and according to the people we spoke to this is not true. Anyway, normally it would be a beautiful and fairly interesting place to visit but we arrived while it was still pouring with rain and the place was pretty quiet. You have to take your shoes off and leave them outside before stepping over the threshold and much of the site is outside so we found ourselves wading through ice cold water to reach the temple. There was no electricity in the temple either so we were shown around by the light of a tiny torch and descended the steps into the underground cave where they have holy water used for baptisms in complete darkness! Our poor taxi driver was dragged along with us and I don’t think he could decide if we were amusing, annoying or just completely nuts! After some tea, defrosting our feet and a (somewhat lengthy) history lesson we decided it was time to collect our soggy shoes and move on.

The highlight for me was our trip to Amedi. High up in the mountains north of Dohuk, near Sulav, there is a plateau on which is perched the city of Amedi. The weather on the day we traveled here was indecisive to say the least and hovered between downpours of rain from heavy grey clouds rolling in over the mountains and outbreaks of bright sunshine piercing the laden sky and streaming down in ethereal rays. This made for some majestic scenery and we had a fantastic view from our elevated position over the rolling fields, rivers, forests and mountains.

Despite the various drawbacks there are to living in this city the spectacular view the inhabitants have from their living room windows certainly ought to bump them up a bracket or two on the property market!
As we were meandering around exploring the town, slightly dazed by our incredible surroundings, we were stopped a couple of times by concerned passersby to check we were not lost. One such passerby spoke no Arabic but did speak Swedish so my two Norwegian friends chatted away to him in Norwegian and they understood each other no problem. Later a woman who was hosing down the driveway in front of her house exchange pleasantries with us and then beckoned us into the house. It had begun to rain and we have become very used to being invited in for tea by almost anyone we meet in this part of the world but still, we’d literally spoken about 3 words to this woman and known her for 20 seconds. The fact that we spoke very little Kurdish and her likewise with Arabic meant that when she turned and marched into the house we had few options left but to follow her. After sitting in the living room wondering what exactly was going on for a few moments her daughter (who spoke English) emerged from another room. Very quickly we found out that she was leaving Iraq soon to marry her cousin in Norway who is living in Oslo which is where both of the Norwegian girls I was with live and study at university! Pretty cool coincidence. So that was it. We spent the entire day with this family, were fed several delicious meals, met some of their extended family, fed their pet squirrel, did some baking in the afternoon and did a lot of tea drinking and talking. It was interesting to hear first hand stories of what life was like during the various wars in the country. This family had lost one son at the age of 18 who had been ill his whole life since being disabled and blinded aged 7 months after being caught in a chemical gas attack. Another son was permanently paralysed from the waist down due to an accident when he was a soldier fighting during the Kurdish civil war.

The family also explained to us that many people emigrated to Scandinavia during the conflict so it’s very common for people here to speak Swedish or Norwegian if they spent several years living there themselves or have family living over there. When it got quite late in the evening the family insisted we stay the night with them but we politely refused. We already had an arrangement with a lovely guy in Sulav who’d rented us a house for the night for the same price as a hotel room would have cost and when he’d given us a lift up to Amedi in the morning he’d been very concerned about us and said if we had any problems or needed a lift back to call him and he’d be with us in 5 mins. That had been about 10 hours ago so we didn’t want him to think we were lost in the mountains somewhere! We exchanged contact details with the family, said our goodbyes and were packed off with a goody bag of the cake we’d made earlier into their sons car so he could take us back to Sulav. When we arrived it was pouring with rain and extremely cold but the owner of the house had turned all the heaters on for us and there was a welcome sign flashing over the door!

I could go on about many other examples of the generosity we were shown during our time in Kurdsitan, (for example on our last night in Dohuk we asked our taxi driver if he could recommend a good hostel to stay in and ended up staying in his house with his family) but I think you get the idea. There was only one worrying incident during our trip when we were passing through some check points on our way to Arbil. Security was slightly heightened because there’d been an important press conference or something there the day before and the main road into the city was shut and cars were being sent down a diversion. We were sitting at the checkpoint waiting while our bags were searched, our passports were checked and answering questions about why we were there (all standard procedure) when two jeep loads of soldiers in mis-matched camouflage uniform, all wearing black balaclava masks and holding machine guns jumped out and surrounded the checkpoint. The thought crossed my mind that this was a road block rather than a check point and we were about to be kidnapped (perhaps I’ve been watching too many films recently!) but the officer checking our bags didn’t react at all and although several people stopped what they were doing no one seemed particularly alarmed. Our taxi driver told us to just stay in the car and said it was all fine. Everyone went on with their business and we decided that just because masked men with guns had turned up didn’t mean we should jump to conclusions. Ten slightly nervous minutes later and we were on our way, none the wiser about who anyone was or what was going on but unscathed by the incident.

Like I said, overall during our time here I have never felt safer or better looked after in my life and I would love to return at some point in the future. When it was time for us to leave the country it turned out our taxi driver had some good contacts. His brother works on the Turkey/Iraq border so this time there was no queuing what so ever, we were sent to the front of all the queues and the Turkish driver who was taking us across the border was given a stern talking to and told to take good care of us or there’d be trouble! He had apparently tried to buy Iraq’s entire stock of cigarettes and they were hidden under the seats, in the lining of the doors and in the boot. The legal amount you’re allowed for personal use is two packs each and I think our driver was hoping that border guards would attribute 8 of the packs to us. Anyrate he told us “if politics asks it’s only your smoking”! Great. This is really common though and the brother of our taxi driver assured us that if anything happened it’d be our Turkish driver who was in trouble not us. Back in Turkey with no trouble we got on the bus to take us to the Syrian border but so did a large number of Turks who appeared to have done the exact same thing our taxi driver just had. Every checkpoint the bus got stopped and everything in the hold was unloaded and checked. Rather frustrating as it meant the journey was a lot longer than it should have been but I have to admit these guys had a good system going and certainly looked out for each other! Every time one person was singled out because they found something suspicious or thought he was carrying more than his allocated amount several other guys would rush over and insist it was theirs as well and that there was no problem here and make a big enough scene that in the end the officer would give up and let them all back on the bus! We made it back to Syria though and it would take a lot more than delayed transport and cigarette smugglers to put me off going back to this amazing region!

Snow in Europe you say?! Well it's been deserts and beaches and sunshine here!

So apparently there’s just a bit of snow in Europe right now. Unless BBC news, photos on facebook and people sending me news from home are all collaborating in an elaborate plan to make me regret my decision not to come home for Christmas and enjoy a proper winter wonderland.  First few days of December in Syria and the temperature was still reaching 25 degrees Celsius and we could sit and sunbathe on the front steps of the university during our breaks! Not bad. It is definitely cold at night now though, the blankets are out, portable heaters are on and people are even wearing coats out in the evening! I woke up this morning to the first proper rain we’ve had since I’ve been here! It rained for about 15 minutes one day back in October but that’s been all. It didn’t last long this morning either, less than an hour, but it was overcast and windy the rest of the day. Apparently winter just arrived in Syria. Fingers crossed that it will go back to being sunny and warm during the day time though. So, enough about the weather, wow, I really am British.

I’m still living in the same house and decided against moving at all in the end.  I did view some apartments outside the old city with my Norwegian housemate Maria but she is applying for a job in Lebanon so would move there in January if she’s successful and once we persuaded our landlord to put a roof over our central courtyard/lounge and provide us with lots of heaters our house has become fairly snug.  The location is actually really good here too and although living in the old city leads to high levels of tourist hatred and an amazing ability to weave in between irritatingly slow crowds of people it’s not worth the hassle of moving for my last month and a half here.

During our last week’s holiday in November three other Durham students and I did decide to go to Jordan in the end.  For the first few days there we based ourselves in Amman.  Although Amman is definitely the hilliest city I have ever been to it boasts very little in the way of exciting attractions and is a fairly boring place to be for more than a couple of days.  It is a good base to travel to the Dead Sea and Jerash from and these were both definitely worth a visit. The weather in Jordan was definitely hotter than in Syria and going to the Dead Sea felt like being at a luxury beach resort for the day! The Dead Sea lies on Jordan’s western border so the bank on the other side is Israel/Palestine.  If you want to swim in the Dead Sea you have to pay to enter a private beach where there’s also a swimming pool, restaurant, lots of palm trees etc etc.

Although it was odd to be in such a touristy place it was actually really nice to be able to swim and sunbathe in a bikini and this not be seen as completely scandalous or “haram”.  After “swimming” in the Dead Sea (you really can’t swim you have to float, if you try and swim your feet go up in the air your face plunges into the water and you get a face full of horribly salty water that burns your eyes! And if you have any cuts…unlucky!) and plastering ourselves in mud from the shallows (which you can buy for a ridiculous price from the gift shop and is supposed to do wonders for the skin) we spent the rest of the day lazing around the pool. 

The next day we visited Jerash where there are pretty extensive remains of a Roman City – column lined roads, temple, amphitheatre, and a chariot racing arena.

  The amphitheatre isn’t as impressive as the one in Bosra and having not visited Palmyra yet I can’t compare it to that but it’s Jordan’s third tourist attraction after Petra and Wadi Rum. Next we traveled to the very south of Jordan to Aqaba.  I liked Aqaba, it’s right on the coast by the Red Sea, there’s lots of diving and snorkeling , the weather is fantastic, it’s very open with broad palm tree lined streets and beaches and the fish and sea food there is amazing! It was particularly busy when we were there because it was Eid Al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, and also Hajj so there were many Muslims passing through on their way from Egypt to Saudi.  On the afternoon we arrived we thought we’d go down to the beach for a swim thinking it would be fairly touristy here like at the Dead Sea.  However, we found ourselves to be the only foreigners on the beach even though it was packed with people camping out and having bbq’s for Eid. Every female there was fully covered and in hijab, even those swimming in the sea, so we decided it was safer just to paddle.  To the astonishment and hilarity of everyone in our vicinity though, Jen and David decided that actually they did want to go swimming and due to Jen’s lack of appropriate swimming attire she just went in fully clothed.  This was all fine until they came out and clingy, slightly see through clothes meant that they were attracting quite a large amount of attention and we had to make a quick exit back to the hotel! Nice sunset though.

                             The last two days of our trip were spent in Wadi Rum and this was definitely the highlight for me.  We got a jeep tour with some other travelers so arrived early in the morning, had a day driving around the desert and then camped with Bedouins for the night before returning to Aqaba the next day. Wadi Rum has some seriously impressive scenery…it’s not just sand. There are huge rocky cliffs that rear up overhead and carve chunks out of the sky. Some are close together so form narrow little gorges and if you clamber up you find natural springs tucked away or ancient carvings on the stone. The sand plains seem to stretch on forever and are dotted with scruffy, stunted little trees and the scribble lines of many criss-crossing jeep tracks.

  Our Bedouin jeep drivers (who can’t have been much older than 15 and had to hot wire the jeep every time they wanted to start the engine but nevertheless had some serious skill at driving in soft sand) would stop at places of interest for us to have a wander round or go for a climb for a fantastic view over the desert. We also stopped at the remains of Lawrence of Arabia’s house and I have a new found respect for him and his army surviving out there for so long on such fugal rations.

We reached camp just in time for sunset and were served very sweet hot tea (the best I’ve had so far in the Middle East) as we sat and watched the sun sink behind the distant mountain range on the horizon. The warm orange blaze give way to a peaceful world bathed in bright moonlight from a cloudless, star scattered sky. It was stunning.

  Everyone gathered for dinner in the large main tent and sat on cushions around a blazing fire drinking yet more tea.  The food was fantastic; chicken, lamb meatballs, rice, potatoes, lentils, salads, yogurt… it probably doesn’t sound that great but it was so tasty! Then there was music and some singing and everyone round sat around the fire chatting.  The Bedouins were so friendly and hospitable and have a great sense of humour! They were constantly playing practical jokes and during the musical entertainment I’m pretty sure a group of them just made up a completely random song that some of the other travelers were lapping up as ancient, traditional Bedouin music! It caused quite a lot of hilarity amongst them anyway. Honestly I was so unbelievably tempted to forget about uni in Damascus and just stay with the Bedouins, help out and learn Arabic by living with them. Maybe one day I’ll go back and stay for longer.

We journeyed all the way from Wadi Rum to Damascus the following day which took about 10 hours but other than having a completely crazy taxi driver from Amman to Damascus went very smoothly.  He seemed to enjoy the fact that we spoke Arabic and told every single checkpoint/border guard that we were students from Damascus who spoke better Arabic than him! After we crossed the border into Syria he turned the music up loud and invited us to sing along. After we told him David was a very famous dancer in Britain (it was funny at the time) the party really got going and he cracked out a pack of Heineken! We each took the can he offered us not so much because we wanted to drink it but because we didn’t want him to drink so many! We still had about an hour and a half’s drive to reach Damascus and if you’ve ever seen what the traffic is like in the Middle East…well.  By the time we arrived in Damascus (thankfully in one piece) he’d consumed three cans and was definitely somewhat merry!

So back to Damascus news. The last two and a half weeks of uni have been ok, everything’s winding down a bit because we finish term for Christmas on Thursday and we had a few days which definitely involved more break time than actual teaching! I appear to be managing to fill my new found free time no problem (or perhaps just frittering it away because I don’t feel like I’m doing as much as before).  I’ve got two girls I meet up with for conversation practice. Both are Syrian students but they’re very different. Enas is from Suweida, outside of Damascus and is Druze but she is studying translation at the same university as me. She lives with other Syrian students in an old, slightly run down house not far from me which I love hanging out in. Their lounge area is basically an art studio full of old sculptures and drawings and the walls are covered in scribbles.  They’re all very arty and liberal and very different to anyone else I’ve met here.  It’s really interesting to chat to them but they appear to have a lot of problems getting work and the girls are discriminated against quite a bit. The other girl Diala is from a fairly wealthy, strict Muslim family here in Damascus and studies English literature, again at the same uni as me. She lives at home with her family. It’s just coincidence that they are both at the same uni as me, I didn’t meet them there. Enas I met in Mar Musa and Diala I met on top of Jebel Kasioun one evening when we went up there. I love how easy it is to just chat to and make friends with strangers here! Unfortunately both of them seem to prefer talking English to letting me talk Arabic but I’m going to insist on speaking more Arabic.

I don’t do salsa anymore, my course finished and I decided not to do the next one because I’m going traveling for a bit again before Christmas and then have visitors over Christmas and New Year so would have to miss a lot of classes. It’s strange to think that England will be extremely Christmassy now. The Christian quarter of the old city will apparently get decked out for Christmas and some of the shops there now have some tacky decorations in.  I managed to find fairy lights and an advent calendar for my room! But it would be very easy to forget here that Christmas is just around the corner.

A few days ago we decided to cook a traditional Christmas dinner for the Syrian family that some of the girls I know from my course live with. They live just round the corner from me and I’m there so often I’ve become an honourary member of the house.  The immediate family ended up inviting their extended family and friends so I think there were at least 25 people there in the end! We had roast chicken, roast potatoes, mashed potato and carrot, roasted pupkin an oninons, stuffing, gravy, warm and spiced apple juice, apple pie and custard, cookies, decorated ginger bread biscuits – including a Christmas tree and snow scene – chocolate brownies and chocolate money! It was an absolute mission to prepare but was really fun and I think the family enjoyed it. There are a lot more leaving/Christmas dinners and parties happening this weekend amongst the students when term finishes and most people go home for Christmas but I shall miss most of these because I’m leaving for Northern Iraq on Thursday night after uni for a few days.  There’s a small group of us staying here during the holiday though and my dad and brother are coming to visit late on the 21^st so lots of Christmassy things will be in order then I think.

Well I think that’s definitely enough of a blog entry for one day. Can you tell I’m supposed to be revising for my exam on Thursday?! Oh and Happy New Year! It’s a national holiday today because it’s the Islamic New Year. Congrats if you got to the end…serves all of you who were pestering me for a blog update right! Oh and Happy (belated) 21^st Birthday to Josie Mill – I promised you a shout out and here it is!

Oh and just incase I don’t get round to another entry before Christmas (very likely if I’m honest) then Merry Christmas to everyone!  

Thank goodness for holidays!

So i started writing this post about a month ago but have been a bit busy since! I'll try and summarise the last month without rambling on and on and on...not that i'm prone to that or anything. The week after i wrote my last post we had a weeks holiday from uni and on the 11th of November i'm due another week off.
Originally when they told us we'd have a week off after every 4 weeks of uni i thought this sounded pretty generous, perhaps even excessive seeing as we finish at 1pm every day but now, since doing my extra course, i am so so grateful! The weeks holiday in October was supposedly a chance to catch up on work and chill out a bit after a hectic few weeks but i have never passed up a chance to go traveling and i don't intend to start now! We toyed with the idea of going to Lebanon but i decided against it in the end because i already spent a month there last year and wanted to explore more of Syria before the weather cools off.

I should probably say first though that we did not encounter any dodgy taxi drivers on the way to Malula after my last post, all went annoyingly smoothly, and i was not required to assure the driver that i was merely human. Malula is a funny little place in the desert with a couple of fairly touristy monasteries but we heard some aramaic and once we'd climed up the hill over looking the town the view was pretty cool.

So at the beginning of our weeks holiday in October i travelled to Mar Musa, a fairly famous ecumenical monastary in the middle of nowhere surrounded by desert. My friend Ashley and i wanted to escape Damascus for a while and quite spontaneously decided to go and stay there for a few days. It was amazing! It's hard to capture the atmosphere there just writing about it i'll try.

After getting a taxi from the nearby town of Nebek along an almost deserted stretch of road that leads nowhere except to the monastary we then climbed a few hundred steps (for some reason doing exercise in Syria feels more painful than back home!) and arrived at our destination. It's fairly informal there and travellers drop by and stay for a few days/weeks/months or maybe even years. It's got a great community feel and in exchange for a bed and food people muck in with the cooking or cleaning or farm work or just bring some food or make a donation. The actual monastary is a network of little tiny doors, underground rooms, the stone chapel littered with cushions, tea lights, incense, what would have been lavishly painted walls in their time and the coolest library ever with the most ecclectic collection of books i've ever seen! The mixture of people there was very interesting too, many different nationalities with many different stories. There are nine permanent residents six of which are eurpoean and three are syrians - father paolo who founded Mar Musa is italian my languages got quite a work out while i was there as it cetainly wasn't just arabic being spoken. We spent a morning exploring the mountains behind the monstary, admiring the peace and quiet, the veiws and generally enjoying the fact that our lungs didnt burn from the smog/pollution like they do if you do anything more strenuous than walk in Damascus! Ok so it's not that bad but it certainly isn't fresh somerset countryside air here! I'd like to go back and visit again but it really will be freezing there at night now and a lot of it is open to the elements so we'll see.

Yeah so i said i wouldn't ramble but evidently i lied. The rest of the holiday i mainly stayed in Damascus. We went for a day trip to Quneitra, a town on the edge of the Golan Heights down on the border with Israel. Now a completely deserted ghost town since the Israeli bulldozers destroyed most of it and it's become a sort of memorial to the events of 1973.

It's now UN controlled and you need a permit to go there but it's just an hours drive or so from Damascus.
It was also Ashleys 21st birthday during this week and the definite highlight of that was going to the Four Seasons hotel (the extremely posh hotel in Damascus) for brunch. (Although calling it "brunch" in no way does it justice!) There were whole rooms of food and after paying your 1000 SYP (about 14 quid) it was all you can eat and there was EVERYTHING!!! Not only was there plenty of really high quality arabic food but there was sushi, seafoods, roast beef and lamb, a pasta bar, selection of homemade breads and cheeses, (particularly exciting when all you've had for two months is flat bread and rubber cheese), arabic sweets like bacalava and kanafa, and huge array of pudding and mounds of fresh fruit. We were there for four hours! I dont think i ate the next day. Amazing.

Anyway so since then it's been back to classes and a more hectic schedule. I have now finished my colloquial course though and the thought of having actual free time during the week is a little disconcerting! I met a girl in Mar Musa who wants to meet up for language conversation exchange so i think i'm going to start meeting her every week. The only really exciting things to report from the last few weeks are that we had Top Gear and Hugo Chaves visit Damascus in the same week...Jeremy Clarkson casually strolled past my house! Oh and i've stated Salsa classes!! A couple of syrian friends invited Ashley and I along so i now have salsa lessons monday and wednesday nights. Not exactly fitting with the culture here perhaps but we are the only foreigners in the class and salsa actually appears to be very popular among more "upper class" syrians.

Starting to make travel plans for our next weeks holiday starting on the 11th November...possibilites are Jordan or northern Iraq but going to have to follow the news and play it by ear a little over the next few weeks i think due to current circumstances.
Congratulations if you made it this far!! There is so much more i could talk about - I'm moving house soon...it's pretty chilly at night now (although still gets to 26 degrees and is always sunny during the day! :) ) - but i think that's enough for one post and i may get kicked out of this cafe soon. I finished my drink ages ago and i'm still using the wifi.
Keep the news from back home coming...i know i'm poor at replying but it's always good to hear!