Travels in the Levant

Here are some pictures from Syria and Lebanon. This is the first place we stayed at.

Here are our beds on the roof the first night. Notice the tears in the matresses. I don’t have a picture of our room the second night, but it was awsome.

This is the Leila (night) Restaurant and Terrace where we ate at our first night in Damascus. From left to right: me, Brian, Steven, Tyler, and Juan (the Argentinian guy.)

This is a picture of me in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. This is typical of what unveiled women put on to enter mosques (those that they are allowed to enter, that is.)

Windows in Damascus.

Cool watermellon on a hot summer day.

Here’s a picture of Tyler sipping Syrian brew at the Bab Sharki cafe in Damascus.

Here’s our Cancun-esque party outside of Beruit.

This is Place de l’Etoile in Beruit, a swanky area that was completely destroyed in the Lebanese civil war but has been rebuilt to look old.

So, we ended up getting an awsome room in the same hotel our second night in Damascus, it had four beds, its own (mini) shower, and a FAN! We were in heaven even at a pricey $6 a night, we figured we could splurge since the roof beds were only $3 a piece. I think the hotel used to be an old villa, because it had an awsome central courtyard, draped with vines, typical of the traditional Arab-style house.

On Sunday we took a cab up to the top of a hill so we could have a full view of Damascus, which is many, many times larger than Amman. Then we headed to the bus station where we got a service taxi to Beruit for $10 each, which seemed outrageous, but we couldn’t bargain lower as all the servees drivers seemed to know each other and collude to keep prices high. The cab driver insisted on taking our 4 American passports away, as he said the main building needed them. We all kind of panicked, imagining how much more he could sell our passports for than what we were paying him. While we were nervously waiting, we were accosted by a number of vendors who wanted to sell us pink socks and fake Puma t-shirts. We started freaking out about our missing passports after about 20 minutes in the hot sun, and Tyler ran off to rescue them. Eventually we did end up getting them back but vowed not to let our passports out of sight again. The ride to the Lebanese border was relatively painless and we were easily able to purchase Lebanese visas for $16 each. We drove about another 30 minutes from the border to Beruit and then caught a cab to Fanar, where the Jabres live.

The first thing we saw at the house was a 20 foot high wall and a massive iron gate. We rang the bell and a man came down to open the gate for us. His name was Anton, and we have decided his position is that of the butler. The house is incredible, with glass doors almost completely covering the back wall, which slide to open onto the patio. I’ll bring pictures when I come back, as words don’t do it justice. Anton showed us to the guest house, which has two lovely bedrooms and a bathroom (with an actual shower AND bathtub!), all made up in white. We were in awe, being the dirty, cheap backpackers that we are. We felt like we had stepped into a world that was not our own, and wondered if we should really be there.

Patrick arrived after about 15 minutes, and after quick introductions, told us that he had just come from an awsome beach party in the north. So we all changed into our bathing suites and jumped into his car, to drive about 25 minutes to Edde Sands Beach, currently the most trendy beach to be seen at. The admission cost was a whopping $12, more than our entire ride from Damascus to Beruit. Tyler, who went to Cancun one year for spring break, said that this beach party was essentially exactly like those in Cancun, sponsored by MTV. Alcohol was everywhere, and a beer cost about $6. Right on the beach front there was a stage, with a DJ and dancing Smirnoff girls wearing tube tops and hot pants. People were buying huge $3500 bottles of Moet and spraying them into the crowd. The guys on stage threw shots into the masses of dancing, wet, scantily-clad bodies. Everywhere we looked there were guys in bathing suites and girls wearing tiny bikinis. This was probably the worst culture shock I’ve had in a long time, largely because we had no idea Lebanon would be like this and because we didn’t even know there was a beach scene here. I had arrived in Beruit wearing my long-sleeved, baggy nun shirt only to exchange it for a bikini. Tyler, Brian, Steven, and I were completely in shock. We basically stood in the crowd, open-mouthed, watching the dancing and drinking and carrying on.

We stayed at the beach until late and then headed back to the house to eat dinner with Patrick and his mother. The food was deliscious, the service impecable, and we had no idea what to do with ourselves. We had been eating at shwarma and fallafel stands, sleeping on the roof, and being eaten alive by bugs and roaches in Damascus, so Beruit was a complete 180 in all aspects. Massive, massive culture shock.

Yesterday, Monday (the start of the Lebanese work week) we woke up late for breakfast and ended up hanging around till lunch, when Patrick got back from his Spanish lesson. He offered to take us out in the Meditteranian on his speed boat where we met up with his friend Anna, and sped out into the water. My dislike of fast boats all came back very quickly, but I managed to survive and even drove the boat for a while. We saw the ruins of a (crucader?) castle and where the president 50 years ago had his summer house. We went to Edde Sands again, but didn’t have to pay since we came in our own boat. Wow.

We ate dinner again with the family and today we have been exploring the city ourselves; we just got done visitn the American University of Beruit (AUB), which is incredibly beautiful. Possible study abroad? My hour in the internet cafe is over, I’ll try to write more tomorrow. Beruit is amazing, and many of its streets look just like those in Europe. The mixture of Christians and Muslims in very interesting, as there are only slightly fewer of the former. Lebanon seems incredibly safe and makes me wonder why there is such an ominous travel warning on the state department website. Strange.

The highlight of today and our trip so far was seeing the gigantic Umayyad Mosque in the Old City of Damascus. Brian, Steven, Tyler, Juan and I left the hotel after a restless night and walked about 5 blocks to the old city. The Mosque, built in 706CE, covers around an entire block of the cobbled streets. We entered from the side where I donned a full length robe and hood and entered the mosque. Saladin’s tomb lay to my immediate left and as we continued we came to a place where everyone removed there shoes and entered the enormous open courtyard of the Mosque. Here’s a picture I found on the web

The Shia martyr Hussein’s tomb lies on the far side of the courtyard; this makes the mosque a huge pilgrimage site for Iranian shia muslims, who we saw in droves, with the women in billowing black chadors. I met two girls who spoke very little English and so I tried to communicate with them in Arabic, only to discover they were Iranian. I also met a couple from Aleppo who spoke to me about the beauty of their town. They wanted to know how we, Americans, had managed to get into Syria; I told them “God knows.” It is encounters like these that really have made my trip in the Middle East. Everyone, even in Syria, has been incredidbly friendly to me, which is a shock considering what our government says about Syria. Something to ponder.

Off of the courtyard there is an enormous room where the Shrine of John the Baptist lays, who apperently Muslims regard as a prophet. We saw a number of Islamic prayer leaders (possibly Imams) giving sermons to different groups, a number of them speaking Farsi. Here’s a shot of the shrine i found on the web.

We drank fresh blackberry juice on the street and found a restaurant called the Umayyad cave where they were out of almost everything and served the guys’ cheeseburgers without buns. Later, we wandered by shops filled with glittering gold and silver until we found Straight Street, which is actually quite kinked. I bought a bottle of water in one store and the man gave me a whole plate of hamoudeh for free, which is some kind of sweet paste made out of sesame seeds, which i am not particularly fond of. We found a tiny factory which made kufiyyas and i managed to give away most of it to the workers, who in turn shared their olives with me.

The roof of our hotel is beautiful but sleeping at night is rough. By around 2am it was so cold that I was covered in goosbumps and had only my towel and a sheet I had begged of the manager to cover up with. I eventually went back to sleep, but was awakened at 3:45 by the call to prayer, from the mosque less than 100 meters from our beds. I woke up again at around 7am because the heat was unbearable and I was sweating all over. I drifted in and out of sleep for a while longer and final gave up and took a shower in what is basically a closet with a drain. We have been told that, God willing, rooms may be available tonight and so I’m keeping my hopes up.

Tomorrow we go to Beruit, but I will be sad to leave Syria. Perhaps, a study abroad is called for in the future.

We got a late start this morning because the guys had been out late (sigh) and hadn’t packed but finally left the hotel around 11am. The manager let us leave our suitcases there so we each brought only a small duffle and backpack. We took a cab to Abdali bus station, where we were informed that the bus to Damascus had been cancelled. Maalesh, so we took a service taxi for $3 to the Syria/Jordan border near Ramtha. The trip took a little over an hour and we arrived uneventfully arrived at the Jordanian border. We got exit stamps and payed the exit tax and a guy offered to give us a lift 3km through the no man’s land that lies between the borders. We arrived at the Syrian border, and went to the non-Arab foreigners line. We surrendered our passports, which were thouroughly scoured for any signs of a trip to Israel.

I must mention here that we had come to the border several weeks ago in order to apply for Syrian visas, which are technically unavailable for Americans (unless you get one in the US for $100). We were at the time unsuccessful but they told us they would “fax Damascus” for permission and we told them we had to leave but would come back in a few weeks. So it turns out that our plan ended up working out, because a few minutes later the border official told us that we could enter Syria, paying only $16 for the visa. In theory this kind of thing doesn’t happen but we had heard rumors of people who had gotten visas like this. Had they refused to give us visas, which we thought would probably happen, we would have been unable to enter Syria or travel on to Lebanon. We had actually brought enough snacks that we probably could have spent the night at the border, because we thought it might take over 12 hours to get the visa. We were probably in and out in less than 45. Al Hamdullilah, God be praised!

We got another taxi from outside the border to Damascus for $4 each. It was an incredible shock to so easily enter this country which is so demonized in the US that the mere mention of Syira brings up ideas of evil synonymous with the Dark Side. Syria looked an awful lot like Jordan, but with huge bolders lining the sides of the road. Perhaps a little poorer, and a few more mountains. We eventually arrived in Damascus, and were dropped off next to the street here our hotel as supposed to be. We ended up walking around in circles in the 95 degree weather for several hours, and realized too late that the hotel was just down a side-street that we had missed. Maalesh, oh well.

We found out that the Ar-Rabie Hotel didn’t have any more room and so were shown to the roof, covered by a huge cloth for protection from the sun. There were about 6 foam pads on the roof, which was relatively cool because of the breeze. We ere so hot and tired at that point that we agreed to the roof for $3 each a night for a foam pad, without sheets or blankets. Maalesh. There we met Juan, an Argentinian, who had also been given a roof bed. We all took naps, exhausted from the heat, the late night last night, and our final exams which had just ended yesterday. At 6:30 Brian woke me, Tyler, Steve, and Juan up and we all eventually gathered enough energy, thanks to some cookies and chocolate wafers, to go out and found the Orient Internet Cafe a fe blocks away. We’re getting ready to go find dinner in the Old Town and explore so more, and I’m hoping for an early night.

I’ve been incredibly finished and sleep deprived the last week and so havn’t really had a chance to update my blog. Yesterday we had a 7 page paper due, for which we had to interview 4 Jordanians. Today we had a 10-page paper due, written as a “think-piece.” I wrote that whole paper yesteray and stayed up so late writing it that by the time I walked down the street with Ian to the 24-hour computer lab, the first call to prayer was sounding. Tomorrow is our 3-hour final in Arab Histories, after which everything for classes will be over. The ladies are going to the Pasha Turkish Bath in the afternoon and then the group is going out for one final dinner. I spent four hours today studying and smoking shisha at the Doors Cafe with Jessica and Monica.

I’ve also been busy trying to get last minute gifts and trying to find somewhere to exchange my dinars for Syrian pounds. No luck so far. I got a pair of fake Diesels in Swefiyya for 15JD, which a tailor hemmed for free. Monica got a pair of fake Puma’s for her sister (Fumas!) and then we hit up the silver market for silver literally almost as cheap as dirt. I got a silver ring with turquoise for 4.5JD.

Here’s what I’m planning for travels. I’ve bought a lite, long-sleeved and loose black shirt and have a pair of all-purpose pants. I bought some new tennis-like shoes and Monica’s also going to lend me some of her long-sleeved shirts. I bought a fake Adidas duffle for extra stuff and will bring that, my backback, my Arabic phrase book, sunscreen, and a guidebook. Also, Marquez’s autobiography and some crackers, socks, and underwear. I thought about wearing my pink hejab I bought in al-Baqa’a, but somewhat, people might not understand if I didn’t speak Arabic. Let me know if there’s suggestions for anything else for travel.

I will try to update my blog during our travels to Syria and Lebanon in the coming weeks, even if briefly. See everyone soon.

A few weeks ago, we visited al Baqa’a Palestinian Reguee Camp as a class, located on the outskirts of Amman. The experience is difficult to write about because it was both so moving and so disturbing. Children begged in the streets and yet the people we met were still exceedingly kind and invited us into their homes. We saw a family with 16 children, 2 of which were blind and one handicapped, living in one room. We saw a woman and her children without running water or electricty, proud of her tiny TV that ran off of a car battery. Children were everywhere, ragged and barefoot but with smiles on their faces. I would guess that the fertility rate is at least 7 children per woman, and probably more. People are so tightly packed into al Baqa’a that, in the central areas, it is difficult to move because of the masses of people, cars, and animals.

Our group, walking through a narrow street.

Two girls.

Most houses to not have real roofs, but instead use a piece of tin with a cement block to weight it down.

A typical Jordanian sight.

Tin shacks on the left.

A beautiful door in on of the poorest areas in the camp.

Trash in the streets, with outter Amman in the background.

Goats in front of dwellings.

A donkey, tied to someone’s house, forages among the rubble.

Jessica and I went to a wonderful engagement party the other night because her language partner Lina recently got engaged to a guy named Mohammed. The women’s party was separate from the men’s and so Zuhair, Yasmin’s uncle, dropped Yasmin, Jessica, and I in front of the hall where it was being held, although it was really more like a room than a hall. The first thing I noticed when I entered the room, teeming with Lina and Mohammed’s female relatives, was that there was no air conditioning and only one fan. The room was easily 85 degrees then and as relatives and some friends continued to trickle in and then the dancing began the room got hotter and hotter.

Lina eventually came in with Mohammed and they danced for a while (again, I’m not sure why the groom-to-be is allowed in a room full of largely unveiled women.) Her dress was gorgeous and they both seemed excited but very nervous. Lina is a wonderful dancer but Mohammed seemed a little stiff. The two had never spent time alone together before they got engaged but now that they have signed what is essentially the wedding contract they can be alone together without any scandal. Although the two won’t get married until next summer, they have already signed the contract that binds them, although if one of them is very unhappy it can theoretically be broken off.

All of the girls and women here are fabulous dancers and have repeatedly taught me and Jessica how to Arabic dance. Its a lot fun, but the room was so hot that after 2.5 hours of dancing, we were literally dripping with sweat.

Today was what Curtis called our “Christian day” of class, where we learned all about Christians (and some other religions) in the region. We started out class today by going to Bethany Across-the-Jordan, where John the Baptist is said to have baptised Jesus in the River Jordan. The Israelis, not unexpectadly, also claim this site on their territory, but the Pope officially announced that Bethany was where the baptism happened and thus the issue has been recently less contested.
After that we drove to Mount Nebo, from where Moses is supposed to have seen the Promise Land, although he himself was never to go there. Moses is also said to be buried somewhere around this area but his tomb has never been found. Here is a picture of a cross at Mt. Nebo.

From Mt. Nebo, on a clear day, many of the places on this sign can be seen, although it was far to hazy to see beyond the mountains of Palestine.

We also went to St. George’s Church in Madaba where remains of the largest mosaic map in the world are on display. The mosaic still makes up part of the floor of the church is astonishingly accurate and elaborate.

After being up till past the first call to prayer, Fajr, last night, a bunch of us woke up early to head to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, at over 400m below sea level. The Sea is 30% salt and no life grows there except for a few species of Bacteria. Typical of much of the Arab world, we didn’t have any fixed plans for how to get to the Sea or where to go once we were there. We caught cabs to one of the Amman police station, right across from which was a small bus station. We asked around but none of the busses actually went to the dead sea so we ended up semi-hiring a mini bus for around $2 a piece. The trip took around 45 minutes, descending switchback curves and dropping around 1500m in altitude. The place we had planned on going, the Dead Sea Rest House, was permanently closed and so we asked the bus driver to take us to the cheapest beach around. You can’t just go to the Sea because you have to find a place with showers, because the salt covers your skin after swimming and will burn like hell unless you rinse off right away. We eventually found a cheap place that ended up being pretty nice. Here’s a picture of the beach with the Sea in the background.

Here’s some of the group, Bruce, Brain, Sam, Steven, and Monica, caked in mud from the Sea. Its supposed to be therepeutic for the skin and is often sold in little bags for $5 each.

Swimming in the Sea itself was amazing. It was around 100 degrees in the sun and the water was probably 80 but it still felt really nice to get in. When I first walked in the water felt pretty normal, just a bit “thick.” When I got out deep enough to swim, I found that my legs popped out from behind me when I tried to paddle. I could lay on my back with my legs bent comfortably, or float vertically like a cork. Because of its very high salinity, the dead sea makes objects incredibly boyant; it is therefore almost impossible to drown as the water constantly pushes you up, just like a cork. Here’s a picture of Brian, Bruce and me, floating in the water.

The water burns any cuts you have and stings the skin if not rinsed off immediately. We didn’t stay in too long and the heat and hummidity were overwhelming, so after a few hours, we headed back to Amman. An overall unforgettable experience.

Today we had our last quiz in Arab Histories and then we went to the office of the newspaper Al Destour, The Constitution, where we met we had a tour and met with the editor-in-chief, Usama Al Shareef, about journalism in the Middle East and particularly journalistic freedom in Jordan. Because it is illegal here to crisizie the King and to make remarks that “are a danger to national security,” the press is often limited in what and how much it can say. Shareef said that there are no specific guidlines in Jordan for what you can and cannot say and that the days of having a government censurer in newspaper offices are over. Today, there is relatively more freedom, but it is more difficult to know what you can and cannot write. Journalists here have gone to jail for what they wrote and newspapers can be closed down for days or months at a time if the government becomes to angry with their writing. In terms of Arab countries, Shareef said Lebanon had the freest press, and I would guess Saudi Arabia has the most restrictive. We got a copy of an English paper also published by The Constution; here is a link to its online version, which has wonderful articles that are full of cricisms of Bush and US foriegn policy. http://www.star.com.jo/default/default.aspx