A Palestinian friend’s story, wishes for Syria, farewells to our Syrian friends, and transition to Bolivia

(Written before and just posted now, since we now have easy internet access--yeah!! Sorry for the out-of-orderness)

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! We’re now in route to Bolivia, sitting in the transit lounge in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Neil and I were amazingly lucky to have my parents and sister, Lavelle, join us for two weeks over the Christmas holidays. We spent four of our days together in Damascus, during which we were generously hosted for dinner by the family of my friend Fadwa. I met Fadwa last year, during a week spent considering “eHealth” amidst the beauty of Bellagio, Italy. Fadwa has been in charge of Syria’s “health information system”—putting computer systems in place country-wide to track birth, death, disease burden, etc. Fadwa is feisty, dedicated, purposeful, humorous, courageous, loyal, honest, collegial. I’m proud to be a colleague of hers in global health. I want to tell you the story of my friend Fadwa’s family, especially her father.

In 1948, when Israel became a state, Fadwa’s grandparents were told by the British authorities in Palestine that, for their safety they should leave—probably just for 2-3 weeks, during the war. Having 8 children, they complied, expecting to return very soon and thus not taking their valuables, significant money, or titles to property. They had been a wealthy family, but as the reality sunk in that they weren’t going back anytime soon, their father took a job pumping gas. This didn’t bring in enough money to care for the large family. So it was decided—of the 8 kids, the two girls wouldn’t go to school. And of the remaining six boys, only three could study. To be fair, Fadwa’s grandparents put their six sons’ names “into a hat” and drew three names. Fadwa’s father, it was decided, would not go to school. He became a barber, another brother a tailor. Of those who studied, two studied math and one economics. Fadwa’s father taught himself German on the side.

Fast forward, then, to when Fadwa’s brothers were in school. Living in Syria, they are allowed full access to government services (e.g., education, health, etc.) though they are not given Syrian passports (since this would conflict with Syria’s official stance that Palestinians must be re-established within a Palestinian state). As for feisty Fadwa, at about age 11, she fought with an unreasonable French teacher and so demanded of her parents that she go to a school that didn’t teach French. The nearest school meeting that requirement was a school specifically run for Palestinian refugees—so that’s where Fadwa went. Fadwa’s brothers occasionally came home with less-than-stellar report cards. And as happens, history mixed with family dynamics, and her father was angered by their lack of dedication—since he had not himself had the chance to study. Fast forward further, then, to the Iraq war—when Fadwa’s father, watching TV over dinner, dropped all the food off the table in his rage at seeing repeated what had so dramatically affected his own life.

When my family ate with Fadwa and her parents, we were given slippers for our feet, generously and delightfully served mounds and mounds of food that had been lovingly prepared by her mother. Humor and good will surmounted our partial language barriers, and we felt tremendously loved by all of them. They were honest about opinions on world issues, religion (on which Fadwa and her dad see differently), and careful to prepare medicinal tea for our sore throats. We got to see the family pictures, see their apartment that has been home for 35 years (Fadwa: “My parents asked when we were little if we wanted to move to a different house, but we couldn’t imagine not living here!!”), meet their fish, and taste the candied eggplant delicacy Fadwa’s mother makes (a very time-consuming process).

My family has long known people from the Middle East, are familiar with the injuries if not the politics of the region. And yet that day made an impression on me by putting a face—my friend Fadwa’s face, and her dad’s—into the “his-story” of Palestine. It doesn’t provide any solutions, only compassion and a reminder that the big stories of the news, are the big stories of people’s lives. And with that, comes a renewed accountability to engage, to share my thoughts, to help my own community be aware and be accountable, especially given America’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (More on this below.) Such as here, with this blog. Now you, reader, are anointed too, to be interested, engaged, educated and influential.

What impressions of Syria do I leave with? That the people are fabulous, the food is great, and the country is, well, getting there. There is a lot of optimism, increasing foreign investment. It’s easier to buy a car than before. Despite some economic downturn relative as throughout the world, in general, people are vibrant, have things to do and are productive. At the same time, there is still some fear—for example, that the police might think us spies and question our Syrian friends. (Beyond one straight-forward phone call, we never knew it if the police were following us.) Kurdish people living in Syria also feel marginalized. And there’s nervousness about getting too interested in US and European news, issues, politics. American policy does cause problems for Syria and Syrians, both directly and indirectly. One friend’s business is losing customers as it can no longer import small light-bulbs for cars from the Hungarian producer since US-based GE has bought that producer and thus the product is sanctioned. Another friend whose beautiful manufacturing facility produces dental anesthesia won’t even consider US markets partly because of US trade relations. US support for Israel is a constant thorn in the flesh for Syrians. Numerous times a day, we were engaged in conversations re: Bush or Obama and why the US policy is what it is.

As I described above, I do walk away with a renewed desire to take the risks (like this one) of sharing my perspective, of seeking to influence US policy in the Middle East toward greater alignment with fairness and human rights. However, I’d also like to venture a perspective for Syria, based admittedly on a brief stay. There is still deep, huge resentment toward Israel especially for the 1967 war where they took the Golan Heights from Syria. I would hope for Syria that they are able to negotiate a resolution internally if not internationally. As we traveled to Jordan, our Syrian friends told how wonderful Jordan was (there’s great malls, people are educated, the place is clean, the roads are good), and they were right. When we traveled to Turkey, it was the same (the bathrooms cleaner, the offices more professional, the shops more organized). Syria has different challenges (and a much larger population), but one of those challenges seems to be a willingness to bargain a piece of their future, for their past—to compromise how progressive they can be by holding out for something that may not come. I want the best for Syria, for all of our wonderful friends who enjoy the rich life but also struggle with the daily realities of living in a country where you’ve got to be a bit of a fighter to get ahead. So I hope that Syria will engage in the best solution regarding Israel and Palestine that it can, and then resolve to look more forward than backward. I sincerely hope that this perspective isn’t hurtful to any of my Syrian friends reading this blog, I offer it with all good will for them and for Syria.

So we’ve now packed up and moved on from Syria. I’ve decided that our plan of moving countries every three months was an invitation to have my heart somewhat broken every three months. It’s always hard for me to say good-bye to people who have, despite language barriers, the awkwardness of difference in culture or religion, and in some cases deep fear / suspicion, opened themselves to us with generosity, candor, humor, patience, and good will. I will remember so many wonderful people and their fond farewells, including:
• A last farewell dinner with friends (with kids coming in from karate)—delicious as ever with mujederra, fried potatoes, fried cauliflower, hummus, salad, boiled eggs, bread.
• Gifts from our neighbors—two coffee cups, two little jewelry boxes, a Kleenex box decorator, a bottle of baby powder from their 11-year-old’s work place (he fills these bottles to support the family, instead of going to school). And his willingness to take the injured bird from us (despite his mis-led efforts to bilk us out of $50 for two weeks of bird food), and care for it until it can be safely released.
• Fancy hot chocolate drinks, saying fond farewells to the “young hip crowd” we were generously included in.
• The carpenter and his kids with gifts of Arabesque geometric designs.
• Lunch with Ahmad and his sisters, and a coincidental “farewell on the bus” with Nour.
• Very fond text or voice messages from Judy, Bushra, Ahmad, Abdel, Mohammed, and others.
• Leaving Syria in convenience, comfort and style with a friend who took us to Turkey for a flight to Ankara

I now am excited about our next stop, Bolivia, with warmer climate, Spanish language (Roman characters—yeah!!), higher altitude, less concern re: modesty, and hopefully hot showers.

Bolivia - First Glimpses (by Neil)

“There is another world, but is in this one.” - W. B. Yeats

Bolivia es bueno. The transition from Syria has brought us to a culture a world (well a half-world) away.

Woman here display hair and legs and belly-buttons and cleavage all of which can be seen from the vantage of my wi-fi connected park bench. Of course we have also changed hemispheres so we have jumped from the cold of winter to the sun-burning skies of Bolivia.
The weather here in Sucre has been sublime – hard to imagine better – as we have blue skies now with cotton candy clouds. Yvette and I have been here one week and stayed at a sweet little guest house with vibrant paint colors, a charming host family, a great little communal kitchen, a fascinated throughput of travelers, and a well stocked library of pirated movies (as far as I can tell there are no others available…) I really enjoyed Doubt and found it thought provoking.

Last week I did 5 hours of Spanish lessons a day – an hour of individual lessons at 7 a.m., and then a 4 hour group class from 8:30 – 12:30. This next week I’m planning to cut back a bit and do 3 hours a day of individual lessons. Yvette, whose Spanish is far superior to mine, is also doing 3 hours a day of individual lessons and so that adds structure to our mornings.
The only thing to complain about has been that my bed (our room has two singles) is rather cup shaped and morning finds my back urging me to move towards vertical – which is good in that it has moved me to explore the city early in the morning and be up around 5:30 a.m… This morning I had studied my Spanish, drawn a picture, read a novella, and explored the Mercado campesino before Yvette managed to rouse herself.

The village market here is amazing for its breadth of offerings and geographic coverage… block upon block of potatoes, onions, mountains of bananas and plantains, baskets of grapes from the vineyards lined and covered with grape leaves, piles of melons, rows upon rows of carcasses and meats and cuts and innards, flower stalls, bountiful juice stands, corn and maize…. I bought some bright pink and yellow colored potatoes and purple fingerlings to cook up for lunch with some green beans and onions.

Our big news of the week is that we have rented a house here for the next 3 months. We traipsed the streets yesterday and navigated the local phone system – pop into a stall at an internet or phone store and make your local call (dial 0 first if it is a cell phone number – starts with 7). Our initially halting Spanish monologue became quite polished by the end: “We saw your ad in the paper for an apartment? We are Americans? Is it still available? Is it furnished? Can we see it? When can we see it? Thanks! See you at 4:30 this afternoon.” We looked at 10 houses and found a cute furnished apartment of a lawyer (formerly a judge) who is moving to Santa Cruz to practice corporate law. She is fluent in English and was fair and helpful in answering all our questions. $250/month is hard to beat (although we looked at ones that were as little as $70/month) for a cute place in a UNESCO World Heritage city – 4 blocks from the city center.

For some reason this last paragraph is being written at 4:30 a.m. having just watched Million Dollar Baby… I think I like Clint Eastwood better with each new movie he is involved in. The epilogue to our day yesterday was a funeral service at the Sucre Cemetary with hundreds of people in attendance and a mariachi band (or at least that style of dress and instruments) playing and singing funeral dirges – as the procession made its way from the gates of the cemetery to the vaulted crypt. We watched as they slid the coffin into the cement cubicle – 10’ off the ground – and cemented a coverplate over the front and plastered and stenciled the deceased’s name and filled the niche to overflowing with flowers. We both cried a few tears contemplating the sting of mortality and the loss of love ones – and the fear, as Yvette eloquently said, not of death, but that we might not live well enough. Because we don’t say it enough – to those friends and family who read this – we love you and all the quirks, memories, awkward moments, foibles, laughter, and richness you have made with us. We aren’t great at keeping in touch, especially when we are separated geographically, but we are often reflective and few hours pass by that things in our exotic other place here in Bolivia don’t remind us of loved ones or memories. Just yesterday we thought of Brian K and his guitar, of TJ and Susan and the Costa Rican Beach, of Debbie and Carlos and their beautiful family, of Lisa and her organized vacations, of Alan and Jane and their experience at Berkeley, of Sydney and her embracing of Common Ground, of Linda and John and their thoughtful engagement through travel, of Becky, of backpackers, of January birthdays – sorry Wayne, of Mari and Aiden, of our parents, of so many others… I like the quote I began this entry with, that I lifted from the front of True Confessions of a Part-Time Indian, I think this world contains many worlds – and we are blessed to be here – talking politics, feeding pigeons, pondering llama fetuses, visiting lunar landscapes, buying flowers, eating chocolate, negotiating for humintas, renting a house, watching babies be swaddled with packing straps into a papoose… The similarities in our humanity and sadly our inhumanity are much greater than the differences. We look forward to seeing all of you and know that we don’t have to travel far to live, to love, to grow. Vida mis amigos simpaticos. Hasta pronto.

Olive Trees and Burls and a Bowl and a Spoon – Syrian Labors (Neil)

My language ability keeps me from being able to communicate the ideas that I would like to, and thus I am assumed to be the maturity level of my language – namely a babbling toddler. It is the great frustration of being in a country where I am not fluent.

I voiced to someone that I wanted to work with a farmer for a day – I had visions of sheep and livestock, but ended up out at the olive orchard. The 10 workers shaking down the trees were all women, while the 3 men seemed set themselves to daily prayers, tea drinking and talking – interspersed with bouts of driving the pickup around. Actually for the men was reserved some difficult of removing burled and old root masses from the trees to allow new roots to grow and bring in water for the tree. The owner of the orchard, Abdul Rachman, had just had a surgery in Jordan, and the other man was lazy or tired and taking it easy by the time I reached there. So I had plenty of opportunity to swing the sledge and work my hands raw. Towards the end of my 2 hours there, we ate and my ride declared it was time to head back. I decided that I would go back the next day and take Yvette with me as there is something very connecting to a place about working in it. I took one of the burls with me to remember the experience and perhaps make into a bowl or sculpture.

The next day I did return and brought food for the crew – that was a fun shopping experience. I also developed an appreciation (through the lack of one) of a balanced sledge hammer with a straight and smooth handle that doesn’t twist in ones hands. I was a fine mess by the time the big burly worker arrived with calluses the thickness of my hands, but now 1 month on my hands have returned to their untoughened selves... while the connections formed by work remain strong and vivid.

The olive wood burl had grown over the last 150 years, and having hacked it out of the earth I saw the beauty in its twists and turns and gnarls. It takes time to appreciate this type of beauty – it is the beauty of working hands, of fisherman faces shaped by a life of facing into the saltwater and sun, it is found in the patina of Italian stones taking their knocks since antiquity.

As we neared the end of our Syrian sojourn, we finally met our neighbor - the artist who had painted our room and restored much of our house. His house was lovely with carved plaster work, paintings, calligraphy, a stalactite decoration commom since the Syrian Ayyubid era, a 16 meter deep well and well chosen artifacts, textiles and art pieces adorning the walls and niches … We had tried to look at this home before, but had no response from our phone calls, emails, and notes left on the door. It turned out he was in Spain with his Spanish wife, but by coincidence we ended up renting a house 3 doors down from his in the old city.

I wanted to turn the burl into a bowl and found a shop with a band saw to begin the project by flattening one side. It turns out our neighbor – Achmed #101 as we came to know him – has a brother who is a wood turner and a phone call or two later found me with the lump of burl riding through the city streets to a back alley shop with a 3” padlock and 4 lathes and wood shavings aplenty. In the end I think my language ability had pegged my competence level around 7 years old, and so I wasn’t entrusted with the gouges and chippers that pared down the burl to a 9” bowl.

And while my skill level on a lathe definitely couldn’t match his, my carefulness would have compensated his cavalier-ness… I spied some calipers on the wall, and had even gotten them down, but in the end they weren’t used and the bottom was thinned two much for the jam to have structurally integrity. The gouge caught some of the twisted grain and torque the center of the bowl out of the wood. A dime sized whole now present in the bottom as though to drain a plant. I hid my disappointment and I think he hid his as well and we agreed that we would call it a feature – make up a story to tell of its function rather than admit the carelessness and the flawed execution of the desired product.

The olive wood smells of Mediterranean cuisine and begs one to just add tomatoes and crushed salt and basil to its aromas. It burns wonderfully as well – a fate that most of this burl’s neighbors endured after a lifetime of giving water – an irony of all wood destined for the flames really. I saved a small chunk from the burl that had been band sawed off to make a spoon to accompany the bowl, and my last full day in Syria I got the chance.

Achmed #101 had also introduced us to a master carpenter who specializes in Arabesque. He is an artist with wood, a humble, diligent and knowledgeable craftsman. I asked if I might work with him for a day, and he welcomed me to his shop, and although my language skills continue to bring my competence into question, he eventually entrusted me with the saws and I spent 6 hours table sawing, band sawing, chop sawing, and shaping 120 Arabesque mahogany pieces for a panel they were working on. My day was interspersed with lessons on the crosscutting, food and drink, band saw blade sharpening, coiling and uncoiling the 12 foot blade, using compasses and dividers for layout, jigs for making repetitive angular cuts, tips for avoiding tear-out, antique woodwork show-and-tells of the deteriorating 200 year old door panel he was commissioned to reconstruct using the same joinery techniques. That day was capped by an evening at his house – joined by Yvette and her family – where we were served up khanoon music and singing and dancing and food. The source of the carpenter’s compassion and sparkle evident in his parents faces who joined us and laughed and danced and urged us on to eat and sing and communicate and photograph.

The carpenter gave me an open invitation to come back. I arranged my last day to skip out on the final walk-through and financial settling of accounts with our landlord of our house so that I could spend 3 more hours in his shop. I brought my wooden burl with me that I wanted to turn into a spoon, and this soon became the project of the morning. He helped and supervised me and it felt like shop class as he suggested ways for me to make the saw take only the wood… In the next phase of the project he pulled from a drawer an old gouge and after watching my technique, sharpened it and gave me a few pointers. By then he had started to make a giant spoon, showing me how he would rough it out of a 3” log and stopping at each step to check with me as to the shape it should be and if that was what I wanted (my language skills not good enough to say that I only wanted one spoon – a memory more than a utensil, but of course I was getting a lesson and a memory which was doubly valuable to me).

The spoon is with me now, the bowl having made its way with family back to the states to await reunion in June. The spoon is very rough. I still need to work the edges and gouge out some more, but time did not permit a finished product my last day… But the memory of work on the trees, and the wood, and the bowl, and my spoon – one of my few tangibly productive acts in Syria – reminds me that work is a gift that connects us and imbues us with meaning and gives an outlet for creativity and creates things of beauty and develops our character and our friendships, and that I have been blessed throughout my life to have it.

Our Ponytails -- by Yvette

Our Ponytails

I see us in the children here.
My sisters and me, ages one, four, five
Onion tops, or front of head “goat horn” dos.
Pale, thin skin, large impish eyes
Sun-drenched against backdrops of rooftops, desert, haze.

Why did they come? And how did they feel, my young parents?
Learning new names, new faces, new foods I learn now—menaeesh, beitenjan, labneh, benadura.
Navigating playmates, home repair, pastoral visits, emergencies, impish children, nosy neighbors,
With fondness undimmed by foreign-ness.

The accents, customs, and foods of Syria feel like an old aunt.
Safety, comfort, with occasional self-consciousness, funny clothes, or bad breath,
Learned and felt mostly second-hand through my parents.

Finger-bunched motion of “stanna swaya” held out the windows of impatient taxis.
“Ya habibi!!” to the child who runs in front of a cart on a cobble-stoned street.
“Hemar!!” to the other stupid driver.
Plentiful sweet orange juice and creamy labneh.
And the generosity of the Armenian lady who put down her groceries and took us half-a-mile away to the best foul medemas shop, just because we asked where to get some for breakfast—all along jabbering in Arabic and apologizing that her own house was too small.

Learnings and Jordan observations - by Yvette

When one takes a “midlife crises pre-children” kind of round-the-world trip, it seems that there are deep, meaningful, abstract lessons one should learn. My original dreaming about this trip included words like “spontaneity,” “aesthetic,” “art,” “creativity,” “self-expansion.” And yes, in their own messy way, those ideas are being explored. But there are some more immediate lessons I’ve learned recently which I’d like to share:

1) Chinese suction cups suck—or, rather, they don’t suck enough. Our potholders keep falling from their suction-cupped-to-the-tile vantage point. Much more significantly, our $2 tub-bottom anti-slip mat has a similar effect as a slimy banana peel. As I sat in the bottom of the tub with the shower raining down on me, trying to secure the suction cups yet again and rubbing my bruised shoulder, it took no imagination to ponder what it must be like to be elderly and afraid of falling in the tub. (The mat has now been demoted to use as a rug on the dry floor.)

2) Building codes rock. Okay, so we’ve violated them before. However, now that we’ve a) melted our heater plug twice; b) blown a hole in the side of a lightbulb we were trying to screw in (even worse, this didn’t throw the breaker); c) melted the plug our mostly-gas stove is plugged into (the broiler is electric, go figure); d) enjoyed a show of sparks any time we plug anything in, we’ve decided that housing codes are good things. We’re still going through light bulbs at a rapid rate, but that may relate to item #1 above—made in China.

3) Peeled garlic stinks. Initially, the only garlic we could find came pre-peeled, by the kilo. Now, I like garlic, but even so. . . The plastic bag did little to contain the smell, and soon everything in our fridge (yoghurt, milk, left-over pudding from the night before) smelled like garlic. We attempted a rubber-gasket glass jar, the garlic still escaped. We ate it in everything we could, by the handful. We’ve now found unpeeled garlic—who knew that those peels were so much more effective than modern plastic or glass, in keeping the smell in until one really wants to include garlic in what one is eating.

4) Hot and cold proportions are surprising. When bathing from water one has heated on the stove, the appropriate proportions of hot and cold are surprising. For example, one might think one should fill the bucket with half ice cold water from the tap, and half hot water from the steaming pan one has just carefully carried up the stairs to the bathroom. One would be wrong, painfully wrong.
5) Shopping for jeans is hard. On the Southeast Asia tourist route, most women are dressed in very cool Capri pants and short-sleeved, v-necked t-shirts. Not so true in Syria. Capri pants turn every head in our neighborhood (well, the women try to be discreetly in following you with their eyes, but fail, even from behind a veil)—wow, they scream, there’s ankles here!!! Similarly so with a v-neck. I think people try to be respectful, but it’s hard to gawk respectfully, and, well, I’m foreign enough already (note the uncovered hair), that dressing this way just makes me an easy target to stare at. So, I decide that a second pair of jeans would be a good plan. Okay, so shopping for jeans is hard in the US as well. But here, the challenging factors include that almost all the shopkeepers are men who either try to be helpful or just scrutinize you while you shop—both of these are end up feeling like an ambush anytime one walks into a store. Further, Syrian thighs—not to mention current fashion trends—seem to suggest that all legs are bird-like. My grandfather was a Swiss dairy farmer and thus my thighs are not bird-like. Most of the jeans are very bling-ey, with silver thread and sequins all over the hips and pickets, some more attractive than others. And then there’s the whole price issue. Prices are negotiable in almost every shop. My 13-year-old neighbor assures me I shouldn’t pay more than SP 500 (about $10), but the prices seem to range from there to $80 jeans in the local fancy mall. Ergh. So the shopping sagas I’ve not talked about? A) peanut butter; B) camel meat, this the shop keeper’s idea and not our own; C) parts for our broken toilet; D) bikini line waxing.

Jordan . . .
Our five-day trip to Jordan was really great. We’d gotten a rough translation of the itinerary, but each new day was largely a mystery. Much more spontaneous that way. . . .

Favorites . . . we saw a lot in our 5 days, but I’ll not list everything. Here are a few faves from the trip: 1) Mt. Nebo, from which Moses saw the Promised Land and was then taken to heaven. Beautiful, peaceful, mountain with a lovely breeze and sweeping views. I hope it was a less-hazy day for Moses than it was for us, but even so we were able to see the Dead Sea, the Golan Heights, the suburbs of Amman from here. 2) Wadi Rum – beautiful desert protected area where we rode jeeps (the sun was setting, it was cold!), played football with the Bedouin kids, tried to pet protesting camels, and succeeded in petting baby goats. 3) Madaba -- mosaic of the world’s earliest / largest map, mosaics everywhere were very cool, but this one especially. 4) Jarash – ancient Roman city, a lot of it still intact. Two large theaters (love that), long colonnaded streets and circular plazas, temples to Zeus or Artemis. 5) Petra – of course, fascinating. The site is amazing. Favorite things there beyond the obvious, were the handsomely-decked-out Bedouin policeman we got our picture with, the camels we rode on (first time), and the music being played / sung out from one of the lookout towers, by the church that we hiked to on the far end of Petra. (Petra is where we were the “late ones” back to the bus—sorry, Mary!) 6) Aqaba – A very touristy, somewhat glitzy, party city. I believe 90% of people there are foreigners, it’s a duty-free zone within Jordan, situated on the beautiful blue of the Red Sea (go figure) just across from Israel. We went on glass bottom boats, didn’t see too many fish, but nice to be out on the blue water in the sunshine and the breeze.

Differences with Syria . . . I like that, during this trip, we’re learning about the nuanced differences between places by experience and exposure. Jordan has more friendly relations with the west – evidenced in the Burger King, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Starbucks that we saw there. There are some quite fancy malls (also one in Aleppo, but smaller). The roads seem a bit better, and the infrastructure in general a bit better / cleaner / well-repaired. Some have told us that Jordan’s put their bet on education—such as, the taxi driver may have a university degree and speak English. However, he’s working as a taxi driver. Being one of the smallest Middle Eastern countries by population, I wonder if it can “afford” to invest in things other than defense, etc. It also has been blessed, it seems, with relatively good governance by the royal family. That said, it’s also the country with the longest border to Israel—and it does have a very visible military / police presence. We visited the Jordan River, site where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, and just 20 feet across the river there is Israel—with a large flag and visitor’s center. I watched another tourist on the Jordanian side as she realized that was Israel, responding with a sniff and, it seemed, “well, I don’t need to go any closer, then.” There seemed a combined fascination, fear, and irritation among our group as various tour guides pointed out which lights were Israel, beyond which set of trees, etc. Syria is still formally at war with Israel, and Syrians cannot go to Israel even if they wanted to.

Swimming. . . we got to swim in the Dead Sea (more a matter of “bobbing” than swimming), the Red Sea (I waded, Neil swam and saw some nice fish while holding to his face a child’s snorkel set which was too small to fit), and thermal hot springs. How does this work in a Muslim culture, we were eager to know. Well, all the women say they’ll swim but nearly all end up wading. Those who do swim generally wear covering (depending on the sophistication of their swimming gear, could be lycra swim suits, or just pants and a shirt) from ankle to wrist to neck). At the thermal springs, there was a “women only” area with high walls, in which the women still wore at least a swim suit with skirty-thing and biker-type shorts beneath, but there they uncovered their hair. My questions were graciously answered by many female friends.

New friends . . . Several wonderful new friends looked out for us: Moona (who shared much better food than we shared with her, loaned us sweaters when we were cold, laughed a lot, tolerated and even tried to understand our bad Arabic, practiced reading with us (she’s a grandma so I think this came naturally), argued with the bathroom guy who charged me 5 times what others were paying and got my money back. Rami (grad student in archeological restoration and conservation, good photographer, co-leader of the trip; he always made sure we knew when / where to go, ensured we were back on the bus, shared pictures and photo tips back-and-forth with Neil, told us how mosaics were preserved, and laughed at our bad jokes); Anita (young business-woman, hip-ster, fashionista, shopper, bathroom groupie); Myrna (young French teacher, photographer and picture-poser ad infinitum, sub-group organizer (dinner together back in Aleppo one week from tonight, okay?), who brought smiles, humor, beauty, grace, enthusiasm), Julie and Joaquim (Canadian and German couple working in Aleppo on water infrastructure, we shared expat stories, a distaste for high-volume Arabic music and yet another shopping mall stop, and together navigated the Jordan visa lines for foreigners). Others on the bus became less shy over the days, and were very helpful in translating a few facts about what we were seeing, or telling us when we were to be at breakfast, how many hours we had at Petra, whether to bring our swimsuits and/or a jacket, when to be back at the bus when we stopped at the mall, etc. Great group of people.

Jordan (by Neil)

We are now half-way into our whirlwind Jordan tour. We stayed last night in Aqaba and after failing to find the seashore last night we were greeted by a great view of the bay this morning with tankers in floating in the gulf and the sun striking the water. After typical hotel breakfast chaos – no clean glasses, running out of orange juice, trying to find a place to sit, we headed out to the Red Sea for a glass bottom boat ride – I saw a fish or two, but the people watching was better than the fish. The Israel-Jordan border and checkpoints were clearly visible, and it was interesting to watch our Syrian friends’ reactions to the proximity to a country they consider to be an enemy and occupier of their territory.

After the boat ride we visited a small aquarium and got to see a few more creatures up close and personal. A small sea turtle making the rounds in his tank, a very dashing looking octopus flashing different colors and putting on quite a display, along with a downright dapperly dressed green fish with radiating orangish-pink lines from his eye and a showy tail fin like that of a beta. As tours often do we were packing it in, and the next thing on the agenda was a stop at a beach - for an hour. I took the chance to swim and buy a cheap snorkel. The snorkel band was kid’s sized and wouldn’t fit over my head, so I just had to hold it onto my face and hope that my mouth could hold the breathing tube upright… I ingested too much sea water, but the fish that I saw were really beautiful and I like seeing them in the open water better than the aquarium.

From the beach we headed for Wadi Rum – a truly impressive desert valley. The monoliths are huge and rise out of the sandy valley. The sun was painting them in golden hues as we arrived and soon it brought out its red brush and shadow tools for a desert sunset. We jeeped out to some Bedouin tents and a place to walk about a bit. I ended up playing soccer with some runny-nosed kids who were all toting plastic guns and asking me for a dollar to take a picture. I ignored the latter request, and they soon were posing for me and getting in the way of the camel pictures I was hoping to take against the landscape. Yvette, Julie and Joachim came over and we all went over by the fold that held the cute little goat kids – about 30 of them or so with the youngest being 5 days old or so. They were springy-legged little things, and the one I picked up decided to snack a bit on my shirt.

As dusk gave way to night we have headed back to Aqaba and are now at the mall. We will go shopping for the next 2 hours or so, but I would rather be looking at the stars in the desert.

Lattakia (by Neil)

I swam in the Mediterranean today in Lattakia (that is ancient Laodicea) , and I am pleased to announce that it is lukewarm. Just as the apostle Paul complained about years ago. We are here for 2 days with a newly made friend and two of his children – staying at their vacation apartment on the sea. The end of November is nearing, so the tourists and summer vacationers are all gone and only a few weekend warriors such as ourselves were out on the terraced balconies.

This morning I sketched the sea and the adjacent villa, and painted it in the afternoon. In the interim we attended Friday prayers at the local mosque. I have asked a number of questions about Islam and now have a pending engagement with an English speaking Imam to talk with me as well as a Quran in English and a set of commentaries – about 10” worth of books I think.

Today was my first time to be in a mosque during the actual prayer time and to witness the collective prayer and worship service. The imam was impressive in his flowing beige robe and impeccable head wrap. He was articulate and expressive and told a number of stories to illustrate his points. I sat near the back which was lined with chairs for those too infirmed to be able to fully kneel down and bow their foreheads to the ground. They were full of character and the usual indiscretion of loud voices (thought perhaps to be a whisper) that comes with old age and hearing loss. One of my favorite scenes was of the room full of men, aligned and facing east, ready to communally pray. One small girl was there with her father and she was the only one I saw bobbing about with her head back and forth and twisting impatiently. I wish I could download the copy of my mental videotape to be able to share it with you.

After driving about in Lattakia, we came back home and I took a swim in the sea in my jeans as I hadn’t packed my swimming trunks (and it was a bit spontaneous after discovering mildly warm water)… We had a good conversation tonight about Syrian education, music and art in Islam, domestic violence and gender roles, and more personal goals for us and our families.

One of the dubious thoughts put forward was around the sin of a woman dressing overly sexually. Yvette asked if it is equally wrong for the man and the woman, and our host answered “no, it is worse for the woman.” Each man who looks and lusts has a mark against him, and she has a mark against her for each man that looks and lusts about her, so if her dress causes 100 men to look and lust after her, she may have 100 marks against her, whereas they each have 1.” Yvette felt this was dubious logic at best.