Making friends in Syria: dead easy

People in Syria are bloody friendly. This cannot be overstated. Strangers talk to you all the time. Where are you from? What are you doing in Syria? You welcome. You ask for directions and people escort you to your location, buying you a pastry or a cup of tea on the way. People come up to me all the time and ask me if I want to be their friend. It’s not personal. They just like making friends. Part of it is that young Syrians in particular are really curious about the Western world and Western perceptions of Syria/the Middle East, so they hypnotically gravitate towards foreigners.

One man I met on a bus talked to me incessantly about God and various quite technical religious issues (the different kinds of hell and what have you); it was really a one-way affair, but I liked the innocent way his face lit up when he talked about it so I let him go on for longer than I would normally. At the end of it, he hugged me tightly and then kissed me about five times. Then he kissed my head and told me he loved me. Perhaps sensing my confusion, he said:
- Do you know why? Because you are a human being. And I want you to go to heaven.

It would be easy to laugh but I thought this was quite sweet. Beneath the dogma, there were warm, universal human thoughts and feelings. It can be easy to forget this about religion and religious people. Perhaps the sunshine had softened up my brain but I enjoyed this little exchange. After the hug (I don’t think I told him I loved him back) we stood there for a while longer, in silence and then he added:
- You know, it really upsets me when people go to the fire. It hurts me so much. Why do they do it?

I thought about it. I told him that it was good of him to care but he could only do so much; he couldn’t help everyone. This really pleased him and he gave me another big hug. I felt like I’d turned a sermon into a tiny conversation.