The Whale

"Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver, - So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the south - wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too particular."


At various points along my ten hour bus journey from Philadelphia to New Bedford, Massachusetts last Friday, I was nagged by a persistent feeling that I’d heard the name of my destination somewhere before.

It was a long journey with several stops on the way. My last stop before New Bedford was Providence, Rhode Island. As I had an hour before my bus left, I decided to take an impromptu tour around the enchantingly named capital of Rhode Island, which is the smallest US state. From the perspective of an aimless, completely uninformed wanderer with an hour to spare (on Friday early evening), the centre of Providence was a slightly bizarre place. Despite an appropriately metropolitan backdrop of appropriately grandiose public buildings, clean streets, pretty shops, take-away chains, churches etc, the streets were disconcertingly devoid of people. The few representatives of Providence that were out and about were hard to square with both each other and their environment. Right by the station muscled, topless (male) teenagers were artfully combining casual aimless hanging out with multiple somersaults; by a nearby fountain, toddlers ran around parents who, spliff in hand, would pick them up and thrown them in the air playfully. Young, vaguely bookish types, presumably students at Brown, the Ivy League university based in Providence, would occasionally scuttle in and out of view. Brown is Providence’s second largest employer. The fact that school hadn’t started yet was probably important context.

On the way back I came through Providence again, but this time I got to spend an afternoon with some cool Providence residents. They were the kind of charming people who seemed to effortlessly weave a life of interesting ideas and meaningful productive activity into a sluggish, messy pace of existence. One was a musician-cum-hotel worker; another two worked with unions in the area and all seemed enviably attuned to their environment. Among the highlights of my afternoon was a ‘Monte Cristo sandwich’, apparently of (at least) regional renown. The sandwich was composed of ham, swiss cheese and a fried egg - inside French toast no less - and with a smattering of maple syrup. My inherently conservative, risk-averse British brain was initially resistant to such a brazen example of American sandwich-making maximalism (“we will take the egg and the cheese and the maple syrup”) but, with some slight prodding from my hosts I took the plunge and was thoroughly impressed. I was also treated to a quick trip to a beach enclosed in a beautiful stretch of nature that is owned by one of Providence’s art colleges (such grandly utopian set-ups are typical of the US’ private higher educational institutions, many of which seem to be drowning in money).

In between my times in Providence, I was visiting a friend from Syria who was staying in Fairhaven, Boston, next door to New Bedford which, I was quickly reminded, is the first place Moby Dick’s protagonist heads to in search of whaling action. Ishmael, as he asks to be called, is the man quoted above displaying the kind of honourable abstemiousness you’d expect of a good sailor. New Bedford, where I ended my bum-numbing bus journey, greeted me with more hospitality than it did old Ishmael as I had a car waiting for me ready to transport me to warmth, food and beer by the sea in Fairhaven.

In the end, Ishmael sailed not from New Bedford but from nearby Nantucket, which historically had been New Bedford’s main competitor for whaling. In Moby Dick, Ishmael chooses Nantucket in spite of New Bedford’s evident leading market position in the whaling business, because Nantucket, in his view, was “her great original”.

New Bedford’s glory days are of course well and truly in the past. With the disappearance of whaling and the rapid shrinking of New Bedford’s manufacturing industries, the city has been in a historical decline for decades. Melville’s novel, comfortably perched atop the modern American literary canon, offers a poignant immortalisation of the Whaling City's past glories, all the more so in view of the current state of affairs in New Bedford. A satisfyingly measurable index of social deprivation offered itself in the observation that, in the one hour my hosts had spent waiting for me at New Bedford bus station, they overheard an entire drug deal from start to finish.

There was, in my time in both Fairhaven and Providence, an unmistakable common theme of once-great American towns and cities traumatised by the gutting of a historic trade or manufacturing base. Providence’s textile mills, once the mainstay of its thriving textile industry, face a typically post-industrial, compromised existence as either conversions to modern apartments or homes to small, local businesses, some of which recall Providence’s heyday as second-hand clothes stores or costume shops. Sometimes the future would seem a lot more straightforward if the past wasn’t still around, casting its pesky long shadow.

It’s been a year!

So….it is the 13th of December. Two days ago was the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Syria. About a week ago, it rained in Syria for the first time this year. Yesterday, it started snowing. And didn’t stop. I was told by a 26-year old Syria colleague that she had never seen this much snow in her entire life in Syria.

Currently I am sitting in the American Language Centre in Damascus, where I teach English part-time, typing away frantically on my laptop. The main reason I am here is that there has been no electricity in my house since last night, so I am using the ALC’s miraculously resilient electricity supply to ‘fill up’ my laptop and phone, before they close for the day at noon. Also, the ALC has some strange set-up with its internet connection which means that you are able to access sites that are otherwise inaccessible in Damascus, such as facebook and - my blog! So I thought I’d spend the 14 minutes remaining until the ALC shuts down to post a quick entry.

After all, it’s been a good five months. In both senses. The tentative equilibrium hinted at in my last entry has developed into a relaxed existence in Damascus that mostly evades my hyperactive attempts to question what exactly I am still doing here. Perhaps this relaxedness is also what has made writing blog entries seem less appealing. Once I’m relaxed, as I normally am in London, I seem to lose interest in maintaining regular communication with people. Nice, right?

On the face of it, the overriding rationale for me being here remains pretty clear. I came to Damascus to study Arabic; I’ve still got a long way to go. I finish my internship with the UNHCR in a couple of weeks and am pretty excited about returning to intense Arabic study.

I decided a few months ago to extend my time in Syria and, in the process of doing so, mercilessly razed a very coherent, clear plan for the next few years of my life that had taken a lot of effort to put in place. There were some very sensible reasons for this; my Arabic was nowhere near as good as I wanted it to be; I wasn’t so sure about the kind of work that the plan obliged to be getting into when I returned to London. However, the momentum for my decision came from somewhere else, really. Living in Damascus, studying Arabic, reading for pleasure, sniffing around in a very different society…. These things together felt exciting enough to warrant a little more of my time and attention.

As a self-confessed man of extremes, I have, I feel, in the past five years or so of my life, become exceedingly, indefatigably sensible. It felt nice to do something just because it felt like the right thing to do (the sensible reasons were of course there as a supporting act - I don’t want to become reckless). I don’t know when this little adventure will peter out, or if it will lead somewhere else, but I feel assured that a life of sensible slogging will not become magically inaccessible at some point.

So in other news I moved house AGAIN about two months ago, although the good news is that I seem to have found an area that is perfect. The part of town I live in is called Muhajereen. It’s leafy (not easy around here), quiet and there are hardly any people around. So far so good. People are conservative, although they (mostly) keep themselves to themselves. It’s also right in the middle of town, close to everything, but on the massive mountain at the north of Damascus (Qasiun), so I have a super view out of my bedroom. Photos will follow shortly.

One of the most funniest things about my time in Syria is the difference between my life as it looks from the outside (calm, relaxed, snacking, reading, moving around nice parts of Damascus) and my internal life (in roughly chronological order: unrelaxed; homesick; study-obsessed; hating Damascus so much I wanted to move somewhere else in the Middle East; and then a slow, gradual falling-in-love with Damascus alongside a re-evaluation of what kind of life I wanted in the immediate future). This is the inverse of what my life has been like recently pre-Syria, with lots of internal stability and equilibrium and lots of changing and new experiences going on outside. I don’t know what the significance is. On the plus side, I sometimes feel like I am a character in a novel. Can’t ask for more than that I suppose.

I am now being accosted by a very gregarious and loud student of mine (last time I saw him, he had taken off his shoes and was throwing milk everywhere) so I should move on. More soon!

a few months on...

It has been a while…

For those in any doubt about the cyclical nature of things, I am writing this entry from Damascus’ Old City, the place I vowed never to return to three months ago. I had spent two months with a Syrian family in the Old City, an initially charming but eventually exasperating experience. Damn novelty - it always gets in the way of actually seeing what’s what. Two months of sleeping with my head by one of Damascus’ busiest streets, being woken every morning by screaming kids/adults and constantly feeling like I was in the way culminated in an intense distaste for the Old City and its horrendously tourist-congested streets. Away!

So for the past three months I had been living in a part of Damascus called ‘Mezze Jebel’ (Mezze mountain) in a nice apartment (with a balcony). Mezze Jebel was very much another side of Damascus. Whereas the Old City was all winding paths, old Arabic houses and the occasional epic Roman arch, Mezze Jebel is a sprawling neighbourhood on a mountain populated by ugly, not-quite-finished-looking apartment blocks. If it appears haphazard, that’s because most of the buildings were built without planning permission and, as such, were built bloody quickly. My neighbour, a divorced man who woke up 11 every day and seemed to be in pyjamas most of the day, was fond of pointing out how his wonderful view was spoilt by the hulk of an apartment block that had been hastily erected in front of our building.

I liked Mezze Jebel. There was absolutely nothing going on - brilliant. Primarily a residential area for lower middle-class Damascenes, it was fantastically unexceptional and, more to the point perhaps, I felt as anonymous as a paving stone. Also I was a short stroll away from ‘Falafel Ala Kaifek’, arguably Damascus’ most famous falafel shop (it’s been around for 40 years according to informed falafel-eaters), where a sandwich that could feed a small family is yours for the equivalent of roughly 50p. Many of my phone conversations with Syrian friends would end with “….do you think you could pick up a sandwich from Falafel Ala Kaifek on the way? Ok…[discussion in background]… actually can you get five?”.

So now I’ve moved back to the Old City; I had to move at short notice after my capricious landlord decided that the sinful arrangement of a man and woman who aren’t married living together was outside his comfort zone. It’s quite a familiar story - in the conservative parts of Damascus (i.e. most of it), neighbours and, more pertinently, landlords assume that their values, which appear incomprehensible to the majority of Westerners, are universal, in casually expecting them to be adhered to end up imposing them on their tenants. It’s strange to come face-to-face with that genre of wilfully idiotic ideas that springs from conservative social values and find yourself unable to laugh them off. Because you’re homeless.

Anyhooo, I am, as I say, back in the Old City and actually I’m rather loving it. I live in a very nice, clean house which manages, I’m not quite sure how, to be smack bang in the middle of the Old City and yet be wonderfully quiet. For example, I left the World Cup final halfway through because, well, I was tired (this was the highly unimpressive culmination of my attempt to generate enthusiasm/interest for the World Cup which, by the way, Syrians were CRAZY about) but, even though I fell asleep outside, I didn’t even know that the game had ended because I didn’t hear a peep - the horn-honking, screaming and general commotion couldn’t scale whatever it was that stood between my lovely new house and the masses. I’m very excited about all this because I am an extremely light sleeper and Syrians are, in general, pretty noisy. Actually I don’t know if I can even justify that national classification - I may just be talking about human beings (who I generally tend to find noisy).

I live with all Arabic speakers which is wondrous, perfect for my Arabic. There are lots of plants everywhere. Overall, it’s great. I feel like I am experiencing the Old City in the manner that I would have expected myself to be experiencing it first time round but for some reason I never seemed to get round to. This means going for pleasant aimless wanders through the web of tiny paths that offer the only way around the majority of the Old City, discovering what lies behind big, wooden doors that reveal nothing from the outside and focusing my mind on my continuing research into Damascene snacks. I seem to have, one way or another, replicated that delicate mix of anonymity and sociableness that I find so irresistible and feel both engaged in an exciting little adventure and able to socialise with interesting people when I fancy it.

As may be evident from the above, life in Damascus is (mercifully) approaching something of an equilibrium after a six month period where it was difficult to pick out a coherent theme or even an idea of what was being aimed for. I’ve embarked on an internship with the UN office here and am writing for a newspaper on the side, which, together with my Arabic lessons, is keeping me nicely busy. My Arabic improved like crazy for about two months but, perhaps because of the excessive ego-stroking that ensued, the pace of development seems to have slackened somewhat. Maybe I have reached the ‘intermediate plateau’ (I think that’s a proper name) but I have certainly noticed that improving has suddenly become harder work - the learning curve has flattened out and I have found myself able to construct sentences but with a vocabulary gap the size of the Pacific Ocean separating me from native speakers. The search is on for some kind of a solution. I suspect that patience may have something to do with it.

In any case, I now live in Damascus. In many ways, I feel like my time here has only just started.

Personal pronouns and far away places

Greetings, me hearties. 

For about a month now, I have been living with a Syrian family in Old Damascus. The main reason for this move was a desire to live in an environment where I could effortlessly practise my Arabic. My family don’t speak English so that has been a success; the family span three generations, but I only really talk to the oldies, as they are very friendly and warm. It’s nice, I get to eat the family’s AMAZING food and am regularly in the vicinity of hyperactive children and doting old women.

I’ve also just finished up my second level at the university, which was at a rather brisker pace than Level 1. Arabic. It’s quite a language. The level of complexity in the grammatical structure borders on the ridiculous. Really. For example, personal pronouns. For our “you” there are no less than five second-person personal pronouns, each of which require a different verb conjugation (in the past, present and imperative form…). In the third person (He, She, They), there are six of them, with a differentiation between a dual female and dual male form that I, for one, can’t imagine anyone using. Ever. In any event there seems to be no room  for the kind of Neanderthal indifference to grammar that is cultivated by the British public education system. Words literally change depending on where they are and what they are doing in the sentence. Although it’s quite enjoyable studying the stuff in many ways  – grammar is very logical and there is a wonderfully satisfying sense of  making out the broader picture of the language.

Also another very important point about Arabic is that, in order to be able to read, write and speak Arabic, I actually have to learn two languages. This is because written (and sometimes very formal spoken) communication takes place in the standard Arabic (foos-ha in Arabic) while oral communication is in the local dialect (or ami’a). And when I say dialect, I don’t mean a charmingly different pronunciation of vowel sounds but, you know, different vocabulary, a different way of conjugating verbs, dropped sounds… Part of the challenge is how to approach this. 

My life continues to be full of change. I am not returning to the university (far too expensive, full of English-speaking people who remind me of the people I wasn’t friends with at university…) and it’s highly likely that, despite the charms of my family home, I will be moving yet again in the near future (my flat is insanely loud and very expensive; I am making enough Syrian friends that the benefit of speaking Arabic at home is less important; also the Old City is nauseatingly chock-a-block with tourists and foreign students). Although I now feel quite settled in Damascus, it’s tricky getting myself to something approaching an equilibrium because I don’t know what exactly I want; it’s more a case of sniffing out what you want more of, what you want less of. Part of the problem was that I hadn’t envisaged exactly what kind of life I was to be leading out here. Not necessarily a huge problem apart from the fact that human nature/the allure of convenience mean that you’re likely to end up following the herd. Which in many ways is exactly what I have done so far, studying at the very popular UoD and living in the Old City, where all the foreign students live. Yuck. Anyway, more change soon come. Don’t know what exactly, but the next few months should be rather different from the previous few… Other than that I’ll still be in Damascus… probably….

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When I was in London at the end of last year, someone asked me if I was having fun; because, they said, adventures always sound fun when you describe them, but that’s not to say that they’re necessarily as fun as they sound when you’re doing them. It’s a great point which touches on so many things; part of it is about the difficulties that arise when you’re trying to create a life that fulfils a certain goal (in my case, learning Arabic and about Syria) without a clearly defined programme of action. There are also the romantic ideas (in the philosophical rather than amorous sense) associated with 'travelling'. I think that even me, with my stereotypically-Generation-X-esque cynicism about things that, you know, other people have done before, couldn’t help but be infected by the temptations of the idea that something magical happens when you cross borders.

Part of the draw of this idea is that, particularly when you are going from your normal, established life to do something completely different, is that, by cutting yourself off from so much that defines you – your friends, family, work, routine, whatever it might be – you are, in a sense, subjecting yourself to a “Who am I exactly?” test. Surely something dramatic could happen then? I suppose it’s possible you could find out that you’re actually a raving sociopath or that you no longer love your wife and kids (etc). I don’t know. When I first came here, I felt a bit nervous. Now I don’t. I’m starting to recognise the re-emergence of characteristically “Admas” patterns of behaviour. Lots of pyjama time. The absence of guilt when turning down social invitations. Taking pleasure in impromptu conversations with strangers. I even got told off for being a copy of the Economist to a nightclub. I’m rather happy about it all.

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At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

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.

Snow

So I went snowboarding on Saturday. After a six-year hiatus, Admas was back on the slopes. I fell over so much (and so violently) I think fellow snow-cruisers began to suspect I was some kind of ski-slope-masochist. I cut something of a clownish figure as I queued for the ski-lifts amidst all the impeccably chic Lebanese skiers with their stylish all-in-ones and Gucci sunglasses. My ski-clothes were rented and didn’t match. I was covered head-to-toe in snow from all my falls. I looked like some kind of badly-dressed snow-monster.

In the end I only managed an afternoon on the slopes. My sampling of Lebanon’s ski scene coincided with the best snow so far this year AND a weekend, so me and my host had the pleasure of being joined by half of Beirut’s ski-ready population (i.e. half of Beirut) on the roads. So what should have been a 60-minute drive took three hours. Also, (the usual disclaimer preceding racist comments applies) Lebanese people are bloody awful drivers, so every traffic-related difficulty was invariably exacerbated by about ten cars trying to go up the one-way road the wrong way at once and blocking the route both ways. Ahhhh.

After passing my Level 1 exams with flying colours, I have just embarked on Level 2 Arabic (each level lasts four weeks and we get a little break in between) and it's great. It really feels quite different from Level 1, which was rather cuddly in comparison. This time, we have two teachers; one focuses on new grammar and vocabulary while the second does speaking and listening. With both teachers there is a noticeably steeper learning curve; far less time is spent going over new material than in Level 1, but both teachers are excellent so (speaking for myself) it feels pretty comfortable. Needless to say, I still feel a million miles away from expressing myself properly in Arabic but, I am told, some things take “time”. A lot of it. In fact this may well prove to be one of the most useful things learning a language is going to teach me: patience. The notion of taking, say, an entire year to do one thing has always generated a fair bit of scepticism in yours truly. 'Surely there's some inefficiency somewhere?' is usually my first thought. No better antidote for such crass impatience than learning something that has to take a long time. One year is the bare minimum for learning a decent chunk of Arabic, I am repeatedly told. If this patience thing goes well I might learn to play an instrument too.

So what else has been going on? I am soon to move in with a Syrian family in Old Damascus. Plus points: lots and lots of Arabic practice every day. Minus points: living in tourist-central and away from the snack-heaven that is Souk Sarouja (my current area).

Some readers of this blog have scornfully inquired as to why there aren't more photos. I have put aside the visceral distaste for photography that can only come with having studied it full-time for long enough to snap a few pics of Beiteddin, a beautiful village in the Shouf hills southeast of Beirut. Some people call this place home...

 

  

  

  

 

Breakfast.

I thought I'd give people a little insight into the gritty, austere life that I'm leading out here in the Syrian capital. I invariably get my breakfast from the local baker/pastry-man. I haven't quite got the hang of leaving the house exactly in time to catch the pastries coming out of the oven, but I am working diligently at it. These two guys are a representative sample of what the bakery has to offer.

Specimen 1 is my favourite. When it's fresh from the oven, it's really unbeatable. Let's take a look inside.

The soft pastry houses a rich nut/cinnamon/sugar mix. The perfect start to a day of studying Arabic (or doing anything). Specimen 2 is less distinctive, but still has a lot going for it.

Mmmmm. What looks like a mere doughnut with fancy chocolate icing in fact has more to offer: specifically, some delicious custard-like filling. Good show.

Normally, I would have a pastry with a freshly squeezed juice or, if I'm short on time, I wait for a cup of sweet tea at the university.