Wednesday 4th August 2010
After an early start and the mandatory breakfast at the hostel, we picked up our bags and headed off to meet Hassan, a 26 year old Syrian, who had accepted our request for a place to crash. After an eventful taxi trip (we managed to omit an important part of the address and so got quite lost) we met him on the corner of his street were he was waiting for us.
We went up to his family's house, who are apparently fine with him hosting foreigners despite not talking about it with him, and into his bedroom, where we left our bags. We chatted for a bit, it was apparent quite early on that he hadn't read much about us from our profile and so was asking questions about things that other people would usually have known by the time we met them, it was fine though and he did say that he didn't always read people's profiles before accepting to host them. While we were talking his friend called him and invited himself over, before long he arrived and it was time for Hassan to go to work. This friend of his, Feras, had decided to tag along with us and show us the sights of Damascus. We thought, okay, that might be nice and it wasn't like we had much choice anyway so we all left the house and when Hassan turned one way to go to work we turned the other in search of a camera lens. And so a long torturous afternoon began...
Despite having the name of a big Canon equipment store in Damascus, which was likely to be the only place we would find the wide angle zoom lens I was after, he took us off to another “big” shop which didn't have what we were looking for, it being just the same as every other small camera shop. The lady in the shop helpfully called ahead to the Canon store and checked which lenses they had in stock and then we were back outside in the sweltering heat. Feras suggested a taxi as it was too far to walk, so we flagged one down, jumped in and joined the lines of traffic to get through the centre to the other side of town, we pulled up fairly near to where we wanted to be and got out, no money was forthcoming so we paid the ninety pound fare (Syrian pounds not real English pounds) and made our way to the shop. It has to be said that at this point I was itching to tell him that we wanted to be alone and that we didn't need his help which we certainly didn't ask for. But I managed to keep any potential outburst in, the thought of a new lens and lots of lovely new pictures improving my mood only a fraction of what it usually would. The Canon shop was a retail outlet only for Canon, so the cheaper Sigma lens we were hoping to get was out of the question. The salesman sat us down in his office when it became apparent that we weren't rich little tourists and worked on a lower price for the 10-22mm lens I had my eye on, it went down from 1200USD to 975USD, we decided it was okay (what a huge difference!) but the catch was that credit cards are not accepted in Syria so we had to pay in cash. A twenty minute walk to the nearest bank with hopes of a credit/cash advance for the full amount were dashed (our account has a daily withdrawal limit) but a quick try with our other cards proved fruitful and we stashed the wads of Syrian pounds, all 45,000 of it, in our money belts. The guy at the Canon shop told us it would take three hours to bring the lens over from the warehouse so we went in a big nearby shopping mall to enjoy the air-conditioning and call the shop to order the lens from storage so it would be ready for us to collect later in the afternoon.
After a while, our stomachs growling, we left the comfortably refrigerated atmosphere of the mall and its expensive fast food outlets and went in search of some food we could afford. Another long walk in the heat, hiding from the sun and sweating under my sarong we reached a small hummus/dips joint and sat down on sweat inducing plastic seats in the shade. We all ordered and I sat for the whole meal, like a miser, thinking and expecting that we would have to pay for his lunch. It wasn't much but I begrudged being milked like a dairy cow and as it turned out he paid for his own lunch anyway, after Djalma put down the correct money for our food he was obliged to reach into his own pocket. Djalma handled the situation really well, while I was so angry I could have spit he handled the lunch situation with subtlety. After heading back to the mall we said goodbye – it's not like sitting and waiting with us could be passed off as a diverting way to spend his free time any way you looked at it.
Finally, after saying goodbye, feeling more relaxed, and tired, than I had been all day Djalma and I decided to try our luck back at the shop and see if our lens was ready. It was, and after a nice little chat in his office and some glasses of ice cold water, we left with our new baby to go and take some pictures of the old city.
We walked for a while before managing to hail a taxi, when we did we got dropped off near the Christian Quarter in the old town and wandered through the streets, drinking orange juice and taking photos. I adore shopping for new things for my camera and the new lens was no exception but it was and is difficult to get used to and I was quite disappointed with a lot of my photos. I think it will take quite a lot of practice and possibly some research to get the kind of pictures I want to take – good ones. It got quite late in the afternoon and we decided to call Hassan to let him know that I wouldn't be cooking, the cheeky monkey had declared that I could cook dinner for them within five minutes of arriving in his house and finding out from Djalma that I wasn't bad in the kitchen. There is a way of asking or suggesting that people do things for you without making them want to tell you where to go and what to do once you got there. I wasn't too impressed at the request/order but the thought occurred to me that it might the cultural differences talking; in Muslim culture the men of the house tell the women what to do and the women do it, so maybe I was being treated like his sister, it didn't feel good though – I already have a brother and he knows that he has to suck up big time for even a remote chance of getting what he wants. If Michael does declare that I may cook for him, he knows a slap is coming, although in probability a meal will as well, but he gets a mouthful of advice first.
So a search for a phone ensued as our international mobile hadn't been working since Jordan and showed no signs of starting in Syria, we eventually stopped in a nice hotel and called him from there – no problems as he was stuck at work late anyway. He did say that if we were planning an evening of drinking and merriment that we were not to do it without him but as we weren't we arranged to meet him at his house later in the evening with a couple of beers.
Our phone mission over we continued walking through old Damascus passing through the Christian quarter which by comparison to Muslim sections, looked positively sinful with flesh on show, a notable number of women uncovered (without a head scarf) and liquor shops dotted along the streets. I didn't quite know what to make of it all, Damascus is supposed to be, and is, very liberal compared to other Arab Muslim countries – like Jordan for example – but it seemed to me that some ways of thinking are so ingrained in minds that while showing a bit of shoulder or heaven forbid some leg or even worse, cleavage might not automatically mark a woman out as a whore the tendency of thought leans in that direction. I don't know, it didn't seem much like an easy mix of dress code although I never saw any threatening behaviour to back this up, it was more like an undercurrent or a lack of social mixing between the two.
We continued walking in the old town and ended up outside the big Ommayad Mosque, one of the most important mosques in Islam. It looked impressive from the outside and huge as well, the entrance to the main souq street was right in front of it and after a photo competition (which I am proud but ashamed to admit – Djalma won) we plunged head first into the sea of people. The souq was crowded with families, water/juice sellers and lots of people trying to sell bubble machines by filling parts of the indoor street with bubbles. We walked to the end, wondering if that was the whole of the souq – it turned out it wasn't – and made our way back through the maze of streets and across some busy roads to the bus stops for our part of the city.
We got lucky and the first bus we asked was ours, we jumped in the already crammed minibus and headed up through the town, we were dropped off about fifty metres from were we needed to be and decided to wash our hot tired feet in the water and the algae of a fountain in the middle of the roundabout next to Hassan's street. One really nice thing about the city is that there are plenty of roundabouts and all of them have something nice to look at in the middle, usually fountains, it is really beautiful. Feet refreshed we headed up to Hassan's house with a few beers we had bought on the way top the bus stop and chilled out with a couple of brews while talking. Hassan was curious to know what we thought of Syria and Damascus and I asked him, so far the only Arab male I've felt comfortable to ask, how Western women or even Arab women who dress a little more revealingly are viewed by Muslim/Arab men. I think his answer was more liberal than many of his elders might have been and I got the impression that although a man dating a western/non Muslim woman would be okay, marrying might not be so easy. It got late and after such a long day and a sniff of alcohol, I was more than ready for bed, Djalma and I slept in his little brother's air-conditioned room like logs.
