Let The Games Commence

So I began the week with a very early start… well, not that early, 10am. Unfortunately Alex and I didn’t feel too great, maybe due to the adjustment to the Syrian cuisine. In any case we got up reasonably early so Alex could sort her Syrian phone out and I could finish off sorting my phone out, as there were some small things left over from sorting it out the night before.

The day was generally a bit of a struggle against our bodies to stay awake and not sleep, so that our natural clocks could be adjusted. We had lunch in the hotel’s restaurant, which wasn’t really that great and expensive for what it was. Then we went back into the rooms and did some Arabic revision for the placement test the next day. We had a small nap during the day but luckily we were able to sleep quite easily that evening.

Tuesday is where the fun really began.

We woke up at 8:30ish and left our rooms by 9:30 to catch a taxi to the university. What I did find strange was the taxi driver didn’t seem to know where the university was and had to ask another driver where to go, later on I found out that this was because they refer to it as Koleat al-Adab instead. Anyway, we eventually got on our way and arrived safely at the university, paying the taxi driver 100SYP which was way more than what we should’ve if we’d have been locals.

At the placement test we met up with Tim, who is in my Durham Arabic class, and we caught up about what we’d done so far in Damascus before going in to start the test with the other students from SOAS, Manchester and Edinburgh who were there. The test lasted 3 hours and comprised of 5 multiple choice tests: Grammar, reading, listening, grammar with listening and writing (I think :/) then after that we had a small oral session to check our speaking skills. The exams were reasonably hard but we managed okay with them as they’re really only used to put us into groups according to our ability.

After the test Tim and I went back on a red bus to his house near the old city. The bus was a bit crazy: it was 1:30pm and it seemed that everyone in the city had finished work and was moving around, so we caught the 3rd red bus that went passed the stop as all the other ones were completely full, as was the one that we eventually got on…

Another thing about Syrian culture that I found strange was that if people got on the bus and couldn’t reach the driver, then they sent notes down the bus so that they could pay for their journey, trusting other people not to steal their money and deliver their change back with their tickets, which is definitely not what would happen in England. Everyone here seems so trusting of everyone else and always helpful, which is good in a way, though unfortunately as I will explain in a bit, this doesn’t always help and can create awkward situations.

Tim showed me his house that he was currently staying in, which looked nice compared to what I had a bad feeling of what they might look like, then we went to a really beautiful cafe/restaurant place called Beit Jabri in the old city where he tried the aromatic coffee and I got a strawberry fruit fuice, which you could tell was made using really fruit. Nice!

After Beit Jabri I walked back from the old city to my apartment which was a long walk in the sweltering heat, but I got back and found Alex in the internet cafe. After that she went and met up with a girl she’d met earlier called Fiona. Now Fiona had been put into a rather awkward situation with a young Iraqi man called Sarmed who was on her flight. They’d both lost their luggage on their flight and he’d offered to help her and sort out a place where she could stay. This all sounds very nice but this place ended up being a hotel room where he was sleeping on the floor next to her, and she had a very strange incident in the night where she woke up to him staring at her and taking pictures of her whilst she was sleeping… bad times.

Anyway, Alex and I took it upon ourselves to try and get her out of this situation and to help this guy to understand that she didn’t want him perving on her. I’ll get her to type her story up on here later so she can give the full story.

Anyway, we went out to dinner with her and this Sarmed at a place called Leila’s. This was a really nice place on a rooftop right next to the Ummayad mosque which was so pretty at night, especially with all the bats flying around the mosque. The food wasn’t that great but it was really scenic and we had some sheesha after the meal which was good fun. Afterwards Fiona and Sarmed’s bags had arrived at the airport and we went to collect them along with Sarmed’s friend, then we went back to the hotel where we were trying to get some way to get her to sleep in our place instead of in the hotel room with Sarmed to avoid any problems, so we took her bags to the room we had with two single beds and she made some excuse to Sarmed as to why she was moving in with us. All in all it worked out well for her but it got a bit uncomfortable towards the end… Anyway, I’ll get her to write out her full story at some point.

Wednesday we woke at 3pm after going to bed very late, as we’d walked around the shops the night before and didn’t end up sleeping until 5am. We didn’t do much at all really. Fiona and I caught a taxi up to the Dutch embassy (she’s got a dutch passport even though she’s never lived there) and then we walked back via a nice park. In the evening we went to a place near Gemini and had steak sandwiches and coffee, then we walked back via some shops and went to bed earlyish…

Thursday we woke up at 10am, I rang the embassy and sorted an appointment for next week and then we went over to the university to get a letter to get our AIDS test, but unfortunately it was closed as it was declared that Eid started that day so people were closing things down to celebrate. We then extended our stay at the hostel and continued our search for a good place to live.

We found out pretty quickly that during Eid, taxis all charge the same amount: 100SYP, which would be a rip off normally, but it’s only around 1.60GBP so it’s not actually bad. I’ve also been trying to talk to the taxi drivers more, which is slightly difficult given my limited vocabulary, but they seem to like it if you attempt to speak Arabic. I usually stick to what I’m doing in Damascus and where I’m from.

Friday we started off with a bit of a failure on the house finding front. We tried to see if the girls could get a room with this taxi driver we’d talked to the day before but apparently his wife wouldn’t let him have them. Feeling slightly disheartened Fiona rang a number on her university’s “Guide to Damascus” and eventually found our way to Ahmed who helped us find somewhere to stay: I’ve got a room in his house and the girls are eventually moving into a house with a family later on.

One thing I’ve found are the families here are really against having boys in their house, maybe because of  their daughters and maybe because girls are less hassle, which I suppose it’s fair enough, just slightly annoying. Girls are also heavily protected here, there was a fight in the street today because some men were being inappropriate towards three girls with their mother, so all the other men in the street turned on these men and threatened them… Crazy times! Also, before entering a house with women inside or whilst walking around that house you have to say “ya allah” so that the women wearing hijab know a man is coming and they can put up their veil.

Ahmed’s also offered to take us round the city and show us the best places to go. Last night we were playing cards back at home and he took us to Bab Touma afterwards at about 3am to get hummus, foul and bread. This really is my kind of city: it never sleeps. There is always a shop open no matter how early in the morning it is.

The food here is all so flavoursome and the people are so nice it’s brilliant. You obviously have to be careful not to get into a situation like Fiona but luckily that doesn’t always happen, though around the time of the Eid celebrations all of the men do seem to become a lot more pervy and creepy apparently.

I’ve got lots to do next week: Start uni, go to get a 40GBP letter from the British Embassy to say they don’t do letters of recommendation, get my AIDS test, do some work. Back to the life of a student again, hopefully this year I’ll be able to do a lot more work.

All in all I’m loving my time out here so far, it’s such a great change of scene and a great experience. All the other students are really keen to go travelling as well, so it looks like it’s going to be a good year this year.

I’ll update sometime next week.

D

1 year ago  /  Notes