My brother is home from college. Yay! This will be the first Christmas we’ve celebrated with him in two years. Flying from New York to Illinois is a bit cheaper than flying from New York to Syria. That’s a nice thing about living in the States. (Please keep that “nice thing” in mind since the next few posts will probably be things I don’t like about living in the States.)
More posts soon,
Last night my parents and I returned from rural, beautiful, and cold New York. We were visiting my brother at college and had a great time. In a few days my mom and I will be off to the other side of America to check out colleges for me. Between that and after that is a whole bunch of mostly related time-consuming, and occasionally emotionally-straining, activities, so blog posts might be sparse.
Is it just me, or does life zips by faster in America?
We’ve moved.
My family has decided to move to the States for a bit.
It’s really hard.
I don’t even want to get into all the emotions that go along with leaving Syria ’cause then I’ll be gloomy all day.
We feel that Syria is our home. This decision has been extremely hard, but we know God is good and has beautiful plans for us.
We just moved into a suburb of Chicago.
We’re from California - Illinois is new to us.
I’ll be with my parents for a year and then be going to college. After that I hope to go back to the Middle East.
So what are you going to do about smiling in syria? I’ll keep writing, even though I’m not living in Syria anymore.
There will still be articles about Syria and the Middle East, I’ll still feature Syrian artists, musicians etc., the “Picture of the Week” and “Fortnightly Pictures” will continue. Pretty much all the regular stuff. I obviously won’t have “day-to-day-in-Syria” stories, but I’ll write things along the lines of “I remember…” or “When I was in Syria…”. There will also be the normal deviations: reviews of bands that have little or nothing to do with Syria and the ME, random thoughts, and other TCK and internationally focused posts.
In addition to all this, I’ll probably be spending a majority of the time writing about living in the States after having grown up in Syria almost all my life.
To sum it up, I love Syria, it’s a part of me (I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true), I’m passionate about it, her people, and the rest of the Middle East. I’m going to keep writing.
It’s so cold! Brrrrrr! I was just telling my mom earlier today that if I was in the Donner Party, I’d be the first to go.
Speaking of family and freezing weather brings me to “chaufage squatting”. Chaufages are radiators and are what some people use to heat their houses in Syria. (I think it might come from the French word “chaufferette” but I could be wrong on that.) They do a good job of heating up the house but it can still be cold because it’s not exactly dirt-cheap to run them, so they’re not on all the time. So my family “chaufage squats”. Basically you squat by, or I should say very next to, the radiator for a bit to warm up. Just make sure that zero skin is exposed…
This kitten, while isn’t doing it exactly right, has the idea:
I was watching So You Think You Can Dance (last season though, not the current one) on TV last night. One couple danced to Richard Marx’s Right Here Waiting. And that brought back a memory. I remember sitting in a small cafe in Damascus with my dad, working on my math for school. I was probably eight or nine. Anyway, while I was working on math, a music video came on the big screen tv. And it was…Right Here Waiting. I was little so “gag me” probably wasn’t the first thought that popped into my head (hadn’t heard the phrase yet)but even then I thought it was cheesy and a little stalker-ish…
Awesome way to start your day:
We went grocery shopping this morning, stocking up on some stuff before the Eid (most stores close during Eid al-Adha).
Before my dad said anything to the cashier in Arabic, the guy asked if we were Turkish. That’s a new one. Generally my parents and brother are thought to be either Circassian, French, or Eastern European, although they can (and generally do) pass for Syrians. I, on the other hand, am blonde, blue-eyed and white as kleenex and while most Syrians aren’t as dark-skinned/haired as some people think, I can’t pull it off.
Another random memory of my childhood in Syria:
My brother and I used to go to a Syrian school in Damascus (third grade and first grade, respectively). The bus would drop us off at the main street and we’d walk up the hill, which to my 6 year-old proportions, seemed like a mountain. Along the way to our house, there was a little store where Gordon and I would stop and buy Cola. Because the man sold it in glass bottles, he would pour the Cola into zip-lock-like-plastic bags. We’d hold the top together and sip through straws. Being tired from school, the heat (during the beginning and end of the school year) and just being little kids, it was wonderful.
We’re going back to the Middle East soon (yay!) and I’ve been a bit busy packing and getting ready to go. So….once again….I probably won’t be blogging for about a week.
That’s it for now,
A few days ago we were in Khols (they had a sale). As soon as we walked in the store, we heard a mom speaking to her daughter in Arabic. I think they were Lebanese. Then I saw some Kuwaitis. We had split up in the store to get done faster and my mom saw the Kuwaitis too. She talked to them a bit, and later overheard them debating over whether to buy some clothes or not. The husband (I’m guessing) said, “Kiilo racheess!” Meaning, “It’s all cheap!”
On our recent vacation in Asia, our flight from LA to Taipei was delayed because of a typhoon. (It might have been the early beginnings of Morakot, I think.) Anyway, because we got into Taipei about 4 hours late, we had to run through the airport, which is very shiny, by the way, to catch our next flight. As we stepped on to the plane the stewardess looked at my and my brother’s ticket and directed us to the area we were seated in.
Big seats. Huge space in between them. You could put your legs out and it still wouldn’t touch the seat in front of you. Misters were…misting…under the overhead storage. I looked at my brother. He looked at me. This couldn’t be right. So very, very nice. My parents walked in, looking just as confused. We were expecting economy. You know, tiny, rickety seats packed with people who are coughing and babies who are crying and bathroom lines and tvs that don’t work. I don’t know if they had run out of seats in economy or what but we were in business class!
Sweaty. Sticky from the humidity. Greasy hair. Wrinkled clothes. Bad breathe. Lack of food. Dry skin and oily skin. Amazed by such a big seat and comforted by the calm that possessed the Chinese and Taiwanese business men around me, as they silently read newspapers. The stewardess came up with a round tray and offered glasses-real glasses!-of apple and orange juice. I felt like the Beverly Hillbillies or something. Act exhausted, collapse in your seat and look around dumbly with your mouth gaping open to get an idea of how I was.
The steward joked with my parents when he saw their tickets. “Oooooh Mr.Brown!” He explained that there was a famous brand of coffee in Taiwan called Mr. Brown Coffee. For the rest of the flight the stewards and stewardesses waited on us and served us so much that I actually felt a little guilty. I’ve been flying for 16 years. I was on an airplane before I could walk. But that was the first time I had ever been in business class. And now I am spoiled.
P.S. I looked up Mr.Brown – turns out that in 2008, the instant mixes were found to be contaminated with melamine. Oh dear.
