A friend of mine who also lives in Syria just recently blogged about Western things in Syria. See here. This post is not meant to, in any way, put what she said down, or anything like that. I’ve been planning to write on this subject for a while and this is simply a different perspective. Here goes:

When I’m back in the States, people often ask if there are MacDonalds or Walmarts in Syria. I tell them no and some take it like “ohmygoshhowdoyoulive” and “well if you can’t get stuff at Walmart you must have to make your own clothes or something”. It’s as if they judge/rank a country by its amount of American stores etc. Since when did MacDonalds become the standard of fine dining? 

I feel like some people don’t even think about a country having its own ”MacDonalds” or “Walmarts”. That doesn’t make much sense. Let me put it this way: Just because a country doesn’t have some Western stores, restaurants and other facilities doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own stores, gyms, restaurants, and fast-food.

This really irritates me. But you probably can already get that from this post…My indignation might be seeping through your computer screen. I don’t understand why people expect American “things” to be worldwide. It’s like expecting Azerbaijani stores etc. to be available in every country in the world. Why? The only answer I can come up with is that maybe the people I talk to are looking for the familiar. They hear “Syria” and “Middle East” and don’t know what to picture. So they ask for their grocery stores, their calorie-laden fast-food chains, and their favorite retail stores. They try to look for the familiar in the unfamiliar. Which, if that is the case, is forgivable. But, to which I say, in the most loving way possible, “Get your butts out of your bubble and over here to see for yourself”.

There. I’m done with my tirade now.

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.

A couple of months ago I posted the trailer for a film called “Amreeka”. Well, I just watched it last night and…I loved it. From the leopard print cardigan that the main character wore, to the cucumbers (great moment), every detail in the movie was done well. (I particularly liked the grandma.) To quote my mom: “Everyone should see this movie…it’s so…Arab; it’s great!”.

P.S. Here’s the trailer again: http://smile93.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/amreeka/

Ok, no, they’re not. But they can be. I try to refrain from that but, if you’ve read my blog you know that I sometimes ”voice disapproval loudly”. This is one of those posts.

Sometimes people in the States/West ask about health in the Middle East. What kind of food do they eat? Is obesity a problem? Etc. Good questions, nothing wrong with them. But then, depending on my answer, (or just somehow) they’ll manage to plop in something about “the Mediterranean Diet”. Like “Oh, well aren’t they healthy because of the Mediterranean Diet that they eat?” Until I was about 11 years old, all “the Mediterranean Diet” meant to me was a picture of some bread, cheese and olives in a Dorling Kindersley book. It seems that somehow everyone in the West heard about this and became fascinated. I think I hear something about “the Mediterranean Diet” every time I’m back in the States.

And it bugs me. Yes, people in the ME do eat a lot of bread, olives and some cheese. But there’s something about “the Mediterranean Diet” that really irritates me. Maybe it seems to me to be kind of Orientalist…I’m not sure. Fellow TCK (and non-TCK) friends and readers, does it bother you too?

You guys probably already know that I love Noisetrade. A few months ago, I saw that one of the albums on the website was by a musician named Salim Nourallah. I thought, “Oh! Maybe he’s from the Middle East!” and downloaded his album. I tried to find out whether he was Arab and got this from Salim’s website:

“i was born in alton, illinois. eldest child of fayez and karen. my mom was an art major, dad an accountant. opposites attract and then raise dysfunctional children. my brother faris was born just 18 months after me. he plays music too. in 1970 our family moved to el paso, i was just 3. our names were strange and to the general amusement of other kids i wore big glasses. they made fun of me alot. boohoo…when i was 9 i saw the beatles white album in k-mart. i got my grandmother to buy it for me. it changed my life. when i was 16 i started writing songs. brother faris was the only one who believed they were worth a crap. faris started playing drums. i played guitar. F sold his car for a drumkit then moved to guitar. i moved to bass. then we moved to denton, texas. we hated denton. the nourallah brothers made our self-titled debut in 1999 on an 8-track recorder then quit playing music together. faris has released several solo cds since then. i’ve had 3 full-length solo cds come out since 2004: polaroid (2004); beautiful noise (2005) and snowing in my heart (2007) plus the a way to your heart ep (2004), live at pleasantry lane (2007) and ciphers from snowing (2008). i just completed work on my latest cd with billy harvey in austin. it’s called “constellation” and will be released in europe by tapete records in the spring of 2009. i also have a wife (jayme) and son (gavin). they are the most important people in my life.”

So it sounds like his dad is Arab but that’s it. Now to the album ”Ciphers From Snowing”:

The songs are catchy enough, but forgettable and blend together like a bland, white paste. “Snowing In My Heart” had good intentions but comes off as cheesy; “Don’t Be Afraid” is what some would call “uplifting” while “Overwhelmed” sounds like something you’d hear as a character from a drama on TV has a meltdown . The music is fine and the vocals are decent however it’s Salim’s limited vocabulary that really makes this a limp, unoriginal work. It leaves me wishing that his music was as cool as his surname…or at least as crazy-fun as his suite…

You can get the album on www.noisetrade.com. What do you think of it?

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.

Having a blog can be great. But it can also make you feel bad for not writing everyday. I have lots of ideas and keep planning to write, but end up busy with other things. I will try to write soon (and more consistently).

From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/friend_faraway/2681424933/

The photographer said: ”I frequented quite regularly at his shoes whenever I go to Bab Jabiye in Damascus Old city. I managed to capture his portrait and surprisingly giving me a perfect smile!”

Old City, Damascus, Syria.

I’m not sure if this article was originally written in Arabic and then translated or if was just written in English, but in any case, I thought it was interesting. Here it is:

Global Arab Network
By Rasha Elass
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 17:34

After decades of neglect, one of Islam’s most important libraries is about to reopen in Aleppo, offering scholars access to some 70,000 books and rare works of art, and shining a light on a centuries-old tradition of learning. Aleppo, Syria’s second city, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, outdone only by Damascus. It has also been a centre of scholarship for millennia, especially for the three Abrahamic faiths.

Islamic scholarship, in particular, thrived there during the Middle Ages. Aleppo survived the Crusades under the protection of the Muslim armies of the Turkish Zengid dynasty, prompting scholars to flock there, seeking refuge and contributing to the intellectual life of the city.

Among the most renowned scholars was the Iraqi-born 10th-century poet Abu Tayyib al Mutanabi, arguably the most profound poet in the Arabic language. Another was the polymath philosopher Abu Nasr Mohammed al Farabi, known in Latin as Alpharabius, whose work was known to the philosophers of the Italian Renaissance.

It was not until the Mongols sacked Aleppo in the mid-13th century that it started losing its allure as a centre of learning. For the remaining centuries, scholarship would ebb and flow depending on the state of the Islamic world. Perhaps this may have created the environment in which, 80 years ago, one of Islam’s most important libraries withered away almost unnoticed, closing its doors when its last keeper died. Ignored but not forgotten, the Waqf Library of Aleppo will reopen on November 22 thanks to a renewed commitment by the religious authorities to preserve Islamic heritage. Aleppo was voted the Arab Capital of Islamic Culture for 2006 by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Covering 1,500 square metres, the library will house more than 70,000 books, many of them rare and hard to find, along with an electronic database that “has all the PDF documents of ancient Islamic books and manuscripts available today”, says Dr Mahmoud al Masri, who was chosen by the religious authorities to head the library restoration project in 2006. “We’re offering something that is not available elsewhere.”

Dr al Masri is a paediatrician, but also holds a doctorate in the history of science and medicine, as well as a masters degree in Sharia science.

“The library may not be that large,” he says, “but most of the books we have here cannot be found at any of the public libraries or the university libraries.”

The project is funded by Islamic endowments, or Waqf in Arabic. The collection includes ancient manuscripts and originals of rare books. Dr al Masri explains that because the library is so specialised, it will not be open to the public, only to students and researchers, though anyone who can show a link to research will be given access. The Waqf Library is located under the Grand Mosque, in a space that operated as a car wash until the mid-Nineties, when a 10-year restoration project began on the mosque and its slightly leaning minaret. Crossing the outer courtyard of the mosque, visitors arrive at a small, elegant glasshouse. This is the part of the library that is open to the public, who can inspect the 100 or so books about Aleppo on display.

A staircase in the middle of the room leads down to the library proper. For the interior, Dr al Masri commissioned artisans to make furniture and archways. The chairs are made of carved wood with inlaid mother of pearl. The ceilings and doorways are decorated with carvings featuring Persian or Arabic designs, a specialty of Aleppo.

Dr al Masri and his teams found many treasures in the old library. These include 300-year-old paintings – “we found them rolled up and stacked away” – and two rare globes. One is of Earth and the other of the heavens.

The Earth globe shows much of the world’s map as we know it today, except for the United States and Central America. Modern Texas is called Mexicana, but Cuba, Mexico and Florida feature under their current names. What we now know as the rest of the Americas is depicted as blue ocean. But the jewel of Dr al Masri’s finds is the 650-year-old large Quran from the Mamluk age, with some of its calligraphy written in liquid gold. It weighs 50kg and its pages measure 80cm by 50cm. It was in relatively good condition but required delicate restoration. So Dr al Masri asked for help from one of the few places qualified to work on manuscripts of its size, the Dubai-based Jumaa Al Majid Centre for Culture and Heritage. Dr Bassam al Daghistani, the head of the centre’s restoration department, first saw the Quran during a visit to Aleppo to examine the library’s stock.

“All the Arab countries have thousands of old manuscripts, so the Aleppo library’s collection was not new to me,” he says. “But it’s very rare to find such an old Quran of that size and in such a good condition. I told them I would take it back with me to Dubai, before I even told the centre about it.”

Ten specialists worked on it for two months. The work was particularly challenging because of its sheer size.

“During restoration, the hand cannot touch the manuscript. So imagine restoring the details of a page almost one metre long while keeping your hands in mid-air.”

The size and quality of the Quran is an indication that it was made for a special occasion.

“Back then, they did not make Qurans in that size and quality except for the Sultan, so that adds more significance to it,” says Dr al Daghistani.

The resurrection of Aleppo’s Waqf Library is still in its early stages. Thanks to the legacy of the city, many Allepan families acquired rare books in Islamic teachings, and Dr al Masri and his team know the Waqf Library will not be complete without these collections.

“We’re planning to acquire the private collections,” he says. “We’re looking for owners who want to donate it or leave it to us as an inheritance.”

From: http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/200910133145/Culture/syria-islams-most-important-library-to-reopen-in-aleppo.html

Brrr! It’s cold! It seems like winter is finally here. There are a lot of misconceptions about Syria (and the Middle East) and one of them is winter. A lot of people in the States (that I’ve talked to, at least) think Syria is all desert and always, always hot. Like in the Chronicles of Narnia, in the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when Mr. Tumnus despairs: “Always winter, never Christmas.” Except changed around to “always summer, never winter.”

Syria does get cold though. It can get really cold. Sometimes, the valley in the middle of Syria can get a lot of snow and the roads have to be shut down. That said I’m sure the cold in Syria is nothing like, say the cold in Kazakstan, or the cold in Belarus, but you get the point.

So, winter (maybe, maybe) is here. I love winter. Winter can be very nice, however, I had forgotten some things about it and am being reminded of those things as the days get “shiver-ish”.

1. I wear long sleeves in winter. I wash my hands in winter (and the rest of the year too…). I can’t always be bothered to roll up my sleeves before washing my hands. I end up with cold sleeves about an inch wet in water. Pure result of my own laziness? Yup.

2. I drink more tea and hot beverages in winter. Tea is a diarrhetic. Nuff said.

3. Some of the pavement in Syria can be charmingly uneven and Aleppo is on the hill-y side so floods, ranging from big puddles to streets gushing with rain water make getting around fun, but a little tricky.