Microbus Anecdotes

I'm spending a good hour-and-a-half, at least, on seravees (micros) daily. But not all rides are bereft of excitement!

----- Winter ---------------
Coming back from Sitt Zeineb, the micro I was in got pulled over by a cop. The driver calmly called a greeting to him, then grabbed a fifty-lira bill from the stack under the prayer rug on the dashboard while getting out to walk over to the cop. He talked with the cop, getting agitated and soon losing the nonchalant aura he had previously expressed, returning to huffily put the 50 back under the prayer rug, the ticket in his other hand.

-----Last Week------------
I was riding the Baramke - Jerimana micro home, and, as is common with the heavy traffic, lack of lanes, and verying width of Sharia' al-3am, our micro and an adjacent car got bottlenecked when the car decided it felt the need for speed. Both vehicles stopped, the area chosen for overtaking not wide enough to accomodate the both. The yelling began, not just between the young joyriders and the micro driver but also the passengers. The vehicles lurched forward and back, neither able to actually take off without the acquiesce of the other, but neither actually wanting to take the first step. "YOU GO!" "NO YOU GO!" was exchanged back and forth before the micro driver finally did go. The car, pissed to all hell, sped up to get along side us and yelled, until we were bottlednecked again. The yelling was much more inspired than the previous encounters' more-annoyed-than-angry tone. "GO AHEAD YOU DONKEY!" "SON OF A DONKEY!" "ASSHOLE!"

The car went ahead, but our driver was not having it. The frey continued with us and the car continually trying to cut off, stop, and just annoy the shit out of each other. We passed my stop, but I doubted my meagre "On the right, please" would be acknowledged over the shouts of men invoking each other's sisters' vaginas. Luckily, right past my stop the driver had enough, blocked the car, and everyone got out to fight. I got out to watch. Words about peoples' mothers and sisters were exchanged, fists were raised threateningly, and traffic was blocked with a cacophony of horns. Then everyone got back in the micro and car, drove off, and the din of horns ceased.

-----SPRING------------
I needed to make a connection from the Jerimana-Baramke line to the Sa'na - Muhajireen line, and I was late to a meeting. I could wait until the end of the former, walking over to catch the other, but I was pretty sure I they overlapped and I could transfer earlier. I asked the driver if the Sa'na - Muhajireen micro comes down this road, and he asked if I wanted to get on it. "Yeah." He surveyed the scene, and upon seeing the other micro, called out the window to the other driver that the young lady would like to get on. We were in heavy traffic, a good two lanes from the sidewalk, but to the detriment of the passengers he and the other micro negotiated to the side of the road, where I hopped out of one and onto the other.

Hackers

Hackers are douches. I went to the UNFPA global site yesterday to get some materials, and was confronted with a defaced site. It was down for the whole day. Hackers, defacers: I get it. You're anti-establishment, oh, aren't you so BAD!

So go ahead, attack Microsoft or Pepsi, but seriously, UNFPA? Was it the anti-fistula campaign that needed some smacking down? Or just generally the evil corporate goal of reducing maternal mortality? Oh sorry, I just realized that you're actually just comparing dick sizes with other hackers.

The Anxious Tour Guide

Finally guests! Some friends visited me this weekend; Jolianne, who was a roommate from Cairo in every way but actuality, and James, a friend of hers. They are both Americans living in Dubai, and thus had a great appreciation for the mild Shami weather and buildings older than 10 years.

It was a good time; I had an excuse to go out to restaurants and argileh, went back to Crac des Chevaliers for the first time since two years ago, and got to show off my Arabic (Joli remembers me well from our Arabic formative stages in Cairo: fi mushkila? ma feesh fuloos! mush iyeza haga! iyeza arouh liwusta balad - oh Cairo). But like anytime anyone visits me, I always feel an insane amount of pressure to really show off the place and especially communicate why I love it. This is no fault of my guests - all my friends are naturally superawesome, being my friends. But even in New York, I would freak out before a friend came through. What the hell am I going to do with them? I only go to school and work! How am I going to show them a good time in New York?

My father and brother came from Ireland to visit me for four days when I lived in Cairo. I tried desperately to convey why I loved Egypt. After all, my father didn't come to Egypt out of some burning desire to see the pyramids (or come to New York for the Statue of Liberty), but to see me and make sure I was alright. But I failed. We visited every tourist attraction in Cairo, which every Cairene transplant knows are the worst part about Cairo. All my dad seemed to get out of the trip was the arguments I had with taxi drivers, the noise, the dangerous abandon with which I ate street food, the garbage, the pushy postcard sellers at the Pyramids, the 4am call to prayer waking him every night, and the heart attack I gave him when I jokingly showed up at the airport in hijab (to his credit, we were a full 20 minutes in the taxi before he asked me about it). I failed to communicate how the rush of activity in Midan Tahrir swelled my heart.

I have been in Damascus much longer now than I had been in Cairo then; how on earth do I convey my passionate throbbing love for this city? While Joli and James are much chiller and less alarmed than my father (liking street food themselves) I still selfishly want to share the fruits of 8 months with them in 2 days. This led to my forcing sweets on them like a Syrian grandmother (you haven't eaten anything! This is the best place to get halowi ma jibneh! You can't be full, we haven't even gotten to the kinafeh!). I am in deep regret this morning as I realized I failed to feed them fetteh or the falafel and hummos from Falafel al-Masry, Jerimana's best. When eating a lackluster meal at Crac des Chavaliers yesterday, I was thinking, Oh God no! This isn't good Shami food! I have failed! We set out for the castle a little late yesterday, and on the two and a half hour bus rides to Homs and back I was thinking oh God, it's my fault the bus isn't faster! They are bored and this French movie about cops punching transvestites isn't helping!

Though they might have boarded the return plane a couple of pounds heavier, I think they managed to have a good time. But honestly, who wouldn't?

Street Funeral

Many mornings I am woken up by the loudspeaker across the street, announcing Druze dead. My area of town, Jerimana, is predominantly Druze, explaining the frequent liquor stores. We live near the worship sight, called al-mawqif, where funerals are held, so either the day prior or the morning of, funeral announcements are issued on the loudspeaker in Sahat as-Suyuf. Jerimana is a bustling neighborhood, with perhaps as many as 80,000 residents. It's not unusual to hear the loudspeaker go off a couple times a week, announcing the death of old people. I like the euphenism for death used, "moved to the mercy of God [heaven]".

Wednesday morning I thought little on the latest funeral announcement, though it did include "ash-sha'b ash-shaheed" before the name of the deceased. The young martyr. This was the first time I have heard this. Martyr? I thought. Martyr for what? My mind race for a minute to think of what could have happened. I then went back to sleep for an hour and awoke to nothing unusually, just the normal bustle of Jerimana in the morning, and promptly forgot about it.

While, at least in my opinion, the word martyr in English is reserved mostly for religious purposes, the use is much wider in Arabic. The victims of the Iraq war are martyrs. Those who died in the Lebanese Civil War are martyrs. The Palestinians killed under occupation are martyrs. The dead do not have to be actively participating in the cause at the time of their death to be called martyrs.

At noon, I was sitting in the living room with my flatmate Michelle and her friend visiting from the States. The friend went to the kitchen, and asked if people playing with firecrackers was common. Um, no? There were bang bang bang! noises audible from the kitchen window. I shrugged and attributed it to the widespread construction. "Maybe it's like a nail gun."

From the balcony, we started to notice people running and walking quickly. Soon the body of the procession came into the square, holding up pictures of the dead young man, chanting, and shooting pistols into the air (blanks). The square was full of men, before they continued on to al-mawqif. I ran out into the streets and followed the procession at a distance of 10 meters, with other women, and people who happened to be walking somewhere when the procession cut them off. The procession would stop occaisonally to clap and chant (I couldn't make out what they were saying). People on the sides stopped and watched, some crying. I asked an older man watching what had happened.

"A youth died."
"How?"
"Army. Three days before he was done with service there was an accident and he was killed in an explosion."
"Allah yarhamhu"

He then asked me if I wasn't Syrian, so I told him I was American.
"Do you have demonstrations like this in America?"
"Not really for funerals."

I stopped followinf the procession, not going to al-maqwa3 as I decided to be only semi-vulturous.

The kid was probably only around 20. I asked some of my friends about his martyrdom, since it was an accident, tragic, but not in a conflict.
"He died while serving his country. Of course he's a martyr."

Muslims to Potentially Call for the Blood of Obama

Obama just can't win.

First he was criticized for being too "in" with the Muslims. He was accused of being one, of being indoctrinated at an Islamic madrassa in Indonesia, of expressing sympathy for the Palestinians, and for the endorsements of Hamas. While Obama has replied by shoring up his "I love Jesus" cred and declaring himself no less a friend of Israel than Clinton, the insinuations continue.

Now, an op-ed in the New York Times goes the other way: Obama would piss the shit out of Muslims. The author, Edward N. Luttwak of the conservative thinktank Center for Strategic and International Studies, begins by benignly praising Obama's charisma and well-organized campaign - this so we know that what follows isn't an attack on Obama, just fact.

Theoretically speaking, Luttwak posits, Muslims the world over would demand Obama's blood, should he become president.

What? Oh, I'm sorry, Luttwak's position is a bit more nuanced:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslin under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant...

Wow! who knew that you could be born Muslim? However do the babies say the shahada? As far as I know, Obama has never had said the shahada (profession of faith), and therefore has never even been Muslim. Islam is not a religion; not a race.

Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him. His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is "irtidad" or "ridda," usually translated from the the Arabic as "apostasy," but with the connotations of rebellion and treason.

Oh my god you're using Arabic! And well enough to scoff at simple translations of "ridda", since you know the connotations as well! Bravo! But, since Obama has never actually been Muslim - can he really be an apostate?

Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit... the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric... It is true that the criminal codes in most Muslim countries to no mandate execution for apostasy.

But that last part doesn't matter because we all know that Muslims are thirsting for blood no matter what the criminal codes of their countries say! He goes on to mention two famous cases of apostates: an Iranian man in 1994 and an Afghani man in 2006. Luttwak does allow that even Iran or Saudi Arabia would probably not prosecute President Obama, but

...another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing. At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

Right. The incredibly lengthy and seemingly unending election has not provided opportunity enough to get to know this new guy - despite the fact that al-Jazeera has been inundated with coverage of the race, which is only displaced by news from Gaza or Lebanon. And naturally, Obama's being an "apostate" would hurt America's war on terror and rapport with the Muslim world more than the man who started a war, calling it a "crusade," and is overflowing with love for Israel. As for exporting democracy and human rights abroad - I don't think the US could be doing much worse than currently, so why not try the apostate?

The worst part about this article is that is sees the "Muslim world" as a vast monolith, mentioning only Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan to represent this massive and diverse region. The Muslims themselves are not individual people, with the ability to say, measure a man's supposed apostate-ness versus his policy in deciding whether or not to stone him, but a herd of sheep expected to bleat hatred once the secret is out. It is obvious that Luttwak has not spoken to a single Muslim, but who needs to when scripture tells you everything you need to know about the adherents of a religion?

While Syria is not representative of every Muslim country, every person I've talked to here about the American election is now solidly behind Obama. They note his international background, how he wants to pull troops out of Iraq, and his being black, which I'm told "is a good step for America". A few people have told me that they hope his having Muslim family in Kenya means he will be less biased against Muslims than the current administration. In Tunisia, another, very different Muslim country, I only spoke on the subject with two people, when they brought it up, asking me if I was going to vote Obama since they want him to win.

But what do I know? I'm no thinktank. So take your pick: either Obama is too sympathetic to The Muslims (and thus, terror) or he's going to cause them to all go batshit insane and hurt the wonderful democracy-spreading America's been up to lately. Either one is obviously a valid reason to Vote McCain.

Oh, Lebanon!

Friday mid-morning some friends came over to play cards and eat a late breakfast. I has been blissfully unaware of the outside world as our TV was not working (later discovered that the satellite cable was just not plugged in hard enough).

Ra'id asked if I had heard the news about Lebanon. What news? Oh, just the inqilab (coup d'etat). Inqilab! The TV was soon fixed, much to my embarrassment, and we sat around watching al-Manar (the Hezbollah station) while playing blackjack and betting with cookies. I was all for switching to al-Jazeera, since al-Manar was playing an old interview and the only news was the scroll at the bottom. But some of those present trust few channels outside al-Manar; certainly not al-Arabiyya, which is owned by the Saudis, and not al-Jazeera, which, while better, still is anti-Syrian sometimes.

From the scroll we learned that President Bashar Al-Assad had proclaimed that the not-actually-a-coup was Lebanese issue for the Lebanese to work out. So, I cleaned out my friends in blackjack, magnanimously sharing the cookies afterwards anyways, and enjoyed the beautiful spring day.

I don't want to sound too blase, but at times its hard not to roll my eyes and sigh, oh, Lebanon! But really - a nonstop crisis for months? How many militias and parties in a country with a total population less than that of Damascus? Oh, Lebanon!

Pretending to be Syrian

In Tozeur, after almost killing Ester and eating some sandwiches, Lindsey, Ester and I went down to the touristy street to see about buying some crap. We were speaking Shami Arabic to one another, and sure enough we were asked, "Lubnaniyya?" No, no, we insisted, not Lebanese. But close. Syrian. I don't know if it got us any lower prices, but at least it stopped people speaking French to us.

As a foreigner in Tunisia, every one immediately reverts to French when speaking with you. Ester actually knows a good bit of French, I can understand some things but am at a loss to reply, and Lindsey has no French. After our asking questions or beginning conversations in Arabic, people would answer in French. "No, please, Arabic."

Even after we said we were Syrian, so the shopkeepers spoke to us in Arabic, they asked us why we didn' know French. How is that possible? Isn't French the second language of Syria? Not really, we said, everyone wants to learn English now.

After Ester got on her boat back to Italy and Lindsey went to Kuwait, I had some time to myself in Tunis waiting for the next Damascus flight. So I walked around the old city. Guys in the souq would hear my accent and ask if I was Lebanese.
"No, but close."
"Syrian?"

The story changed a bit from place to place. For short interactions, Syrian. The few times I introduced myself as American dudes said, "Really? But your parents are Shami, right?" So I said sure (sorry Ireland). In the hostel I was Canadian, because the front desk guy lied and told the leader of some group of French/island near Madagscar children that I was. Then I had to keep it up in order to get a bed with the 12-year-old girls.

People love the shit out of Syria, though. When I told people I was Shami, they said, "Ahh- marry a Shami girl and your life will be easy." Or, "Bab al-Hara!". And a man sat me down in his shop, bought me a bottle of water, which I could only refuse so many times, and told me he loved Syria. "They protect the Arab identity!"

I even got in the Zaytouna mosque for free. I asked a guy out front if it was open, and he said, yes, and its free for Muslims. I told him I wasn't Muslim and he stared at me, saying, "But you are Arab, right?" So I got in free anyways. A couple of people asked me if I was Muslim, which was strange for me since no one ever asks me that in Sham. In Tunisia, most people are Muslim, and most women don't wear hijab, and I was speaking Arab in the accent of a majority Muslim country, but still. There are non-Muslim Arabs, quite a lot in fact.

Insane Prices!

The first thing I was told when Tariq and his friend Tariq picked me up from the airport was, "Oh my god! The PRICES! THE PRICES!"

Mazout and Gas went through the roof. Now everything is expensive. My friend the micro is now 10 lira, from 5 before I left (from 10cents to 20 cents). Double! Most other things have gone up at least 5 lira.

At least government bread is the same, so no riots! But now the regular stores can't sell the gov bread and when you buy at the furn there is a limit of 2. And the lines are insane.

We're in... AFRICA

Throughout the stay in Tunis, people were constantly remarking that though "technically" part of Africa, it sure didn't feel like Africa. I guess Tunis's wide, tree-lined Habib Bourguiba Avenue just doesn't feel like part of the dark continent, or perhaps it was the lack of colorful fabrics and kente cloth. It's like when I lived in Cairo, and the expats would always joke that we lived in Africa, but not REAL Africa.

I guess its strange because while no one ever says that Syria can't possibly really be in ASIA because of the lack of kabuki masks or rice patties, Africa just can't be Africa without conforming to what we feel it should look like. And it should not look like Tunisia. Though actually the word Africa comes from the Roman name for their province centered at Carthage (Tunis), Africanus Proconsularus.

It might stem from the practice of referring to Africa as a country, not a massive continent made up of many countries.

Then again, I do this too. I think I have only technically lived on four continents, since while Cairo and Damascus are on two different continents, I mean, come on, it's all the Arab world.