Towel of Shame

I brought shame upon myself, my family, and all those within a two meter radius last night.

Last week I had no water in my apartment so I went to a friends to shower. I forgot my towel. Last night I visited and was reminded about the forgotten towel. I left with the towel. It is purple and moderately fluffy.

I was walking with a friend. After a minute or so he realized what I was carrying. In my hand, in the street. In front of every body! He told me to hurry up and get a bag for it or something. Hide it away. Quickly!

"Why?" I asked innocently
"It's embarrassing for me."
"Why is it embarrassing?"
"It just it. I can't walk with you if you're going to be carrying that." He stopped and I kept walking. I ducked into a shop to buy something and when I came out he was angry.

"You're still carrying that?"
That's a yes.
"Put it in a bag or something."
"Tell me why."
"I told you. It's embarrassing."
"But why is it embarrassing? Are people going to think something? Are they going to say something?"
"It's not done! When was the last time you saw some one carry a towel in Syria? Have you every seen any one do that?"

I have to admit, I have not seen many Syrian walking around with towels. Then again, it's not like I saw many americans chilling with towels in the streets either. But if some one had reason to, why not? There are many explanations: I could be coming home after swimming. Or I could have an irrational fear of catching lice and thus insist on bringing my own towel when I go to a hair salon. Or I could have showered at a friend's house because I have no water - in Jaramana, where we have problems with the water, this is very likely. I mean, I've never seen anyone walking around Damascus with a ceiling fan but were I to see this I would think: oh, he probably just bought a ceiling fan. No shame whatsoever. And a ceiling fan is much more conspicuous and awkward to carry than a towel.

But my friend refused to walk within two meters of me as long as I carried that shameful, shameful towel. I still don't get it.

I Watch a Play, Am Bored

I am starting to hate the theatre.

I have been fortunate enough to see a couple of plays here, most of 2008's Damascus: Arab Capital of Culture. And with rare exception, I thought every single one blew.

Last night I saw "Tactic," a play that is running this week at Hamra Theatre in downtown Damascus. It's got some famous actor in the title role. I forget his name. It's supposed to be about a broken family, a runaway daughter, an estranged mother, revealed family secrets and drama! Oh yeah! Unfortunately, the "plot" turned out to be little more than a backdrop for a series of dramatic monologues.

While no great patron of the arts (I never understood anything my college roommate's experimental theatre did), I'd appreciate, some, you know, dialogue. And strong characters. That's what I like to see in a play, or in a film: the interaction of different characters and some sort of plot. The kind where secrets and backgrounds are revealed slowly, organically. In film I also like a healthy amount of explosions but understand that the stage has limits.

Within the first five minutes, we know the entire backstory of the mother, her secret, why she fled to Paris, etc. Then after a dance number we see that her daughter has run away to join some sort of casino/nightclub/brothel where the whores/dancers dress like in quasi-futuristic shiny hoodies. We then meet some of them, and the two dudes who work there through one after another monologue about how this happened in their life and how they became whores/dancers. It usually involves a broken family of some sort.

These stories range from a mother's cancer to the Shatila refugee camp massacre. I thought that latter backstory was... odd in the context. It seemed like the writer just wanted to stick in something that would get an emotional rise out of the audience - I'm just sitting there thinking, yes, massacre is bad, but what does this have to do with the play? At the end the father character is talking about love and war - and then veers off into hating on Bush and his wars. The audience appreciated the dig but it felt like a random anti-Bush zinger in almost every New York play I've ever seen: cheap shot. Pandering to the audience. In New York, and Damascus, you know putting in something about Bush being a dick is going to get a clap.

I seemed to be alone in my opinions. The people I saw the play with really enjoyed it and told me I just didn't understand it. Actually, there were parts of it I just didn't understand ("Why was he talking about Russian ladies and is now talking about Suq Hamidiyya?" "He's talking about buying things for their marriage" "Oh"). I know I should have appreciated the go! lady power messages (including one monologue about how boys and girls are treated differently) but part of me was thinking: is the message more effective when delivered in skintight shiny spandex? And are they going into space at some point or is that just a tease?

"What about the acting?" I asked my companions.
"Awesome."
Um, ok. Once again, not that I'm an expert, but I didn't feel like there were any characters. All of the ladies delivered their monologues in the same style, with healthy doses of yelling, screaming, and anguished hair-pulling. I felt like each lady-monologue could have been delivered by the same girl and it would have made no difference. The men also delivered their monologues in the same style, except the famous guy whose character actually seemed to have some.

I've seen plays like this before. Way too much. In Damascus but mostly in New York. I hated them too.

I know that Damascus isn't exactly a hotbed of performing arts and I should be happy with what there is, but shit, is it too much to ask for a play with a plot, characters (who are different from one another) and dialogue?

So afterwards I'm feeling like the grinch because everyone liked the play. The whole audience loved it, my fellow-theatregoers insisted. Though I have a feeling the male potion of the audience would have enjoyed it a lot less without the female cast in those matching miniskirt spacesuits. But anyways, I'm wrong.

Yo, You Fat

Every culture has its own boundaries for polite behavior. There's a lot of horribly rude things in Syria that would be considered normal in America, such as not insisting guests eat until they are unable to move or directing them to the fridge to get their own drinks. Of course, there are also completely normal things in Syria that are unspeakably, horribly rude in America. Foremost in my mind is the nonchalance with which people tell others they are fat:

One morning, I greeted Shaza and Rahaf, coworkers of my age I would often chat with, and after the usual pleasantries, Shaza added, "Samnaneh!" or "You're fatter!"

"What?"

"Samnaneh" She repeated. "Been eating lots lately huh?"

Whoa. In America, you could probably sue some one for that. But here, as she explained to me, that's normal. She and the other young woman said they tell each other all the time, "hey, you're fatter!" or "Hey, thinner!". I told them that would be considered totally rude in America.

"But why? I'm just saying you've gained some weight. It's not a bad thing. You're just fatter. We say it all the time. Hey Rahaf, looking thinner! She'll tell me Hey Shaza, you've gained weight. It's normal."

I'll see friends and they'll let me know Nahfaneh! or Samnaneh! I'm still not used to this. While in America people will tell you if you've lost weight, weight gained is not voiced. If I greet some one I haven't seen for a while at Capoeira, the first words besides shloanik and shu akhbarik will be a commentary on my preceived slimmer-ness or fatter-ness.

In the Turkish baths (hammam) the other day, the other ladies had no reservations telling me "you are fatter than her (my companion)" or pointing to my kirsh (belly).

Maybe I'm just too sensitive. Being fat isn't necessarily a bad thing. The girl in Capoeira that every man is in love with was described to me by my friend Saleh as such: "She is fat and it is good!"

Turkish Baths

I have avoided the Turkish baths. I just don't really feel the need to get all naked and chill with people. I can be naked at home (now that I live alone) for free.

But a recent visitor wanted to experience it, so off we went to al-Bakri in the old city. It was 200 to use the baths and 50 for a massage. Another 50 buys a lady to scrub you, but I thought I could manage scrubbing on my own.

I wasn't sure how naked to get. At the Medinat ash-Shabab swimming pool, the locker room attendent asks naked ladies to kindly not be so naked and step into the small changing rooms during periods of nudity. This during ladies' hours. I wondered if I should use this as a guide or not. I asked the bath attendant and she said as you like. In the bath itself, most ladies were wearing panties but a few were without so I figured either way worked.

We steamed for a while, and chatted with some other women who wondered why I spoke Arabic, why my friend didn't, why she was in such good shape. Two of the women there told me of their plan to lose their bellies by steaming every day and I told them they might want to throw in some exercise as well. That's how she's in shape, I said.
"You're fatter than her," the older woman said.
"Yeah, I don't exercise as much." But thanks for the news.

Then we washed and had a massage in a seperate little room. I'm glad I didn't opt for the scrub, which entailed lying on the floor and just seemed to require a lower bar for intimacy than mine.

I went out to escape the heat and ran into a group of American college girls trying to understand the pricing system. I translated, dressed, and felt like not moving again for the rest of the day. I was super clean but from the steam and the massage all I felt like doing was taking a nap.

There's a hamman in Jeramana that I think I might be using in the future when I don't have water for 6 days or so. It seems more respectable than begging friends to let me use their showers.

Driving in Syria

I don't drive. I like to live in cities where it is not a requirement. Since leaving the familial home, I've lived in New York, Cairo, Washington DC and Damascus, none of which require a car. This is at the top of conditions for future living as well.

But I rented a car last week.

Overall, not as much fun as just taking servees. After a year, I'm down with the servees. I know how to get from A to B and if I don't, I just ask. It's easy. With cars, there's oneways and highways and weird-ass twisty streets. I know my way around pretty well as long as I'm on a servess route I know well. Outside of that, not so much.

There are some mad aggressive drivers here! On the Damascus-Homs and Hom-Tartous highways (yes, we went to Krac des Chevaliers) people drive up on your ass if you are in the left lane, no matter that you are actually passing 3 trucks, making it impossible for you to move over now. At night, they not only honk but flash their brights, as if to say MOVEmoveMOVEmoveMOVEmoveMOVEmoveMOVE. Do you not see this truck I am passing? Or the motorcycle I'm passing? Would you like me to move over immediately and just kill the dude? Even when there were trucks in both lanes, meaning one has to slow down and wait for a lane to clear up, there would be a dude on my ass blinking his brights and honking. Come on!

In the city, lanes lines are apparently suggestions.

Some roads aren't marked all that well, which is how I ended up a bunch of villages when returning from Tartous at night. But on the upside, I got to ask some people for directions and the Tartousi accent is so cute! Really adorable. I could listen to a Tartousi man giving me directions to the autrostrad all day.

Driving is also expensive. Filling up my tank is at least 2000 lira ($40) and that stuff seems to go quick. Servees and inter-city buses are better by far.

But parking in Damascus appears to be mostly free. Except when it's not, like last night around Sahat Arnous. I didn't see any signs, and came back after an hour to find a boot on my car. Turns out a block away there was a small sign about paying 50 lira an hour for parking. The man was very nice, and told me since I didn't know we'll just pretend I paid him for an hour and he'll tear up the ticket. He thought I was Russian (many do) but when I said, no, American he congratulated me on my new president.

Protesting on Cue?

The Syrian nightly news on Thursday night, the day of the protests, was all about the raid. The first segment was a long piece about the protests. There were many, many interviews with protestors: several men, a kid who started crying when talking about how the Americans came in and killed eight innocent people, a teenage girl with a Lattakian accent who said that Syrians can't be quiet, they need to let America know that this is their land and they will defend it.

I was watching the newscast with a friend's family. They agreed that the crying kid was moving, but... c'mon mubaligha shway (little exaggeration)? Tareq said he would understand if the kid was from Albou Kamal, but he's Shami. Effective kid though.

It was especially angering to see the condenscending New York Times write-up of the protests, "As if on Cue, Syrians Protest U.S. Incursion on Their Soil". Would that cue be the U.S. incursion on their soil and the killing of a bunch of civilians? No, no, according to the writer the entire thing is stage-managed by the Syrian Government. It would have to be, because obviously Syrians wouldn't feel real anger about this or anything.

The writer continues, basically saying, "So not that I was there and watched it or anything, but I saw it on the BBC and it (now actual quote) 'seemed likely that the government had orchestrated the protest, which looked precisely timed and organized.'" He then later calls the raid the "boldest" strike by American commandos since the invasion of Iraq. Yippee!

Ok, obviously protests here need the approval of the government, but that doesn't necessarily mean the emotions or anger of the protestors are less valid. Is it too hard to believe that the Syrian people would be, as their government is as well, outraged by the strike?

The rest of the of the Syrian broadcast featured the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, who had been sent to the village by the president. She offered condolences and hugged children (Um Tareq exclaiming "Olee! So dirty!"). One little boy told what happened, with the two helicoptors landing, and how the soldiers came out speaking foreigner and firing in all directions. His accent was almost unintelligble for me, but then it was for every one else in the room as well. The Minister gave a very nice speak though I can't remember what she said.

And then the next day I bought some shampoo at a little store near my new apartment. "Where are you from?" the woman working there asked.
"America"
"America! Haha, we all want to go there and you come here! Welcome, welcome!"
In the end, she knocked 15 lira off the price of the shampoo because "it's your first time in my store. Welcome!"

I mean, sorry America, but I can't imagine a foreigner getting that kind of treatment in America if their country just attacked it.