Born in the U.S.A.

How to broach a topic like this, littered with landmines? Especially when a woman from the supposedly-enlightened bastion of freedom and equality that is the United States deigns to bestow her help and knowledge upon the poor oppressed masses of the other, chained by their religion and backwards culture and, perhaps, hummus. The portrayal of all Arab women or all Muslim women, or all non-Western women as pitiable creatures draws some of my more exasperated sighs. The falsehoods that are perpetuated, the generalization of the restriction of one country to all, the thought that the hijab might as well be a stamp marked "Please Liberate Me!". The undertone (though not always so under) accompanying much of this hand wringing that "we" are so much better. That we have achieved gender equality. That much of this is insincere is unsurprising: there's a long history of using "Save the brown woman from the brown man" to justify occupying and controlling both. Lord Cromer, the British colonial head in Egypt (1883-1907), decried the treatment of Egytian women and thundered against the veil, then went home and co-founded an anti-women's suffrage group. The sudden sympathy of American government officials for the poor Afghani woman coincidentally arising with the desire to invade brings to mind certain parallels.

And at the same time, I'm glad I was born a woman in America.

Most of the time I can't even comprehend how much privilege I have, and not just from my nationality. I am a white woman born into a middle-class educated family in America. Despite the relative strictness of my upbringing, at 18 there was never a question of my shipping off to college a thousand miles away, in New York City, no less. No sense that the honor of the entire family rested between my legs. And it doesn't in every family - but it does in some.

Just the fact that I'm here in Syria, a woman living by herself, is something. Most weekends I hang out with my guy friends more than girls because a lot of the girls have to be home at 8 or 9, or if lucky, 10.

A lot of my freedom comes from money. I could afford to travel here, can afford to get a place on my own and have no responsibilities other than myself. And sure enough, among the more well-off, daughters go off to college in Beirut or England and stay out late. And there is a contingent of girls who come from other areas of Syria to go to college in Damascus, and live alone or in groups, especially from the Jolan (whose seperation from their families is quite understandable). But I'd say from my Western woman perch that more typical is going back to Jeramana from Capoeira class with a 28-year-old woman, her cell phone ringing every 5 minutes with parents telling her to hurry up and get home, as if she can will the traffic away or the servees faster. It is 8:30 pm.

Even as pharmacists refuse to give out contraceptives, even as rape victims are blamed, even as the worth of a woman is measured in fuckability, even as lifting your t-shirt for a free hat are being trumpeted as "expressing yourself", I thank fucking God that I am woman from America.

Damascus Can Be A Tiny Place

They say there's something like 5 million people in Damascus and its environs, but honestly sometimes I feel like there are 30 with how I keep running into people.

UNFPA and SHABAB (that's an acronym) did some training of kids (15-30) for interactive theatre last week. The week ended with two performances where they did their skits on education and women's rights for youth and NGOs. I covered the training for UNFPA, showing up early and on a Saturday to get photos of the first day.

Soon, I was recognized. A guy came up to me and asked if I was "that girl" at the Danish party in Jeramana the previous Thursday night. "You dance well!" he said, which is exactly how you want people to identify you when trying to be all professional. "To Nancy Ajram - remember?"

All too well. The Thursday evening in question I and several others from Capoeira class went to a party hosted by Danes at a pool in Jeramana. They rented out the entire pool, and we ate meshawi, swam a bit, drank a bit, argeelaed a bit and danced. At one of the later points in the night, for a large group of us debke became booty shaking or raqs sharqi depending on the music. A Nancy Ajram song came on, one of those that my roommates and I back in Cairo 2006 had spent long nights dancing to, and I busted out the raqs sharqi.

For this, I was recognized by two of the interactive theatre actors who did not know each other but both happened to be at the party. Well, nice to meet you too.

Friday I skipped the first performance because of a conflict with my Capoeira class. It got out at eight, and as I was walking on Sharia Baghdad I ran into two of the actors. "Why weren't you at the show??" they demanded. "Tomorrow, in sha Allah" I said, but was a little embarrased because I was wearing a tiara.

It was my birthday, so my capoeria class had surprised me with cake and a tiara, which I was now wearing for all of Shariah Thawra and Baghdad to see.

So I think all of those people in the theatre group think I've crazy and possibly on crack. Which sucks because I know I'm going run into them in the future.

In Sha Allah Mabrouk

I had a weekend just chock-full o' parties, beginning Thursday night when I went to Um Mohammad's daughter's engagement party.

Um Mohammad is a Palestinian woman who cleans the UNFPA and sometimes we ride the servees together. We got to talking, and I no longer lament my Jeramana -Mezzeh commute as she lives in Husayniyya, out past Sitt Zenaib and the airport. It takes her an hour and half to get to work.

She further told me she had 8 girls and two sons. I remarked that it must be crazy with all those kids, to which she replied that oh, all the girls but three are married off so there's not that many. And Iya is getting engaged next week! Would you like to come? You can sleep over! We'll kick the men out so you don't have to worry, it'll just be girls!

I accepted the invitation for the party, which is how I found myself dancing with 50-year-old muhajjibas to reggaeton.

I had been expecting a lot more meat. It's almost shameful that I've been here 11 months without a single Shami wedding, but I had heard what to expect: Ladies be off by themselves, stripping down to impressively gaudy dresses and putting Rotana video to shame. But while the party was predominantly female, there were a few guys so many hijabs stayed on. This however, did not stop the Sexy Dancing. Neither did the heat, which had hit 43 C that day, compounded by the sweaty multitudes dancing inside a concrete room. I thought that I would be able to impress with my ability to bust a move, but I was put to shame by grandmothers and 12-year-olds in belly tops.

The engaged girl, Iya, who is 18, looked mostly bored as she sat on her raised platform above the revelers. She must have spent hours at the salon: makeup heavily done, each strand of hair shackled down, and everything topped off with glitter and stick-on stud rhinestones. Her pink dress had an impressive circumfrence that, when she sat, fanned out behind her. An aunt helpfully stuck a kleenex into the halter bustier to cover up the cleavage.

The groom was brought in with much fanfare and photos. The fiances looked at each other nervously when he walked up to her and took his seat next to her on the platform. For the official photos, the mother of the bride hauled out a matching pink cape to drape over her daughter's bare shoulders. The two awkwardly shuffled a dance, careful with her dress, before retaking their thrones and we, the masses, began to shimmy and debke again. Then the groom left to go back to his party in Mughayyam Jeramana.

The evening ended after 9pm, but the seeminly endless sisters of Um Mohammad and their children and children's children stayed. We sat out in the garden sipping sugary tea and talking. I had to focus a bit more than usual because they are from countryside Palestine and have a different accent: most notably they say gaff for qaff, though a few of them used kaff. They all lamented the tiny size of my family (my brother and I) while boasting of their own. Um Mohammad has her 10, one of her sisters, 13, another 12. "Palestinians love children!" they told me. Um Mohammad's 24-year-old niece has three and one on the way. There were children everywhere during the party, running underfoot, being handed off, staring at me and offering me candy.

A Syrian friend later told me, "Oh the Palestinians. They have children like they're competing against each other."

Yes Palestinians and Irish Catholics! We will breed our way into taking back our lands!

Um Mohammad and her son refused to let me go home alone. "We understand its different in Jeramana, but girls don't walk by themselves in Husayniyya." They came with all the way to Mughayyam Jeramana, despite my protests of knowing the way. Really sweet woman, Um Mohammad - since I didn't stay over I've now promised a sleepover in the near future.

I love how people say, "In sha Allah mabrouk!" (Hopefully congratulations!). It is after all just the engagement, with the actual wedding planned after a year or so. Anything could happen between now and then, so mabrouk, in sha Allah.

Middle Class Refugees

According to an official at UNHCR, one of the problems facing the Iraqi refugees in Syria is their Middle Class-ness. When the money runs out "they don't have the survival skills of most refugee populations."

Oh No You Didn't!

Maybe it's the heat, but I am not putting up with shit.

When there's a bit of harassment in a crowded area, like a servees or a souq, there's always a little doubt about whether that brush-up was intentional or not. If intentional, I want to go off on a mother so he thinks twice before oops! letting his hand wander again. If not, I don't want to be a crazy person going off a poor guy who just got caught up in the crowd. Most women go through this same calculation, I think, and many of us err on the side of "well, maybe it was accidental". Then later we think, "Oh that was totally intentional. Eww." and feel like idiots for not having at least made a scene.

But I am making some scenes.

Last week on my way to work my head was buried in my book (Bab ash-Shams, Elias Khoury) when I felt a hand graze my side. The guy next to me had shifted his weight, and his arm crossed with the other, and the hand rubbed against me a bit. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and kept reading. A little later, he leaned over and whispered something in my ear. I didn't catch but the last of it cause I wasn't paying attention, but intentions were clear.

So I straightened, and very loudly, for all the servees to hear, said "What? What do you want? Don't whisper!" Everyone looked at the dude, who looked deeply embarrassed, and didn't bother me again on the ride.

A couple of days later I was in the Jeramana servees when I relealized there was a hand at my back, on the side. I have no idea how long that hand had been there, but it belonged to the man sitting behind me, who was holding on to the seat in front of him from the side, and just managed to put his hand behind me. I didn't even think, but automatically turned and slapped the hand, which withdrew and immediately signalled for the servees to pull over so he could get his guilty ass out. Guilty as SLAP!

But the latest scene was not made by me. I was riding with some friends when one of them noticed the guy sitting across from us was engrossed by my skirt's hemline. He waved his hand in front of the guy's face, then they got into a shouting match. The other passengers calmed them down, and the man moved to another seat. Perhaps my friends overreacted, but ever since I told them about what happened when that guy attacked me, and other girlfriends jumped in with similar stories, some of the dudes have gotten very protective of us.

Dentistry

I was walking to Capeoira class famished. The UNFPA office in Mezzeh is located in a food desert. There's a little market (baqaliyya) nearby, but the owner is a douche who charges 50 lira for yogurt I can get anywhere else in Damascus for 35 lira. There was no way I could get through two hours (ok, one-and-a-half with the breaks and always-late starts) without something in my gut.

I grabbed some chips from a store outside the sports club, and began to stuff them in. Then, a crack. I spit out a small rock and part of a molar. These weren't the crappiest, cheapest chips you can buy either, but Uncle Chips. I expect no rocks when I spend 15 lira on chips, damnit! My tooth wasn't bleeding or anything so I went to Capeoira class.

Luckily in Jeramana there are a glut of dentists near my apartment on Sahat as-Suyuf. On the way back I got off early, walked into a random dentist's office, and made an appointment. The next day after work I choose tooth-colored over gold fill, and walked out 20 minutes later with a fistful of candy. I asked him why he had candy - trying to get more business? He laughed and then gave me some candy, and for the first time, asked if I was Russian. No, no, American.

It was 1000 lira ($20) total and even comes with a guarantee. Should anything happen with that tooth, he said he'll fix it for free.

Let's Be Culturally Appropriate!

With the summer has come an influx of tourists. There are many Europeans and Iranians, though not at many Gulfis as I would have expected. The Iranians are easy to pick out if I'm in hearing range to realize I don't understand a word they're saying, or if the women are wearing chador, a garment not to popular among Damascenes. Outside Sitt Ruqayya in the old city, massive groups of 30 Iranian grandmothers will sway together, cluchting their chadors and walking like penguins due to the ravages of time on their ankles. These groups move with unstoppable single-mindedness toward their goal, the Mosque, often sweeping up bystanders too weak to fight against the grandmother wave.

The Europeans are naturally easy to pick out. They wear hats to keep the sun off, have cameras around their necks, and when I see them seem to be standing around tired, sick of the heat and somewhat overwhelmed. They also wear tank tops and shorts. While the tank top is a Damascus regular, shorts are not. Even guys don't wear shorts outside of the house except rarely. Tariq was recently chided by Sale7 for wearing shorts all the way to Mezzeh from Jeramana. "You wore shorts? To Mezzeh? Eib, ya zalameh! Eib! (Shame, dude, shame!)"

The tourists wear shorts, and whatever. Not exactly in line with local sensibilities - would it kill you to open a book or ask your tour guide what might be appropriate before you go? I think most people just look at the weather forecast and think "Short weather!" At least its not like in Cairo, where tourists would walk around downtown in tank tops and short shorts (the tank top is NOT a regular in Cairo) and wonder why people were looking at them. Or visit Upper Egypt's ancient tombs in bikini tops.

But sometimes its even better when tourists try to respect local tomes of appropriateness. I see a lot of foreign women wearing hijab, though they tend to let the front of the hair show, which is more Persian or Gulfi. I wonder what they think when they see all the Syrian women walking around without hijab. Unless you are visiting a mosque, there is no reason a foreign non-Muslim needs to be wearing hijab in Syria. You're overdoing it just a bit.

And sometimes attempts to be culturally appropriate fail miserably. I saw a family of tourists in Bab Toma where the women had tried to dress more in line with the locals and wrapped their shoulders, upper arms, and chests in a shawl. However, the women had neglected their bottom halves, and were walking around in short shorts.

The best I've heard is from my roommate who was in a restaurant in Halab when two foreign women walked in. One was wearing hijab - trying a little two hard to fit in anywhere outside of mosque in my opinion - but with shorts and a spagetti strap tank top. According to my roommate the tank was low enough that the bottom of the hijab did not meet the top of her shirt, instead, viewers were treated to cleavage. How so very wrong. It's like 20 times more offensive than just walking around in your tank and shorts.

Seriously, could that lady have thought she was wearing hijab correctly? Did she not notice that no other muhajjiba walking around complemented her wrap with exposed theigh, back, and cleavage? Seriously?

The Arab Version of "Moment of Truth"

There's a few channels here that play mostly American movies and tv shows, with subtitles rather than dubbing like Turkish soap operas. Two of my friends claim to have learned English from Friends. A lot of American shows also get remade into an Arab version: "The Biggest Winner", "Who Wants to Win 2 Million [Saudi Riyal]", "Star Academy" (American Idol), and "Sing For Me a Little" which is apparently based on some American show where people try to get song lyrics correct. I used to watch some of these shows back when I lived with a Syrian family. It was back when I was even worse with accents, and so I would understand the Syrian and Lebanese contest, and then have to turn to the family to ask "Gulfi says what? Morrocan says what?"

I was watching an episode of "Moment of Truth" with some friends when they announced at the end that they are looking for contestants for the Arab version. What? For those unfamiliar, "Moment of Truth" is an American television show where people tell their deeply embarrassing secrets on national TV for money. "Have you cheated on your spouse?" "Have you ever stolen money?" "Do you blame your father for this or that?" The person's family, is seated nearby listening to every questio and answer the truthfulness of which is determined by polygraph. The show is like a horrible car accident that you can not help looking at. I've seen about 3 episodes, and in each you could almost identify the moment at which the marriage is destroyed. It's amazing what these people are willing to tell the world, destroying relationships with their family and friends, for some money. One woman I saw went home with nothing after revealing some pretty personal shit and all you could feel was bad for her. It also makes Americans look like horrible shameless money-grubbers.

And now there will potentially be an Arab version. I couldn't believe it when I first heard, and asked my friends to confirm they said what I think they said. I'm having trouble imagining Arabs going on international TV to reveal their most personal secrets for money.

Americans, I have no trouble imagining this. We take insults to our honor regularly and often joyfully. I used to work as a waitress at a bar and smile nicely at men who told me things like wanting a beer with a side of me, or most eloquently, "They say girls in glasses are good in bed." They really say that, do they? Were I propositioned in this way on the street, I would have fucked a mother up. Verbally. But at work, I smiled and suggested they try chips as a better companion to beer. At the end of the night I was crowing about my $250 in tips, whoo! We have a long history of going on television to make complete asses of ourselves: remember that ancient "Newlywed Game"? And many of us Americans also don't have a very developed sense of honor or shame: Look at the kooky things we will do just for a Klondike bar. Americans also seem less beholden to theirs parents. When confronted with the gift of life bestowed by a mother and the years of care most parents giprovide their kids an American will likely say, "Fuck you. I didn't ask to be born!"

But honor is very important for many in the Arab world. Just look at how many of my girlfriends have to be in at 9 because their neighbors might talk. There are many, especially among the upperclasses, for whom is this not an issue, but those aren't exactly the type to go on a TV show diggin' for cash. If doing something private like putting on makeup (or brushing your hair) outside in the street is weird, just imagine admitting to cheating on your husband or wife on TV. And parents! People generally seem to have them in higher regard. For a lot of Americans, if your family disapproves of your dating choice, that's their problem. They need to get over it. Here, if your family disapproves you likely ain't getting married.

Of course there is no place on earth devoid of people selling themselves. Look at the prostitutes, for a very obvious example. But still, and this is probably really naive, I am having trouble wrapping my head around an Arab "Moment of Truth".

Of course my friends and I asked ourselves if we would go on such a show, with responses from "Hell no" to "Why not? I have nothing to hide." But everyone has something to hide, even if its not the worst thing in the world, there's always something we wouldn't want everyone to know. At least I hope.

Still, I am immensly excited for the this Arab "Moment of Truth", whenever it comes out.

Anything Strange is Shameful

I asked some friends about why a stranger would see the need to call me out about brushing my hair on a micro. Their reaction: "You brushed your HAIR on the MICRO?"
"I was running late."
"Why didn't you just brush your teeth too?"

They confirmed that it is 'Eib (Shameful) to do these things, because no one does them. I asked why no one does them, and was told because they are shameful. I see circular logic.
"So what if I'm brushing my hair?"
"People just don't do that. It's shameful."
"But why?"
"Anything strange is shameful"

Since as a foreigner I am by definition strange, I am therefor by definition shameful.