Late

After the comparative success of last week's outing, a few friends decided to arrange another one, just for us. I got a call Thursday night, after spending an somewhat intellectual evening with artists, hearing how I really should have gone to the last modern dance evening. It was awesome.

I didn't really want to go to Beit Jinn, described as in Quneitra near the border of the occupied Jolan. I had Capoeira class the next day. I was told the scenery there was amazing. "Can we see the Israelis from there?" I asked. "Maybe". There were also waterfalls, and everyone was going to bring food and drink, and we would fry potatoes and it would be awesome. Somebody was bringing his laptop and we could dance for the entirety of its 2-and-a-half battery life. It would only cost however much it took to get there. And my boyfriend wanted to go really bad. It was 3am, and I thought, "why not see more of the country?" Plus, there would be argileh. We would meet at my place at 11am.

I called M the next morning as soon as I was woken up by Saeb banging on my door at 10:45am. She told her parents something and got out of the house. Everyone was late, some people were sleeping, some people forgot to bring their IDs, which is turned out later we didn't actually need. No one was bringing anything, so we took pots and pans and gas from my place while others went out and bought 7 kilos of potatoes. I convinced Um Tareq to come.

We finally got to Baramkeh, and waited for Shadee, the only non-Jeramanian, to come and bring the argileh. He came late, without argileh. Meanwhile, Sale7 got in a fight with his girlfriend about his going, and stormed off vowing not to come. We talked him back into coming. By the time we set off it was past 1.

At Soymarieh garage there was a half-full servees for Beit Jinn waiting to take off, but we were eleven. That servees had apparently been waiting hours to fill, so we negotiated to take another one without filling it to 14, and have it take us all the way to the top where the waterfalls are, off the standard servees path.

That path was blocked at the top. We turned around and the occupants of the servees continued their loud, bitchy fights about where we would set up. Near that water! We can play in it! No, there's too many shawiya and we have girls with us! Over there! No, there's rocks! Higher, lower! We got off at the very bottom, walking distance to the regular servees path, despite our having agreed to pay an extra 100 lira to get off said path.

It was rocky but we set up. The scenery was alright, but in the area we were in it might as well have been alghouta. Just some trees. A boy came over and demanded money. An aged relation sat under a tree and yelled at picnickers, occasionally going over to the nearest family, yelling, demanding 2000 lira for the right to sit on the rocky field, and hitting people with her stick. We were charmed. The boy on the other hand, demanded 500 lira in earnest and we negotiated to 250. Um Tareq and M, with minimal help from the tons of guys, set to preparing the food. It pissed me off, and I felt like everyone had wanted Um Tareq to come just so she could do all the work.
"What would we have done without you?" asked the boys, and I thought, just fucking fry the potatoes yourself. Even I've done it. I peeled potatoes despite several attempts to take the knife away from me. Really, I'm not that much of a disaster with sharp things.

Once the potatoes were frying the boy came over and demanded another 250, and some people were mind to just give it to him. No, said others, he's just waited until we were settled to demand more. We've agreed on a price and we're sticking to it. He can give us our money back and we'll move, otherwise not. A group went over for negotiations and the kid, unwilling to part with the money, said make sure we didn't stay longer than another hour. We'll have to check with the women, said the group.

We finished eating, cleaned things in the spring, and M started worrying about time. Sale7 called the micro driver to come pick us up. We moved next to the road, where a group of guys driving tractors almost tracked through our stuff. Shadee joked with them, and then they stayed, offering tractor rides to all interested and drinking our tea. M took a ride on a tractor with one, causing him to confess soon after to one of our group that he was in love with her. We turned on the laptop and played some good music, but with the presence of the unwashed I was forbidden to dance, or even sway.

I sat with some friends by the stream, who remarked on the fallaheen as more people took tractor rides. "Look at how happy they are, without worries."
"What worried could they have? Their life is so simple."
"They only worry about what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
"Not even. They probably eat the same thing everyday."
"Look, there's more coming! They're like flies."

Finally the micro came, and a panicked M made us turn down the driver's offer to stop at his house for some coffee. We got caught in heavy traffic outside of Damascus, barely moving, and didn't make it back to Jeramana until after 9pm. Manar jumped out and ran home.

The next day I saw M at Capoeira and asked if she caught hell.
"Oh yeah. It was a massacre. I can't hear out of this ear today, they hit me so many times." She said her dad went crazy with anger and grabbed a knife at one point. She's staying at her uncle's for now. I asked when I could see her and she said next Capoeira class - nothing outside of it.

On the way back, we had to be quiet twice, once when M's parents called, and she told him she was on the way home, and again when one of the guy's parents called. He said he was at Sale7's parents house outside of Damascus and was coming home soon. See, I was told, guys have to lie to their parents to get out of the house too. But I wonder if they get beat up for coming home at 9pm too.