An Outing, More or Less Successful

I ran into Abd, back from Russia for a few months, in the old city. He invited me and M to an outing with students of the literature college to Sweida. There was a cave, and they were bringing a DJ and speakers and going to set up a regular dance party there. 300 lira only, food and drink on us. It sounded fun. I agreed to get the booze, M the food.

The next morning those of us from Jeramana met at Rawda to make the journey to Mezzeh. Abd and his friends were 15 minutes late. The bus was supposed to leave at 9, and going to Mezzeh in the morning rush can take a while.

I shouldn't have worried. I forgot that "bus leaves at 9, don't be late!" means the bus will leave closer to 11. We waited in the hot sun. It is summer now, at least during the day, until the sun goes down and I grab a coat.

The bus finally came, filled, and got moving raucously. The driver played Arabic songs, and students were in the aisles dancing the entire time. We stopped in Jeramana to pick up the DJ, prompting those of use who were in Jeramana to complain that we could have saved a lot of time had we known.

We rolled through Sweida to Areeqa, and got out in front of a restaurant. "Where's the cave?" we asked, until it became clear that we were going to hang out in this restaurant. I complained to who I had finally identified as the trip organizer, "What, there aren't any restaurants in Damascus? We could have partied on a rooftop and saved ourselves the trip. I was promised a cave party."

He promised it would be cool, and that we were near a cave, but it was unfortunately closed. We went into the restaurant, set up the DJ, and started on M's sandwiches and my vodka. After eating, people started dancing, including a girl in black who memorized the crowd with her hips. I don't understand how these girls dance this much - in a short sleeve teeshirt I was sweating within minutes but the muhajibat danced the entire time without so much as a feminine glistening of perspiration.

Finally an expedition set out for this cave, which is currently under some sort of construction. Even though cave reconstruction isn't the sort of thing that just pops up one day when you're making plans, the organizer had told everyone we would party in a cave, meanwhile booking the restaurant. It had small opening, and inside was cool and pitch black. With mobiles and lighters we navigated around, stepping in a lot of mud. It would have been impossible to hold a party in this place.

The party finally ended at around 5, which was good as my buzz was wearing off. On the way back I sat next to the good dancer in black, and we got to chatting. She volunteers for an organization that fights domestic violence, and my boyfriend and her also had a long talk. Afterwards he told me he was surprised that a muhajiba would be so cool and down with gender equality... which shows that not only the foreigners have misconceptions about the hijab.