New years gift

There is a beautiful sight outside my window, though I doubt many of those reading would be quite as enamoured as I am. The green grass, the umbrella-like palm trees, the fruit trees, are all covered by a light scattering of cold, white, snow. Yup, snow. In Syria. Apparently, this happens about once a decade, and today the weather gods gave us this present for the new year. There is something refreshing about celebrating a new year with that perfect clean whiteness; a clean slate so to speak.

And even more entertaining than watching the snow was watching everyone react to it. Many of the people here, if not Syrian are still from the Middle East and Africa, and for many of them snow is not a common sight. All around cameras appeared, posed pictures in front of snowy trees, snowball fights, and shivering. Everyone was so excited for the new snow, and for those of us who are used to white winters, we felt a little more at home.

Sit right here and watch the sun disapper into the ocean...

It was high time for a mini-adventure. I've been spending so much time in one place lately, I'm getting anxious being so stationary. The lonely planet travel guide described Latakia as a little piece of Europe in the Middle East, so Justin and I decided to check that out. As much as I love this region, a little bit of Europe sounded like a welcome change of pace. We caught a train at 6AM, for the high price of 160SP, or approx $3.50, and enjoyed the trip on one of the nicest, newest trains I've seen thus far. Even had a DVD system playing a movie, but it was in Arabic and I didn't feel like trying to follow along that early in the morning. I spent the time enjoying the view, which wasn't as majestic as the travel guide said, but plesent none-the-less. Three hours and eight tunnels later we were in Latakia, on the other side of the mountains, on the coast.

We walked from the train station to the bus station, and got our return tickets in advance (no late train going back sadly). Then we set out, still walking, towards the ocean and after about an hour and a short break for pizza we found a stretch of beach with rocks jutting out the side seperating the public area from the small harbor. Justin hadn't seen the ocean in about three years, and while it had only been a couple months for me, it was still a very welcome sight. We sat there, feet in the water, reading, writing, talking, and enjoying the sun. As we got up to leave, my right boot finally fell apart as it had been threatening to do, and after trying to walk with the sole flapping under me, then trying to tie it on with the cords from cheap headphones from the train, I gave up, ripped the sole off, and walked unevenly on the bit of fabric remaining under my sock. Eventually we wandered back through the city a ways, and back to the bus station home.

Here we were in for a surprise however. Apparently, dispite our best efforts, our tickets were wrong. They had sold us tickets for the bus leaving when we bought them, instead of the evening one, even though the clerk had pointed at 6 on the clock and nodded when we bought them. It took us a while to figure this out, however, as they spoke no English, and I need to work on that Arabic more. The best we could do was say we'd paid in the morning (in Arabic), and they kept telling us to pay. Finally someone was fetched as a translator, and he told us they had messed up and sold us the wrong tickets and we'd have to buy new tickets. No way around it. Annoyed, we paid them again, another $3 each, and got on a rickety old bus from the early 70's. Sitting down in the bus I heard my pants rip, and the cheaply sown seem gave out. I was greatful I was wearing my black leggings underneath. For about two hours, I tried to keep my mind occupied with anything to distract from the dark narrow roads, crazy driving, and sheer drops off the edge of the roads as we wandered through the mountain pass back towards Aleppo with no defroster unless you count the two men with paper towels wiping down the window in turns. Three stops later, we were finally on flat land and the driver put away his cell phone, and the lasts half of the trip flew by on a straight well-lined divided highway.

We got back into town, took a taxi to our neighborhood, and stopped for sandwhiches before I walked the rest of the way to my place, ripped pants, missing a sole, but a not so restless as before.

A little disproportionate

'The attacks entered their third day Monday, with more than 300 people in Gaza reported killed and hundreds more wounded. Israel says the military assault is in response to ongoing rocket strikes on Israel, which have killed two Israelis.' - CNN, London, England. 12-30-2008

Eye for an eye? What ever happened to the punishment fitting the crime? There have been demonstrations throughout the world in response to the Palestinian death toll, which is near 400 now, with around 1500 more injured.

'Protests were also held in Israel, where students at universities in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem demonstrated against the Israeli military operation, ynetnews.com reported.' - also CNN, London.

Christmas in Syria

Christmas Eve I had dinner with some colleagues from ICARDA. The food was wonderful, and plentiful, with the best part being the rice and meat wrapped in something similar to spinach leaves. After dinner, I joined some friends at the dorms where I was staying previously and we had a bit of a Christmas party. Justin, my German friend, was really excited about the holiday and bought some decorations including a miniature tree. He also bought small gifts for each of us, and a bottle of wine. We played Christmas music on the computer, and the festivities involved opening presents, eating cookies, drinking wine, juggling fruit, and dancing. Around 11:30, Justin and I headed out to find a church. He wanted to attend a midnight mass. I figured seeing a foreign church sermon would be interesting, so shortly after midnight we found ourselves in a simple old catholic church standing at the back, listening to a sermon in Arabic.

Getting home so late, I slept late Christmas day, and spent a couple hours on the phone with my family back home while they opened presents and spent half the time guessing who's was who because someone had forgotten to label them or had gotten lazy (as usual). That made it feel like Christmas for me, despite the beautiful weather outside, just to rub that in. Christmas with palm trees and sunshine; something weird about that.

Lost in translation

#2 The cost of fiscal stamps to be affixed to the undertaking relative to the permit for temporary admission of cars is LLP 10,000.

-- One of the notices crossing the Lebanese border. I found the translation humorous.

Christmas in the desert

We had another hash this weekend, at a simliar site closer to Aleppo. Someone brought Santa hats for everyone, and we set out; a group of twenty-ish people, mostly adults and one dog, wandering around sweeping fields of grey poreous rocks and a ruined city wearing santa hats. Including the dog. This site was somewhat more intact than Bara, with some full caves and rooms still whole. Justin, Yasim and I wandered into one of the caves, dug out of the stone. It was a square room about 15ft wide, long, with the ceiling slightly above my head at its lowest so around six feet high. There's a picture posted on the web album (link to the right). Justin made friends with a horse, who then became the Christmas mascot when Justin betrayed this new friendship by putting his Santa hat on the poor beast. Mr. Ed didn't seem to happy about this turn of events, but put on a good show.

Jakoba and I went back to town and went shopping, still wearing our hats. I had forgotten about mine until a small girl pointed and laughed at me in the store, and her mother hushed her and rushed her past me. All I could think was that walking around town in a Santa hat was something my mother would do. I suppose I get more from her than her clumsiness and athletic ability, I picked up the lunacy gene as well. <3

Culture of tea and coffee

Sitting in the research station in Terbol, Lebanon, one of the technicians offers us coffee. She boiled a kettle of water on the small heat stove in the center of the room, and mixes up a couple cups of Nescafe for us. She then pulls out a package of tea-biscuits setting them on a plate on the desk. Before I can finish my coffee, she starts making a pot of Turkish coffee (a strong powdery brew served in tiny cups), boiling the rich powder into a small pot of water, pulling it off the heat and stirring every few seconds as it nearly boils over. Five cups are set out, and the Turkish coffee was served with copious amounts of sugar. This time I was able to finish my coffee before she offered tea, and when the tea was served with a bowl of sugar, I declined the sugar. There is so much sugar in everything here, the coffee/tea and the foods and sweets, that I try to avoid it when I can. I'm glad I turned it down, since when I took a sip I noticed the tea was already well sweetened, yet the others were adding full tablespoons of sugar to their cups. The researcher we'd been waiting for arrived, and we had another cup of Turkish coffee in a different office before heading out for the return trip to Syria. Tea and coffee are so deeply ingrained in the culture here; a shop owner will often serve you a cup while you puruse his wares, men sell it from thermoses in traffic and huts along the roads. Tea/coffee provides an opening to greet a guest, to open conversation; it's a beautiful tradition. I wish I could pack my bag full of local tea and coffee coming home, but alas... only so much room. Two or three bags should fit.

Beauty and poverty

I had the opportunity to take a short trip into Lebanon a few days ago, just overnight, collecting samples for a research project. The drive took about 4 hours, crossing the border extended that time by about an hour. American passports are unusual here. However, while time consuming, it wasn't scary or stressful. The border system was simple, but recognizable; men in camo or green military dress, sitting at desks filling out forms and asking questions. We pulled up to the border buildings on the northern Lebanese border, and Ziad, my companion, explained that the border isn't well marked and that it causes problems with farmers who have land crossing the undefined borderlands. I could see what he meant when we crossed through Syrian customs, then drove about ten kilometers further to reach the Lebanese side. That stretch of no-man's land inbetween was covered in fields of pestaschio and olive trees, open farmland and huts made from burlap sacks and bits of plastic that housed the farm workers. Yet in the distance on either side the road is flanked by beautiful gentle mountain ranges forming the valley we drove through, topped with snow to the west and fading out into to fog in the east.

It cost me about 10 USD to get out of Syria, but my short term stamp for Lebanon was free. After filling out the form with my passport information, birth place/date, parents names and my profession (still seems weird to have a profession...), I recieved yet another stamp on my passport. I think my passport will end up being my ultimate travel souviner. The rest of the drive through Lebanon to the research station alternated between farmland and small towns. The towns were not much different than in Syria, that eclectic combination of modern and old, cell phone and computer advertisements next to streetside vegetable vendors and 40 year old cars. There were multiple checkpoints, but they consisted of someone checking the logo on the car for the research center, and waving us through.

We stayed the night in a nice hotel in a place called Zahle, overlooking the rest of the city from a cliff and I spent most of the evening learning Arabic with Ziad while smoking a nargile much to the delight of the hotel staff who aren't used to seeing a western woman smoking a nargile. Its only recently becoming common for even local women to do so. They also joined in on my education ocassionally, correcting my pronounciation and checking my writing while they changed the coals on the nargile.

It wasn't until the drive back the next day, while I took pictures through the windows, that it really hit me how different this life was, how desolate for some people. Seeing children herding sheep while their mother carries water in plastic buckets back to the makeshift houses, I realized how quickly I'd come to accept the life in the region as normal here, and how drastically different it is from the life I know back home. And even the worst that I've seen so far is nothing compared to conditions in other parts of the region. What kills me though, is the divide between the upper and lower classes. In between fields filled with tent-houses (I counted about sixty huts in one field) are mansions, large beauitful stone houses, gated and isolated from the desolation at their doorsteps. I can understand how its easy to ignore a problem from across the world, but when you see it out your kitchen window while you sip your morning tea... Perhaps, like how I adjusted so quickly to thinking of what I've seen as normal, the problem is not that they ignore the plight of those less fortunate, but rather that they fail to recognize it as a problem, as something that could be helped.

A country behind the times

I'm talking with my friend Flavio over tea today after lunch, and another guy sits down with us. I don't remember his name, if we've been introduced, and I hate acknowledging that so I didn't ask. We get to talking about the differences between different countries, especially the weather. The other guy, lets call him Jim, says that he's supposed to be going to Ethiopia for work soon, but that it's difficult to get things done with the Ethiopian projects. Why's that, we ask. And he looks at his watch and says, 'well for example, its 7:30 there.' It was about 13:30 Syrian time, and Ethiopia is at most one or two time zones away, so of course this is strange. Apparently, they count the time of the day starting from sunrise, instead of midnight. Logical, if you ask me, and since sunrise is typically around 6am, they are 6 hours behind us. Also, he says, they use a different calendar, so it is the year 2001 there and they are always seven years behind. He goes on to complain that the paperwork is a hassle since his superiors always want to know why he's filing old reports.

He turns to Flavio and tries to convince him that he should work in Ethiopia. Flavio is a barley geneticist, and apparently they have some of the most interesting barely varieties. I couldn't help but comment that he should take the job, it would add years to his life.

Oh, and one more quirk (well, I'm sure there are many more, but thats the joy of culture) is that they have a different system for months as well. Thirteen months, to be exact. Twelve months of 30 days, and one month of 5 days. No more counting your knuckles to figure out how many days are in June.

Like a sore thumb

This week is holidays here, so I have three days off of "work," so to speak. Since on Monday, the first day of the Eid Al-Adha, all the shops were closed, and since then only a small number of them have been open, I've spent most of the last few days alternately reading, studying Arabic, walking the city, and taking advantage of the time for internet. Today I set out to explore the city in its quiet days by taking a bus from my dorm. I've found that a large portion of Syrian women, especially ones my age, dress in modern western clothes, just more conservatively. So I put on my most normal clothes, black slacks, white buttonup shirt, and a black jacket, hoping to blend a bit; not taken for a local, but at least a resident alien. I don't really know if there is much logic to the bus system, and if there is, it's lost to me with my minimal Arabic. So I just hopped on the first bus that arrived, paid the 10 cent fee, and took the seat that was offered by a young man who got up for me. I spent the next twenty minutes looking out the window, observing people, neighborhoods, and mosques. For the record, each mosque is very unique, especially the minarets.

When the bus I was on cirled the outskirts of town on the far side of the city and returned to my stop, I got off, and got another bus. That one may have eventually taken me into the city center, but I knew the green one would. Well, I thought it would. After another twenty minutes or so of observing out the bus window, I glanced a Christian cemetary, almost literally in the shadow of a mosque. A few minutes later, as we passed through some of the oldest parts of town (this half of the city is a world heratige site), there was a Muslim cemetary along the side of the road. Simple headstones flowing with Arabic script, disappeared over the hill, and the bus moved on. I almost got off, wanting a picture of the cemetary, but I was in an area of town I didn't know and I realized I hadn't seen a woman in modern dress or with her hair/face uncovered in quite a while. I knew the bus was heading near the city center, a more common tourist site where I would be less out of place, so I stayed on, content with the mental photo. We passed a second graveyard, and this time the bus stopped and everyone got off, end of the line. I got out, and realized I wasn't really sure where I was at. I knew I was in the old city, behind the famous Citadel and souqs, but I didn't know which direction they lay. I took a guess.

For the record, anytime I take a guess in a city, even when I think I'm following a map, I'm almost always wrong. Ask joey. This time was no exception. And on top of it, I stuck out like a sore thumb, the only woman in sight without her hair covered; most women were wearing more traditional long dresses and anklelength coats, generally black, with black head scarves. I had my scarf with me, but bright green would probably have drawn more attention in this neighboorhood than my dark hair. In most areas, women tend to make up for the conservative dress code with bright colors, sparkly items, and flashy designs. This wasn't one of those areas. While never rude or threatening, I was getting far more attention than I wanted. I kept saying I'd take the next taxi that came by, but they'd come by, honk, and slow down and I'd shake my head before I realized it, intrigued by my surroundings.

Along the streets, young boys and old men were selling fat tailed sheep, and trucks were going by with sheep skins and live animals in every direction. Eid Al-Adha is a celebration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son and his last minute repreave of slaughtering a lamb instead. Traditionally, any family who is able to afford it slaughters a lamb and shares the food with friends, family, and those in need. When I realized I was heading deeper into the old city, rather than out of it, I turned around, and not long after was able to see the Citadel above the buildings. Heading in that direction, I came to a main turn about (the circular intersections are common here) and there were children everywhere. It was like a minature carnival with a tiny ferris wheel and many versions of swings piled high with minature people. I smiled as I walked by; even more than people in general, wherever you go, kids are kids.

I finally found an area I recognized, found my favorite street side "sandwhich" shop and had a late lunch of a chicken & veggie wrap (now that I think of it, these are somewhat similar to a taco bell "grilled stuffed burrito"). I kept walking, figuring I'd find the bus route, not wanting to spend the money on a taxi, though its a difference of twenty cents vs a dollar-ish. However, by the time I found my way to a bus stop, I was back to the university. Don't get me wrong, the city isn't that small, I probably walked about three miles, wandering in the direction of my dorm. Good exercise after being stationary for three days. :) And probably in part due to the holidays, but also to the part of my trip spent in the old city, I didn't see a single woman with her hair uncovered until I returned to the university. Come to think of it, not even then. So much for blending in today....

Hash and Hare

So last week I wrote about how I'd gone out on a "hash" with Jakoba and Celine, but it had been canceled due to the rain. We rescheduled, and left again this Friday at 6:30AM to set up the site. I was still pretty much in the dark as to what this was, but this time I brought the muffins. We got to the site about 8AM, and had our tea and muffins before setting out. Armed with bottles of blue water paint we set out to mark trails. Basically, a "hash" is a synthesized hunt. We, the "hares," set a trail in blue paint for the "ferrets" to follow, with multiple "on-backs" aka dead ends, and "searches" which are sites marked with an x that indicate they should look around. In these spots, the searchers, mostly the children, were rewarded with finding hidden tangerines. The idea is to track the hares by the blue paint dots and eventually find the end of the trail, where we celebrated a good hike with beers and a bit of food. In the course of events, you also get a somewhat organized tour of a beautiful site, in this case an ancient ruined city.

This also meant that the hares, had a long day, as we walked the site at least two times, making the dots then walking with the ferrets. At the end site, near the remains of a beautiful church with marble pillars still standing, I was informed that there was tradition to be followed, and the hares were required to chug a beer in the center of a circle, with the catch being that if you don't finish the beer in one go, the rest you have to pour over your head. Now this wasn't made very clear to me, so I drank about half of my Heineken then paused for a breath, and ended up with half a good beer in my hair. Then, as it was also my first time at a hash, this ritual was to be repeated along with another newcomer. However, now that I knew the rules, I took advantage of my time bartending, and finished the cold beer in one go, to the delight of the crowd. I was doubly unusual for the group, volunteering as a hare my first time out, and successfully chugging a beer at the end.

On our way back to town, we stopped again at the same market as last time, and each bought a few bags of fresh fruit. While waiting for my bags to be weighed, a Syrian man my age told me in very good English that he wanted to ask me a question. He said "Do you like Bush or Obama?" I laughed, I've been asked questions like this throughout my trip. I told him "Obama, of course." And he said he just asked because "Bush killed so many people in Iraq." Many Iraqi refugees have fled to Syria, causing tensions in Syria due to the rapid increase in population. I retrieved my bags of fruit, told him Obama would be better, and we returned to Aleppo. His statements and the way he'd spoken stuck with me, however.

After the hash, there was also a dinner, like my first weekend here, where a group of the international staff gather. Tonight's special was cherry kebabs, beef grilled on a bbq then soaked in cherry sauce, lentil soup, and deep fried lentil cakes. Wonderful, as always, and after the meal I found myself in conversation with an Australian researcher here in charge of studying and maintaining the genetic varieties of each plant. We talked about my trip to Syria and ICARDA, about graduate school possibilities, and about his friend who can diagnose someone by their pulse alone and treats them with herbal remedies from around the world. Later, I was discussing Montana politics with a man who'd grown up in Billings, but now ran the school for ICARDA. His glowing recommendation for John Bollinger made me glad I'd voted for our incumbent governor and his lieutenant. Small world though, when I travel half way around the world to discuss hometown politics over a glass of Syrian wine.

On the ride home, Jakoba invited me to dinner at her house again, and even suggested I house sit for her while she and her husband are away during the upcoming holidays. We'll talk more about it tonight. Now, I have to go about finding something to take to dinner. :)

Adventures on hold

My adventures have been on hold, so to speak, the last couple of weeks. I've basically been working at the research center I'm visiting here, talking to scientists, visiting lab facilities, writing up a powerpoint presentation for a talk, and coming up with plans. The latter includes both both the personal and professional aspects, my current travel plans and potentials for graduate school, and helping ICARDA organize some projects here. I'm still planning on traveling the country more soon, and hopefully a couple others in the region. On a research mission, I'm planning to travel to Lebanon soon, awaiting approval from the head of the department. On the same project, we'll be traveling much of Syria as well. I'm excited for that, especially since I've spent most of the last two weeks in the city. Meanwhile I've started thinking about plans for graduate school, trying to contrive ways in which I can continue to travel while getting a respectable education (and getting paid!).

I also haven't had much time to write, when I do have internet access it is often limited. In Turkey, youtube was inaccessible, banned by the government. Here, facebook is often banned by the ISP, and at the moment I can write blog entries, but I cannot view them as blogspot is banned but blogger is not. So forgive any mistakes, I can not adequately proofread my posts. Also, there tends to be a delay in what I write, as I've taken the habit of writing two posts at once, then delaying the publication of one so as not to flood my attentive readers with too much too fast, better to delay like the next harry potter or robert jordan. Though if my memory serves me, there will never again be another robert jordan book, due to his passing. Random tangent, sorry. I'm lacking for caffeine this morning.

So after a week an a half of meeting people and getting to know ICARDA and Syria, I presented my talk Thursday. I suppose it went well, though personally I felt like I could have done much better. I was, abashedly, somewhat intimidated. I'm not used to being intimidated. Usually, if all else fails, my bravado carries me through. But I found myself in a conference room with about fifteen PhD's who know much more about agriculture in Syria than I could begin to pretend. As a wise science teacher taught me years ago, its better not to bluff, or you end up resembling a snowball rolling down hill. The bluff just gets bigger and bigger and becomes more obvious with every passing question. The downside is that I found myself saying "I don't know," and "That's not my area," more often than I'd have like. But the researchers in attendance had only good things to say, and the head of the department asked for a copy of my presentation to send to his home country in hopes of inviting me to speak there as well. So perhaps I'm my harshest critic.

So that's my life on the "work" front lately. Meanwhile, I've been working on my Arabic, which is progressing slower than I'd like. I simply don't have enough of a background in it to begin learning from conversation efficiently, but I'm getting there, and picking up a few things here and there anyway. I've also spent a lot of time with a Dutch woman, Jakoba, I've met here. She teaches at the ICARDA school (K-12 international school mostly for the families of ICARDA). Her bookshelves have become my personal library, checking out a few books at a time to read on the bus. It seems strange, I know, to travel half way around the world and lose myself in a book, but each have been an interesting comparison to my life, with new thoughts and insights. I'm not picking up the latest Nora Roberts or anything like that, though as far as romance novels go, she does alright.

I've gotten to know the city a bit as well, a beautiful city at that. Many of the buildings, especially in the new areas of town, are made from a local stone, a soft beige color, and the designs are art in themselves. The souqs in the old city are pre-Koch in their sanitation. Large pieces of meat hang by hooks on the wall, or sit in buckets on the floor, the liquid run off from the area flows along the walkpath between shops and the smell is almost overpowering, especially for a former vegetarian. Thankfully, this is countered by the shops of herbs and teas and spices that are usually somewhat distant from the raw foods area. I've yet to buy anything from these shops, however, as I can't read the labels on the spices and most of the merchants speak only enough English to welcome you to their shop. I'm planning on returning in a couple weeks with Jakoba to go Christmas shopping, however, and while she doesn't speak Arabic either, it will likely be a more successful trip.

A Kurdish Wedding

So I've been here less than two weeks and I've already been invited to a wedding. A woman I'll be working with here, Siham, came to my office and invited me to join her at a colleagues wedding on Friday (last Friday now). Though it was in Syria, the bride was Kurdish. I had no clue what to expect; Siham just told me to dress nice, and walked back out of my office. I also had plans for early Friday morning to go on a "hash" which as far as I can tell is an organized hike. I woke up at 5AM to loud thunderclaps and the splash of rain on the streets. Never the less, Jakoba picked me up at 6AM and the three of us (Celine being the third) drove to the site about an hour out of town figuring perhaps the rain was local. It wasn't and it rained all the way there. Inwardly, I was thankful and was begging the rain to keep up so I could go back to bed and have breakfast at a regular hour. When we got to the site, the rain had died out, but it was muddy everywhere. We decided to cancel but took advantage of the bit of nice weather to explore ourselves.

We were in the ruins of Al Bara, one of many "dead cities" here, and one of the most extensive. It was first settled in the 4th century, flourished due to the value of the land in producing wine and olive oil. It remained inhabited through Muslim occupation of the area and later became a prominent Christian city. It was finally left to ruin after an earthquake in the late 12th century. What remains are various arches, a few crumbling buildings, and two pyramid shaped tombs, though I didn't know they were tombs at the time. There is something serene in walking around a city that lasted, functioning, for 800 years, and has remained that long again to be seen by wanderers like myself. We wandered our way right out of the ruins and right back into the nearby village. From a hillside road we could see our car, about half a mile away. We walked back, cutting through orchards, and had tea and muffins near the car while trying to clean the mud of our shoes. The incoming rain helped with that, and we beat a retreat to the car.

Back on the road, we found another set of ruins nearby, and since the weather was now its manic phase, we set out to explore again. These ruins, Sargila, though more closely gathered, were better preserved, whole buildings, and another of the pyramid tombs we'd seen at the previous site. Exploring these required less following paths and more climbing over piles of stones. Interestingly, the ground around the ruins, literally every bit of soil up to the walls and in between buildings, was being cultivated, recently planted. Waste not, I guess. If anything, I suppose it is a way of showing respect to the ruins. Life begets life. Suddenly, the weather changed moods once again and we found ourselves scurrying over rocks as quickly as we could, dripping wet as we dove into the car. We got turned around and on the wrong road, but in doing so we found more ruins, including one area that required tickets, but the rain was not conducive here. Another day, perhaps.

We got back to Aleppo, and had coffee at Jakoba's, perusing her books. She had offered up her library to me, pegging me for a book-loving English-speaking ex-pat who was dying for a good peice of literature. I took four home with me, that's all my bag could fit. I ended up not having time for a nap, and tired already, I met up with Siham for the wedding. Her fifteen year old son, Hedi, joined us looking pretty sharp in his suit. We were fast friends, though I think he may have only liked me for my camera. He borrowed it and took some pictures towards the end of the night (the one I posted of the bride and groom is his). The wedding itself was far more modern than I was expecting. Modern, interesting word that. I think people have a tendency to equate "modern" with "American" or "European" when in reality anything created in present day is modern, and its all comparative anyway. Sliced bread is modern, compared to cave art. Anyways, about three hundred people were in attendance, in a variety of attire. While I didn't see any women fully covered (Kurdish weddings/families tend to be less formal in many respects), probably half were wearing headscarves, pinned tightly to frame their faces. The men were mostly in suits, some in jeans. Only the servers and dancers were wearing more traditional garb.

The wedding was held in a hotel or conference center, a large place with many functions. There was actually a swimming pool in the center of the room which was the size of a large gymnasium. We were served plates of fruit an ample amounts of Arabic coffee (a ridiculously potent brew, not sure I'd like it if I didn't already make my coffee darker than a black hole). The bride was shown from home on a video projection screen on either side of the room, while a loud Turkish band played near the stage set up with bright flowers, chairs for the couple, and large white ornaments. As always, a few young girls were dancing on the open dance floor in front of the stage, mostly spinning in circles. The bride and groom entered through a line of traditional dancers who ushered them onto the dance floor like that old game where you run through the tunnel made by people standing in two lines with their hands up, then reform it at the end. The rest of the wedding was fairly recognizable. They exchanged rings, cut the cake (with a sword instead of a knife), and greeted guests. The only main difference was the dances, performed by both guests and, separately, hired dancers. These were simple group dances, reminiscent of the old European dances we learned for the Elizabethan festival in high school. The guests joined hands with pinkies, and did a slow six step walk in a circle, spiraling, with the lead dancer gently waving a bright piece of fabric from his/her fingers. The bride and groom had their dance as well, never touching, facing each other and turning a slow circle while their hands danced.

Busy couple weeks, even busier to come, though there are some holidays soon. I may visit Damascus next week over the holiday, then travel to Lebanon to collect samples the following week. I'll likely spend Christmas with Tamar and her family here. She's a homegrown Montana girl who's dad happens to be Syrian/Armenian (and a close friend of my main contact here, Amor). She wanted to know her heritage and has found herself teaching kindergarten here. Sort of kindred spirits I guess.

PS. Sorry for the book. My lack of good internet and busy life lately means I have far too much I want to relate.