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.