Words

Syriasly Illin’: A Sick Day In The Land We Misunderstand

Hiking around in one of eastern Syria’s vast deserts all day I have jettisoned liters of sweat. But this is a different variety of perspiration. Instead of my valuable moisture being pulled through my skin’s dry surface by the sun’s heat, I am dealing with the kind of sweat that beads up and clings to my forehead before sledding its creases, landing on an already drenched shirt. I call it wet sweat. This variety of perspiration, the one that will sog my clothes in the middle of a cool, dry night like this one, is caused by anxiousness, discomfort and the endless clenching and shivering of my muscles. My abdominals and bowels, in this case, are facing muscle failure if I do not step off this bus soon. I feel a full body sickness coming on and my body wants to purge all its contents. But we are following a bumpy route in the middle of the sandy desert, heading west to Damascus, with no stops or bathroom breaks on the agenda anytime soon.

Fortunately my new friend sits next to me on the bus and keeps me company; keeps me from noticing that the heat emanating from my forehead is steaming up the dark window beside me. He is a nineteen-year-old soldier headed home to Damascus on weekend leave. His English is commendable, especially for someone who has had no formal training in the language. Like all of the Syrians I’ve met on this trip, he is tremendously friendly and we quickly dive into conversation.

Whenever I am introduced to a Syrian local I am always warmly welcomed to their country but immediately questioned as to my reasons for being there. This is not because they are government spies interested in reporting my movements. They are simply curious because they don’t see many foreigners traveling with a backpack through the interior of their country. Many times a Syrian has followed up his, “Welcome my friend!” greeting to me with a less inquisitive but more homeland-disparaging question of why I would come to visit Syria at all. And before I can mention the millennium-old crusaders castles and deserted desert ruins left from the time when Syria was well within the Roman Empire’s wide boundaries, I am ambushed with a series of reasons why Syria is not such a wonderful place to be: the government doesn’t help the people; the country is not wealthy like the West is; the life is difficult.

But usually the conversation stays at a more superficial level. Save for a select few, most Syrians I have met in the street are interested only in quirky details of my incomprehensible existence rather than the big picture. Whether it’s due to a language barrier or a cultural void, I can’t be sure. In the beach-lined port town of Tartous I was accosted near an ancient ruin by two gentlemen who had one simple question for me. “Who is your God?” one of them asked. I assumed they were referring to the distinction between Christians, who believe that Christ is the ultimate prophet and the son of God, and Muslims, who believe the prophet Allah is God. When I responded, sternly and mightily, half for shock value, “I have no God,” they nearly went into voluntary convulsions. They could not believe I would admit something so blasphemous in public. Spastically, they jumped up and down, staring at one another with their hands over their mouths and giggling in disbelief. “You have no God?!” they repeated over and over, as if to verify my statement. It was as though I had said something they wished they could say but didn’t have the guts, like a profane word is to a child in fear of reprimand. I had also seemingly validated one of their preconceived notions about what a ‘Westerner’ or a ‘Christian’ or an ‘impious’ person believes. Therefore, they were completely satisfied with my response and had no more questions. As they walked away I heard them whispering “I have no God,” and laughing.

Earlier today, in fact, I found myself involved myself in a long encounter with a Syrian family that stayed at an entirely superficial level. Dragging my hiking-boot-bound feet through the desert sand near the ruins of Palmyra, the formerly grandiose Roman outpost along the Silk Road about a hundred miles west of the border with Iraq, I decided to step off the main trail and visit some ancient tombs that supposedly lay on a nearby mountainside. A half mile or so out into the barren desert, where the only markers were thorn brush strewn with white plastic bags blown by the intense winds, I spotted a tiny white structure at the mountain’s base. It couldn’t be a tomb – ancient tombs aren’t made of white painted cement. Upon closer inspection, the square box was a house. And it was occupied.

The male figurehead of the house had spotted me long before I stumbled near their concrete abode. As effortlessly as a speed skater he glided across the sand to meet me. Wrapped up in swathes of clothing including a long grey robe and checkered red and white head wrap tucked around his face, I couldn’t see any part of his body but his eyes. He asked me in for tea with a gesture of the hands. “Welcome!” he wailed.

The one-room, concrete house was devoid of furniture and decoration – even the walls were bare. The entire group of a half dozen or so, including two females, sat on the rug-covered cement floor and sipped tea. It was one of the simplest structure I ever seen people living in. There was hardly enough floor space for everyone to sleep, much less sit, unless the cooking stove was pushed to the side of the room. A customary cup of tea and some crackers were quickly placed in front of me. All eyes of the extended family were on me. I couldn’t tell who the parents were or how the family was structured. And without an English/Arabic translator, the thought of conversation was sunk – at least the verbal variety. Words were made up for with smiles, hand gestures, and eventually music. The head of the family ran a wedge-shaped bow across a dwarfed string instrument while one of the other relatives blew on a crude wooden flute. They let me take my turn and laughed when I couldn’t make anything but an awkward screech on the makeshift fiddle and a high-pitched squeak on the flute.

syrian family

With only hand communication, eventually the smiling silence ran its course. We would have to get down to the business of tangible cultural exchange. The youngest in the family pointed to my watch and said, “Baksheesh,” which, depending on the context, can mean anything from gift to bribe to donation to payment. In this case he wanted to know if I had any presents for them. I did. I handed out some pens and stickers I carried everywhere with me everywhere for this type of situation. I also offered them some Syrian pounds to cover their tea and crackers, which they gladly accepted. The young man, who had originally invited me in, whipped out a black and white checkered keffiyeh (head wrap) from somewhere and offered it to me. His gesture shocked me and I didn’t know what he wanted me to do with the cloth. He showed me how to put it on and the entire house looked on with approval. Although it was not an authentic keffiyeh, I felt somewhat accepted and I would wear it for several hours before losing my newly found cultural confidence. Somebody made the hand signal for a camera. I gave it to the oldest male of the house and several of us posed for a picture. The snap of the shutter signaled a logical time for me to make my exit. I acted out my goodbyes. The men of the house walked me a few hundred yards into the open sand to bid me farewell. No situation I can imagine could have been simpler, more innocent, or more good-natured.

But a minority of Syrians, such as the soldier sitting next to me and my pool of sweat, expect much more than a simple smile and gift or a blasphemous blurb during a confrontation with a Westerner. They require an exchange of information – a dialogue and an outpouring of opinions. In a land where the Internet was banned until the year 2000, a place lacking western-style banks and ATM machines, the fairly sizeable, self-taught, undereducated and over-thinking class of Syria – the individuals who would normally make up the intellectual class in most Western countries – crave opportunities to learn more about all things domestic and abroad. This quasi-academic finally has his opportunity. And he can speak my language.

Certainly he had prepared for this moment for many years – the moment when it was just him and a foreigner, isolated on a bus seat, able to converse in English, out of the earshot of any government official. Certainly that was why he took the seat next to me. That was also why he had spent countless hours over years and years teaching himself English. Unfortunately for him, while he has a captive audience in the form of an English-speaking foreigner who is more than willing to embark on an exchange of cultural ideals, he also has a foreigner in the beginning stages of a gut-wrenching illness brought on by parasites that are multiplying unchecked in the confines of his biologically naive gastrointestinal tract. I know something is wrong but I am not sure what, so I willfully indulge my new friend in conversation.

It turns out that he doesn’t have as many questions as I thought he would about the way I live my life. He seems to understand Western culture and is more interested in elucidating the life of a typical Syrian to me. He begins by telling me that every adult male must conscript for two and a half years of military service – hence his current situation as an adolescent soldier. His belief is that this military service is stifling to any future free-thinking Syrians, or those interested in independent enterprise. At this point my friend’s brewing distaste for the civil climate manifests. He explains that the population is lulled, from birth, into a cycle of malaise through routine. And that the average citizen works his whole life for nothing. “They are like sheep. They only eat, sleep, work and die. They never think.” He seems to have very harsh words for his fellow countrymen.

For his population’s lax spirit, though, he chides the government. His complaints mostly stem from a government wrought with corruption. According to my friend, Syria’s technological and industrial development is choked by inefficiency dating back to its onset, when factories were built using mishandled oil money during the petrol boom of the 1970’s. Additionally, he finds the government to be too conservative, regressive, lethargic and, worst of all, internally focused.

Needing a break from the intensity of his argument, I attempt to lighten the conversation a bit by repeating a question. “How did you learn all your English? You speak wonderfully.” He tells me he spends every minute of his free time studying. Whether it be abiding by and memorizing passages from the Koran or practicing English, he doesn’t waste a minute between military exercises and drills.

I think back to how I spent my day. I didn’t waste a moment either. The main difference is that I was free to choose the course of my day. By five am I was already hiking, exploring the massive roman ruins at Palmyra on foot. Walking between 50 foot high, sandblasted walls and kilometer-long colonnades, I was impressed with their immensity. In such a state of disrepair it was difficult to believe that this was once a thriving metropolis and trading center, as it slowly gives way to the relentless sands blown by the same trade winds. The same winds which must have lent impetus to the great ancient explorers who embarked on the trade routes which ran east all the way to China.

palmyra

Even after waving goodbye to my gracious hosts in the one-room house on the mountainside I continued walking. I hiked to the top of a hill overlooking the ruins of Palmyra and from there climbed the towers of a dilapidated crusader castle during sunset. As I watched the orange ball set over the endless, flat desert-scape I looked off the castle toward town and spotted the bus station a few miles off in the distance. ‘After so many miles on foot, what’s a few more?’ I thought. By the time darkness had crept in, I found myself scuffing and dragging the last few hundred yards to the station where I could catch a late bus all the way back to Damascus – a six hour journey. When I finally sat for one of the few times that day, my animal instincts took over. With the pain of walking such great distances finally voided, my need for sustenance took over. I could not take my eyes off the vendor at the opening to the bus station, who was preparing hot, delicious kebabs. The layers of slowly-roasted, juicy lamb dripped and oozed juices as they spun around the upright rotisserie, dizzying my light head. Even though I was wary that the meat had been spinning in the sun all day, I was too famished not to indulge.

Could this delicious kebab be the reason my stomach, over the last few hours, has become a poison blender? It feels like a shaken bottle of warm champagne. It will only be so long until the pressure builds up to a level high enough to cause an explosion.

At least my friend can take my mind off my bacterial-induced perspiration and gastrointestinal problems. He does so by continuing to talk about his own problems. “Life is very, very hard,” he echoes the sentiment of people I have talked to all around the world. I believe him. This soldier bears the marks and scars – and wisdom – of a person twice his age. Although I am 24 and he is only 19, he appears older than me by at least a few years. With his comment about the difficulty of life in Syria he acknowledges this fact. Continuing, telling me that day to day life is a struggle for most people here. This can be represented by life in the military, a government entity that is renowned for its torturous treatment of its own soldiers.

Even in my state of doubled-over pain on the bus I realize that I have very little to complain about.

My friend goes on to tell me that he is disappointed that nobody in his country is willing to do anything to change the status quo within the country. Perhaps their spirits are broken or they think their revolutionary efforts will be fruitless. He is sickened that the only people who are riled up enough to take action are misguided, undereducated fundamentalists, who are aiming at the wrong targets with their insurgencies. Perhaps fueled by political rhetoric, they believe it is the West that is responsible for their lack of opportunity, when it is their own government who they should be pointing their fingers at. Syria, he asserts, is in need of a grass roots campaign based on idealism, education and equality for the people. Although the West is not perfect, he believes, it sets forth a model for the ideals of human rights and democracy that can eventually empower an underserved population. And this is what the Syrian government fears most. So in order to keep itself in power, it attempts to demonize the West. He believes the only way for the Middle East to become great is for the regimes that control the power structure to yield to Western development and permit efficient government. Most of all, though, the people to stand up for their freedoms.

“But the sheep aren’t doing anything,” he concludes.

I am in awe of his knowledge of the issue, fundamental understanding of its causes and solutions and his fighting spirit. But I am losing my own sweaty battle with intestinal intruders. Even this fascinating soldier’s dynamic monologue is proving to be insufficient to redirect my thoughts to something besides the intensifying situation inside my dirty and sweaty travel uniform. It takes all my concentration and physical effort not to explode from both ends as the bus bounces along the dark, bumpy highway. Therefore, I apologize to my friend, saying that I am too tired to talk anymore. I curl up against the steamy window and watch sweat cascade from my forehead down the glass. I clench every muscle in my body to fight the aching fever.

At two in the morning we finally arrive at the bus terminal in Demascus. I am drained. The soldier stands up to leave – but first he hands me a wallet size photograph of him, with his name written in Arabic and English on the back. “Thank you for speaking with me,” he says. “You are the first foreigner I have ever met. Please remember me.”

I do.

But I don’t even have the strength to thank him for the insight he has given me into his world. People like him are the ones who remind me that life has a greater purpose. I realize I will never see him again and we both know he will never make the great changes to his country that he envisions. But hopefully he is able to make a difference through small changes. Hopefully he is able to live an impassioned, satisfied life, even if devoid of all the freedoms he desires.

Somehow I navigate in the dark, through the thin, windy alleys of the old town, and find a decent place to call my hospital for the next few days. It materializes as a hostile – one with only a single bed remaining in a cramped dormitory room. No matter; I will be spending the night in a different room – it’s known around here as the wash closet. Daylight eventually emerges with its five am call to prayer from the towering minarets of ancient Damascus. It turns out, after all, that what I told the two Syrians in Tartous is untrue: I do have a God. As the Morning Prayer emanates out over the silent, old city I am already devout – and I’ve been so all night. I am on my knees facing the direction of my God – the Porcelain God – bowing toward him and churning out my morning prayer.