Small Stuff

I'm now in Damascus and though I'll say some things about that tomorrow (glowing and positive things I hope) I just wanted to share a couple small moments with you that escaped the attention of my other posts. Every day I wander through towns full of people that I don't know, doing things that I don't understand, and saying things that I can't comprehend... it's like I'm a Martian watching them go about their business and I'm taking notes. Of course unlike a Martian I'm painfully obvious to everyone and people are pretty curious to hear my story. Maybe this curiosity is tempered in a tourist-weary place like Luxor or Petra but in backwaters like Deir ez-Zur the people have an insatiable interest in the lanky foreigner passing by and I like to indulge them. These are a just a few encounters that I've had, and a very very few I have pictures of.

Last night after walking out of the internet cafe I meandered in the general direction of my hotel and passed by a bakery. I heard some calls out to me and went inside after a moment's hesitation to see what they were up to. At this shop they have a clay oven that's used to make a naan-like bread and they were methodically cooking the stuff as fast as possible. I proceeded to introduce myself and this is a fairly simple thing to do because I only know how to say 4 things in Arabic. I start out with Hello (Salaam-Aleckem) and shake some hands. They don't usually shake hands around here but they all watch Hollywood movies and know that I do so they get a kick out of satisfying me. Then we move to my country of origin. Everybody knows how to say 'where from' and then after I say 'California' they invariably say 'welcome'. Saying 'welcome' to foreigners is like the national slogan of Jordan and Syria, and I believe that they mean it. Finally we get to names and his one is done my hand gestures only. I introduce myself and then attempt to repeat the names of the people around me. This is made easier by half of the citizenry being named Muhammed or Achmed or some derivative of that. Most other travelers can then move onto the universal topic of Soccer but I'm clueless about the subject.

After these formalies we get on to the fun stuff, making bread. One man pats the bread flat and the other takes it on a flat mitt and slaps it onto the inside walls of the oven. You can see some cooking bread in the picture above. That same guy also scrapes it off the wall after about a minute and you've got a crispy hot treat if you get it fresh or a slightly less crispy version if they're selling it later. I got to flatten some dough but I declined to put it in the oven myself... it was a little scary and I've got crappy health insurance at the moment. They pay for life threatening emergency treatment only, minor things like seared flesh and broken limbs are my problem to deal with. I got a free piece of hot bread and said 'shukran' in thanking them.

After an older man showed up and motioned that maybe I should pay them I played dumb and scampered off into the night shouting 'ma-salaam' as the standary goodbye. It means 'go in peace' and I like the way it sounds. I didn't get to use it this time, but when I tell someone that I might meet them again we both say 'in-sha-Allah' which means 'if god wills it' and it's a comon thing to say about sporting events, romance, and bus schedules.

When in Egypt I traveled with several groups of backpackers and if the group included a girl then you were sure to get offers of camels. The local men think it's cute to offer me herds of camels in exchange for my female companion and sometimes make direct offers to her of 10,000 or more humpbacked beasts. On one particular occasion I said that she wasn't for sale but I could be be bought for enough camels, to which he replied "I don't like, I give you one fish". Should I be insulted by that?

That's all fun and games but I really enjoy the obvious scams that people try to pull. If you take a horse carriage ride across town for for 1 Egyptian pound (20 cents), when you get off you're told that the agreement was 1 pound Brtish sterling and that they'll accept 20 Egyptian pounds instead. If you take a cab of course you must haggle the price before you get in because the meters are only for locals and you'll regularly be asked for 5x the regular price if you're not mindful to ask the hotel manager what the price should be. If you want to buy a red and white headscarf the opening price will be 1200 Syrian pounds when the locals pay 100 and god help you if you try to buy fruit without already knowing the cost. The one that annoys me the most is the short-changing that forces you to count every bill and that you get back because this one happens all the time. The easiest way to handle it is to just hold out your hand and wiggle your wingers like you want more every time and let them plead their innocence.

This stuff happens with people who deal with tourists regularly and know that half the time the foreigners will not try to bargain but will instead pay the crazy price unknowingly, or out of embarrassment for the 1 British pound trick. Of course, most of the time the locals go out of their way to treat me hospitably, and this trend is more powerful the more rural you go. I get free tea, fruit samples, sweets fresh from the oven, local drinks, lunches, and some bus fares paid for by locals I meet. It happens every day and it's awesome. Some travelers that I've met have visited Iran and said that they had great difficulty paying for anything at all because everyone wanted to make a good impression on travelers. It's also considered a mark of honor in their religion and many people want to be associated with foreigners to raise their standing with their peers. This is why many locals host couch surfers I think.

I also want to address the American in the Middle East issue. Politics are a big deal here because it's literally a matter of life and death to so many people. America has a bit of a reputation around the world and I was a bit hesitent at first to share my country of origin because I didn't know enough about our historical interactions with the countries that I'm visiting. The fact is the people judge your government but still are not prejudiced against the citizens. They know something about crappy governing around here and don't want to blame themselves either. Most people watch American movies and are intensly interested to know a native citizen and maybe some day to move there to work. They tell me that if they help me now, maybe they will recieve help themselves when they come to our shores, 'in-sha-Allah'. The only thing you can really say to aggrevate them is to say that you have been to Israel as they really do believe that it's their sworn enemy and it's not just a bad government but a bad place altogether. It's best to avoid the subject completely but because I'm not going it's not too hard.

What other run-ins with locals have I had? The other day I sat to have tea and a hand gesture/city name conversation with a man who told me that he drives a cab, has 2 wives and 6 children, spends most of the day at the tea house to avoid them, loves America, and we discussed my itinerary and lack of children. Another time I rode the bus with a Syrian oil worker who summers in Croatia, studied in Yugoslavia, hates communism, and thinks that I should go into the oil business with him because we drive the same car. On another day I spent an hour discussing America's heath care problems with a Jordanian man who seems to know more about the issue than most Americans. The people here are informed, intellectually curious, and so hospitable that I'm constantly taken by surprise. The foreigners that I meet are interesting too, but I just love the people of these countries and I hope the trend continues throughout the journey.