&mdash; Saba Imtiaz

happy journey

Seen on a rickshaw seat. I kid you not.

Damascus Diaries – Day 2: Part 3

April 29, 2008

I love random kindness in the Middle East. Maybe its because of the lifestyle I have gotten used to – but people are great with giving me directions or just being incredibly helpful – down to the old grizzly man who was walking down the pavement, stopped when I asked him for directions to Bab Touma, walked me to the bus stop, waited until he found the right minibus and directed the driver to drop me off near Bab Touma. People become instantly warm to Muslims – but being able to speak Arabic and explain that I’m Pakistani and live in Jordan – you can see an instant connection.

My intense Shia experience makes me long more for Iran – Insha Allah, I will make that one happen. Not going to Turkey turned into going to Rotterdam in return, not going to Lebanon will be..?

When entering Damascus, there are all these signs for Beirut as if its just a suburb or another city in Syria. I love signs for cities and countrues. I’ve been thinking recently abou t how Israel and Palestine are not marked in Jordan. I don’t remember how it is in Pakistan – I am shockingly un-knowledgeable of my own country. Hmm..Wagah is marked I think, and thats it.

I really don’t feel like going back to Amman – not back to the whiny nature of some new individuals and the general state of melodrama in my life. I miss the simplicity of life at home with Smokie. I can’t believe I’ve missed unconditional love for a year and it scares me how absent this has been, and whether I will ever value it more than I have now? Will I slowly forget going to bed hungry or looking through my bag for money to get me through the rest of the day? I miss drinking coffee on random nights with E, I miss skipping class to hang out with CQ – I miss the bench and how humdrum my life was. The dream of traveling has manifested itself, but in such a strange way. Sometimes, I realize how lucky I am to have the opportunities I have had as a middle class Pakistani, for whom it is inherently not easy to travel so far away multiple times. Between H and me, we’ve traveled to 8 countries in a really short span – we’ve been lucky to be able to have taken those trips alone and not be fettered by the usual restrictions that many people of our age face. I only wish that I could go to sleep and just rest my head for a while but peace is a concept we are all searching for, I suppose.

I think I fervently felt something different in myself in Ummayyad Mosque – I wanted to be a better person then and there. Its funny how my life and the opportunities I was looking for now have come full circle. Two years, the positions I was applying for and didn’t get, are now being offered to me, and I don’t have the time for them now. Its crazy, but yet somewhat fulfilling to know it has come full circle.

Damascus Diaries – Day 2: Part 2

damascus diaries, nomadic reflections, photos, politics

Wandering down through Bab Touma was fun. I love Christian neighborhoods, and the churches, and the women crossing themselves in front of it. Bab Touma leads to a series of lanes for handicrafts, it sucks that this is tourist season because the prices were multiplied ridiculously. 800 SYP for a string of wooden mirrors? I know one day this is going to come back and haunt me but still. I still bought the toga sandals (score!!!), the gorgeous earrings and other random souvenirs. And I saw Hadi sitting outside his coffee shop, and waved hello and he recognized me! And again – I’m so glad I can speak Arabic. Just sitting at a cafe and drinking Coke – while chatting with the proprietor, who when I remarked I’d loved Damascus, said – ‘yes, nothing – Lebanon, Turkey, Europe – compares to Syria’. And the people at the next table asked me about life in Amman and my job (which I am terrible at explaining in Arabic)

Syria is flocked with tourists but whats funny is how there are no signs in English anywhere. At roundabouts, all of the signs are in Arabic and English though – but beyond thay, the prices, guides in museums – are all in Arabic. the only English signs are from this EU funded plan to mark Damascus’ routes, but beyond the old city – thats it. Damascus is really where I should’ve lived if I wanted to spend a year in the Middle East – the culture, the lifestyle, even the day to day poverty is a lot different than the smaller, strangely touristic expanse of Amman. And seeing Hasan Nasrallahs’s face everywhere is funny – especially after having been at the Art Now in Lebanon exhibit films and connecting the ironically funny mess that Lebanon’s politics have become, to the trade embargoes placed in Syria. I can even get now how Syria’s helping Hezbollah makes sense to them – right now it is the Arab world’s only shot at ever defeating Israel. And while the reasons for Syria’s involvement in Lebanon are a lot more complex than that, the posters with Hasan Nasrallah’s face are everywhere, in small buildings I peeked into, to the stationery stall (how, what, why!?) selling a Hezbollah flag and tshirt. And I’m pretty sure I got a discount on the Hezbollah stickers I did buy when I told the guy I’m Pakistani..

Damascus Diaries – Day 2: Part 1

April 26, 2008 Mid afternoon – flopped into a chair in the courtyard at Al Rabie Hotel
In a fit of exhausted panic, I felt like leaving Damascus and going back to Amman this afternoon because I was so tired of walking. That didn’t really pan out so now I’m sitting here, relaxing under the shade of the vines, and I can bum around the hotel and leave early tomorrow morning

Reflections for today?

I honestly got fed up at the the Ummayyad Mosque with their insistence that women must don abayas to enter, even though I was wearing a shawl. I almost didn’t go – deciding extremely unwisely – but then I turned the corner to the room where they give out abayas and apparently the entrance fee for Muslims is 5 SYP. I found myself in a throng of Shia mourners in the Shia section. The fervor was so intense I started crying for no reason at all. I’ve always said that whether or not I do believe in the Shia faith, the strength of their emotions is incredible. I was still crying as I entered the other part of the mosque. It felt like I finally had time to let go and mourn for my mother’s death anniversary, which this year I didn’t even have time to sit down and think about, in peace, until midnight when my head hit the pillow and my mind filled with thoughts. As I prayed for God to help me become a better person, I wondered whether this is the effect of being in a mosque, or just some inner desire that I haven’t voiced and is stuck in my subconscious.

I would love to come back to Ummayyad Mosque just to be able to pray here.

Damascus Diaries – Day 1: Part 3

Jabal Qusion was beautiful. Even if I was having severe vertigo while being there, it was absolutely breathtaking. I asked a Syrian woman sitting next to me if the far off mountains were Lebanon – she looked at me with surprise and said, ‘no, its Syria..its vast’. Apparently living in Jordan has made me lose my sense of distance. It was so worth arguing with the taxi driver over the fare and his insistence that he should charge more because its a very steep route, while I insisted that I understood that all to well, coming from Amman. What made it more interesting was the busload of Pakistanis who were there too — I am constantly reminded of home here, in many different ways. I was taking a picture of the lane leading to Ummayad Mosque and instantly, a Pakistani family stepped into the frame.

Damascus Diaries – Day 1: Part 2

April 25, 2008
Damascus – driving to the Old City

Random thoughts – scribbled when in a taxi in the late evening

There are pigeons everywhere!

The Syrian President, Bashar al Assad, is probably as prominent in pictures here as the Royal Family is in Jordan. However, its pretty much the same picture of him everywhere which makes it slightly monotonous. Oddly enough, signs bearing the late President Hafez al Assad’s name are everywhere. Every building has a plaque that bears his name. For some reason it feels like Damascus was inaugurated by Hafez al Assad in a series of glitzy ceremonies. Its slightly reminiscent of the plaque unveiling ceremonies that happen in Pakistan on an almost daily basis for grandiose projects that never seem to fully materialize, but I fail to see what Hafez al Assad has to do with one of the oldest mosques in the world, for example.

I got lost briefly today and ended up on a street with a huge graveyard. I don’t know how but I felt strangely brought back to reality. I haven’t seen a graveyard properly since shortly before I left Pakistan last May, I went to visit my mother’s grave. I couldn’t breathe, mingling with the crowds of people who were there to visit their departed on a Friday afternoon. It reminded me of how my parents would visit their eldest daughter’s grave every other weekend in the Emirates – the red gate of that graveyard is forever etched in my memory. The caretaker of the graveyard called out to me – I felt so tired and exhausted suddenly that I didn’t even want to respond until he yelled ‘sister..whats the time?’. I felt childish and stupid – caretakers of graveyards usually fascinate me since they are constantly living among the dead, kept alive by those who visit them.

Damascus Diaries – Day 1: Part 1