Badlands Border Crossing

After almost two and a half months without posting anything on my blog (for a variety of reasons, two of the most significant being Spring Break 2009 and the end of the semester), I have decided to rekindle my relationship with the blogosphere and my loyal readers, however few you may be at this point. I will try to catch everyone up to this point over the next weeks, but unfortunately will not be uploading pictures. Blogger is blocked in Syria – oh yeah, I’m in Syria, but we’ll get to that in a bit – so I will be typing my blog postings in MS Word, then copying and pasting through the proxy server, which happens to move at 56k x 10-1,000,000,000,000,000,000 power. I am also adding “Syri-ack!” to the title page somewhere in commemoration of my new place of residence. Now that the format has been reestablished, we can reinitiate the updates and anecdotes. Pictures may come via Picassa links during blog posts or simply in August after I return to the States.

Let it begin:

I had decided in late 2008 to study Arabic in the Middle East after my semester abroad in Turkey. Which country though remained in question up until March or April of this year when my choices came down to Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. We all know (I hope) that Yemen is not currently the most hospitable destination for foreigners, even if it is one of the best places to study Arabic. OK, Yemen gone. Morocco and Syria both have good programs, but one was simply more expensive than the other. Can’t guess? Well, since you already know I’m in Syria, you’ve probably figured it out. Just to give you an idea of how cheap things are here: my rent for my room, utilities included, is $156; I can eat out for three meals a day (street food) for about $2, including chicken, ground beef, and/or cheese for two of those meals if I want. The third is falafel, which costs all of $0.50, so I could do $1.40/day if I wanted. Private Arabic lessons with a certified tutor with years of experience teaching Arabic will be the most expensive part of my 6 ½ weeks here at $10/hour.

I crossed the border between Turkey and Syria on June 11th, without receiving a visa from the Syrian Embassy in the US before I left the country spanning two continents. Syria requires that Americans (and ANY other nationalities?) obtain visas before coming to the country. I’m pretty sure that most other countries can just come and buy a visa at the border, but Americans are special because our last President named Syria as a member of “the Axis of Evil.” Anyways, I arrived without a visa and, as per many thoroughly researched forum websites, was told that I would have to wait – how long? Nobody knew. It all depended on how much of a threat I was in the eyes of the Damascene bureaucracy. After 4 ½ hours waiting in the long (football field?), hot (40 degrees Celsius? – I couldn’t spell fareinheight) marble-laden hallway, I was finally told that my visa had been ok’d and that I could now go to pay the whopping $16 price-tag. When compared with sending my passport back to the United States with a pre-paid envelope and money order (impossible to get in Turkey) so that the Syrian Embassy could send my passport back to Istanbul, all combined with paying $130 visa fee, 4+ hours at the border was well worth it.

I changed some Turkish Liras to Syrian Pounds (which are called Liras in Arabic…) and hitched a ride with an empty tour bus to Damascus. A/C on the tour bus, plus the lack of passengers was fantastic. I originally thought they were smuggling cigarettes or children or something, but then I realized that they weren’t when they had to go buy some (cigarettes!) at a local market. We arrived in Damascus at about 9pm and they dropped me off on the side of the freeway. A taxi rolled up about 2 seconds later and I was on my way to the Christian Quarter (hereon Bab Touma) of the Old City in Damascus. I met my teacher Basel at my now-favourite falafel shoppe and we went back to the “villa,” which certainly implies a certain elegance or wealth that has definitely lost its way here.

Arabic studying here I come!