Well, it’s nearly 5am and I just got home. I'm just back from an Australian friend's house, where we sat up, drank some whiskey, and talked for a while about life: women (perennially top of the list), academia, personal struggle, Islam, army life, the future, and all those other good late-night topics. Now I’m back home, and I’ve chopped up some potatoes to make some chips. What a life!!

Now I’m going to upload some more photos, just in case anyone ever checks in with this blog of mine. Firstly, one of me, playing yet another victorious game of chess with a Dutch friend in the beautiful Citadel in Aleppo in July.

Chess with Jaap

The rest are from a trip to the city of Latakia and some other areas in northwestern Syria that I visited in June with a group of nine people – Dutch and Kurdish – plus a driver. The next few photos are from Qala’at Salah Ad-Din (قلعة صلاح الدين), an impressive Crusader castle situated atop an easily defensible mountain. It is so-called because it was conquered by the mighty Salah Ad-Din (or Saladin, in most Western coverage).

Back in the good old days, a drawbridge used to be lowered from the entrance to the castle onto the pillar of rock in the first picture . Apparently this canyon is manmade, with the pillar being left standing to support the drawbridge. You might just about to make me out at the base of this structure.






This next picture is me with Hans from Holland. Unfortunately, the beautiful clear blue water in the background is just across the Turkish border, and so a swim was not possible.


This legendary fellow is Kadr.


On our first evening in the Mediterranean port of Latakia, we went down to the seaside for a night swim. The water was beautiful, but it was pitch dark apart from the lights along the beach. Kadr told us that there was a flat rock out to sea that he would lead us to, and we dutifully swam along after him, but as time passed, no such island was evident. It was a clear night, but the moon and stars above us were of no help in locating this mysterious diving platform. Nonetheless, Kadr assured us that it was just ahead and we followed on behind.

The swim continued as the beach became more indistinct behind us. The group of swimmers became strung out between the vanguard of Hans, Kadr and myself, and four or five stragglers trailing behind. Despite Kadr’s assurances that the rock was just fifteen metres ahead, ugly doubt began to surface in our minds as the dark sea gaped beneath us and the shore receded into the distance. As fifteen metres followed fifteen metres and no rock appeared, the group eventually retreated for the safety of the beach – all of us that is, except Kadr himself. He continued onwards alone, and eventually returned 20 minutes after the rest of us had emerged onto dry land. He hadn’t found the rock, but promised to prove its existence to us the following morning with the aid of the sun. But it never happened – maybe one day I will return and find that elusive island of Kadr’s… but I somehow doubt it…

Damascus photos - week one

As suggested by my brother, the photography expert, I'm going to post a few photographs of Damascus. These photos were all taken during my first week in the city.

Qassioun Mountain/جبل قاسيون

This first picture is of Jebel Qassioun (Jebel is the Arabic word for mountain), which overlooks Damascus from the northwest. Apparently the prophet Mohammed looked down at Damascus from the top of this mountain, but declined to enter the city, saying that he wanted to wait until after he died to enter Paradise.

Western Minaret (al-Gharbiyya)

Western Temple Gate

Minaret of the Bride

Western Temple Gate from the Souq

The blazing sun over Western Temple Gate

The Minaret of Jesus

These are all pictures of the Umayyad Mosque and its surrounds. The mosque, along with its three minarets, is the most renowned sight to see in Damascus. Just facing the western gate to the mosque is Souq al-Hamidiyya, Damascus' famous market, which is exited through the ruins of the Western Temple Gate. Yes, one of them is called the Jesus Minaret - for those who don't know, Jesus is also one of Islam's prophets, but doesn't have the same heroic powers as the Christian version (as one might expect).

(People here are less likely than the Irish to pronounce it as Jaysus).

Another late night

It’s 7am, and the sun has just come up here in Damascus. I find that this is one of the most beautiful times of the day – there is a certain quality to the light that makes it obvious why filmmakers and photographers like to shoot outdoors at this time. However, as usual when I see this time of the morning, I haven’t slept. I’ve been up all night and I’ve just retired to bed, so I’ve already climbed down the ladder from the open-air terrace in my Damascene home and bid farewell to the newly-lit sky. Every so often I need to have a night like this one where I just indulge myself and stay up late – one of my favourite things to do is what is called سهر in the Arabic language: ‘sahara’ – a verb meaning to stay awake late at night. I love the night time. It seems to be at night that my brain is at its most active and productive. A good deal of my college work was done in the middle of the night, and the final chapter of my MA thesis was written over a marathon 33 hour session.

But tonight wasn’t a wild night. Yes, I was drinking some araq, but only very late in the night as the café was closing. It was a pretty chilled out evening. There were only four customers apart from myself and my mate Tristan, so we had the run of the place. Tristan and I were sitting at the staff table chatting to the owner and his brother, and I had my computer hooked up to the sound system and was playing whatever the hell music I felt like. One of the customers came over and requested some reggae, and I was glad to oblige with some Culture and Horace Andy. His name was Heinrik from Denmark, and he was very unsuccessful at guessing where I was from. He started with Austria, and when I said it was west of there he said that I looked Portuguese, even though my accent didn’t fit. When I said it was well to the north of there he tried Scotland, and then suggested Northern Ireland. I told him that it was to the south of there, after which he suggested the Isle of Mann…

Araq

After a while, after the customers had gone home, I played a few games of chess with the owner while Tristan browsed about the financial crisis on the internet, and we talked rubbish about various stuff. Eventually we left the place at around 5am. I bought a couple of Mars bars and a glass bottle of mango juice, and then walked home, dropping and breaking the mango juice on the way. And now, here I am in my bed, about to retire after a little reading.

It may sound like the life of a waster but I’ve actually been pretty productive lately. I got out of bed at 9am (which means I’ve now been up for 22+ hours) and I’ve been doing a lot of work on my Arabic this week. I’ve been practising my speaking a lot too – a group of neighbours sit just across from our front door every night from around 10 at night until 2am, chatting and joking together. It’s not easy to walk past them without being press-ganged into sitting down for a glass of tea, and their English is pretty limited, so it’s a good opportunity to get your head into the Arabic. I’m in the habit now of joining them for an hour or two once or twice a week. It ain’t just book learning you know – my Arabic comes from the streets!!

I also learned a huge amount talking to estate agents while I was looking for my house. Talking to people really solidifies the vocabulary in your head and makes it stick; listening to them talk and figuring out what on earth they’re saying helps enormously with the pronunciation of the language and how to form sentences correctly, as well as with comprehension; and the whole thing just makes you feel more familiar and confident with the language. Sitting with grammar books and lists of vocabulary certainly has its place, but language is primarily about communication in the end. And communication in Arabic for me is still a serious struggle!!! But at least I’m still struggling… I’ll get there…

Two months later

Today I have been in Damascus for exactly two months. Not exactly much blog activity, but I'm planning on writing up some of my activities of the last few weeks pretty soon. I've travelled around a little bit, to Latakia and Aleppo (local name Halab), and I've been to Lebanon twice. I'll post up some photos soon.

I just completed a month-long Arabic course at the University of Damascus last Saturday. However, 'completed' might not be exactly the right word, considering that I failed the final exam. But I was actually quite happy with my progress overall during the course, and the pass rate was 60%, so I'm not too worried about failing. At the beginning of the course, we had to do a placement test to determine our level, and because it was multiple choice and I didn't understand anything, I just answered all the questions randomly. This resulted in my being placed in level 3, the highest beginner level... and I was totally out of my depth. I decided not to change classes however, as I wanted to challenge myself and I found that I was learning a lot.

With my host parents

I've been having a great time here these last months. My host family are extremely nice and I've made loads of friends through the university as well as through the NIASD institute that I mentioned in the last post. The problem is that most of these are short termers and are leaving after a month or so of study, so this week I am saying goodbye to a lot of my compadres. I know a few locals quite well though, and there is an Australian guy and a German girl that will both be staying for six months, so I do know a few Westerners.

One thing I've been doing a lot of is playing chess. Right now I'm sitting in a cafe where I come almost daily for a beer or some soup or some tea, and the owner is a pretty good chess player, so we have a lot of battles across the chessboard. Really enjoying getting back into playing chess and I'm getting even better, if such a thing is possible...

Me in my favourite cafe, صيف و شتاء

In صيف و شتاء (Seif wa Shetta/Summer and Winter)

Arrival

Last Friday, July 4th 2008, I left my home at 5am to take a morning flight to from Dublin Airport to Hungary. A few hours later I landed in Budapest, where I had a twelve hour layover, so I went into the city to wander around for the afternoon. That evening I returned to the airport for my connecting flight to Damascus. I touched down in the Syrian Arab Republic in the early hours of Saturday morning, July 5th, and arrived at the As-Salaam Hotel in central Damascus at around 5am.

I’m planning to be here for at least 6 months – and probably more like 2 years – in order to learn some Arabic and get to know a little about Arabic culture. Why would I do such a thing? A lot of people I know in Ireland don’t seem to understand why I'm interested in doing this. Why not go to Australia, like everyone else, or travel around Thailand and southeast Asia? All I can say in response is that if you don’t get it now, you’re probably still not going to get it after I explain it to you. It’s a big world out there, and Ireland is very small, and I just want to experience another way of living.

I was pretty lucky with how things worked out for me in those first few hours in Damascus. In the Departures lounge in Budapest airport, I got chatting to a very friendly guy from Holland called Peter, who was on his way to Syria to study Arabic for two months. Peter was to study at NIASD, a Dutch institute in Damascus, and they were sending a car to the airport to pick him up. He said that I could probably get a lift into the city with them. This was great news, as otherwise I would have had to get a taxi into the city, which would meant trying to haggle with the driver to get a decent price. This would have been particularly difficult for me as my Arabic is pretty much non-existent.

Peter’s Arabic is pretty good as this is his second time here – he also studied at NIASD last summer – and he has also been doing an Arabic course in university in Holland for the past year. It was great to run into him, and it made it a lot less daunting to land in a totally unfamiliar environment where I didn’t speak the language, and to then have to try to make my way through customs and immigration.

Along for the ride into central Damascus was another Dutch student and a few Arab guys. At the end of the journey, I had a good chat with two of the Syrians, both of whom were Kurdish, and I agreed to meet up with one of them for a language exchange at some point. Then I was dropped to my hotel where a very sleepy receptionist – who I would later know as Zubair, from Tunisia – had me checked into my room by 5am. After the previous 24 sleepless hours of travel, I turned on the air conditioning, turned off my brain, and didn’t leave the room until around 8pm the following evening.