Arriving in Damascus

I left Heathrow Airport on Tuesday evening (May 22), headed for Damascus, via Ankara. It was only at the terminal where the plane waited that I was able to catch my breath after dragging luggage through the London Underground and realize these were my last minutes in the west.

Of course, I've been thinking about this trip for a long time, so it's not like I hadn't really imagined what it would be like in Syria. I had prepared to leave the comforts around me – namely my family, my friends and the pleasures of readily available cell phone and internet connections and large cups of good coffee.

But now the trip was actually happening and I started to panic. All I could hear around me was Arabic and Turkish. Beyond 'hello', 'how are you?' and 'where is the bathroom' – oh and the numbers one through 10 – I would have no means to communicate when I landed in Damascus. Only then, looking around at all the people in line to board, did it occur to me that I didn't even know how to say 'I don't speak Arabic'. What the hell had I been thinking, not learning more Arabic before I left?

I tried to distract myself as we took off, reading the recently released autobiography of Cherie Blair, the wife of the former British Prime Minister, (I never knew I cared about her!) when a passenger across the aisle from me started throwing a fit.

"I don't want to sit with him!" he told the young stewardess, pointing at the man next to him. "I will not sit with him!"

The man in question had just shown me the time on his watch – he seemed nice enough. I couldn't imagine to what this other man was objecting so I offered to trade seats.

Instead, the difficult passenger was seated next to me in an empty seat and immediately started to chat. Where was I going? What was I doing? Why Syria?

His name was Nizar. He was a businessman with a family in Irvine, headed to Damascus, where he had grown up, to check in on two apartments he was renting to students and visit his family. He reminded me of the Godfather, with puffy eyes, a huge gold ring and a very deep voice. Moments into our conversation, just like one of my uncles or my father might do, Nizar offered some unsolicited advice.

"I am going to tell you something," he said, after I explained what I was doing in Syria.

"Do not compare here and there. Only say, 'This is what they do here. This is what they do there.' Just watch."

He paused, as though to let his wisdom weigh heavy on me. I nodded in agreement. Then, he jumped up.

"Oh!" he said. "One more thing you should know. Your family, they will try to find you a husband. Don't be angry about this. Just enjoy, OK?"

Grrreat. Well, at 27, as the oldest female cousin in my family that is not married and having traveled to Syria twice before only to attend weddings for my cousins, I had counted on this. I made sure that my dad called ahead, several times, to explain that I was not in search of a husband. I was coming to try my hand at reporting. Still, I was sure the topic would come up more than once in conversation and was actually a little curious to see what kinds of men my relatives, who know very little about me, would pick out. Men with moustaches? Students who spoke a little English? Doctors? Actors? What exactly was their standard? Anyhow, maybe simply to comfort myself, I imagined it would be like my own Mr. Universe contest, only I wouldn't really have to worry about who would win because I wasn't looking. Ha!

We landed in Damascus at 5 AM. The sun rose over a patchwork of beige and browns as we touched down and deplaned. I walked down the corridor of the sparsely decorated airport, wondering where I would find my Uncle Zuhair (pronounced "zoo-hair"), who was supposed to meet me. We hadn't discussed a place and now a man in a military uniform was asking me questions in Arabic.

"Do you speak English?" I said, feeling really stupid.

He pointed towards a sign that said 'Passports and Customs'.

OK. I probably needed to get my passport stamped before I would see Zuhair. That made sense. I was on the escalator, trying to find my passport in my messy purse, when another man in a uniform approached me.

"Dania Akkad?" he asked.

I nodded my head and he motioned with his finger for me to follow him. I was a little surprised he had been able to pick me out so quickly from the group of people coming off the plane . . . and then I started to wonder why he had picked me out. Had my uncle sent him? Or was I about to have some problems?

After a short discussion between the man and two others who looked at my passport and photocopies of my dad's Syrian passport, my parents' marriage license and my birth certificate, they stamped my passport and the man took me down another hallway.

"Everything OK?" I asked him, trailing behind. "Where is Zuhair? Where is my uncle?"

He didn't answer and we kept walking until we reached the conveyor belt where suitcases were coming off the plane. I kept bumping into people and saying "Scusie". Why was I speaking Italian? So strange. Anyhow, he motioned to a man with a cart and left me. This seemed like a good sign. Zuhair had to be somewhere near and, sure enough, once the luggage had arrived and I sailed through customs – which entailed answering whether I had any cell phones or any 'GBS', which I took to mean 'GPS units' – we turned a corner and there was Uncle Zuhair.

"Welcome! Welcome!" he said, giving me a big hug.

I hadn't seen Uncle Zuhair since my dad and I had traveled to Damascus in 2003 for Zuhair's daughter, Rana's, wedding. My dad's oldest living brother looked the same: A skinny, shorter version of my dad. After all of my panicking on the plane, it was reassuring to be with a familiar person, especially someone who looked like my dad who has been by my side on every other trip to the Middle East.

The Damascus airport is about 20 minutes from the city, so Zoo (as I call him) and I drove into town. We talked about how our family was doing, about the difference in the weather from London and Damascus (It was in the low 50s in London and the low 90s in Damascus) and about the US elections. He said he was for Obama.

When we reached the city, I was surprised by how polluted, dry and dusty it is. I don't mean to be negative about Damascus straight off, but that was my first impression this trip. I'm sure I will find a lot of beauty here, but straight off, it wasn't some place that I would describe as pretty. There are tall, anonymous buildings all around the city and little greenery, except for the minarets of mosques that are lit up at night and make the nightscape twinkle in greens. Even at 5:30 AM, it was hotter than any day I'd experienced in my life in Monterey.

And as I've found in past trips to Syria, the heat soon took hold and I fell asleep as morning prayers were sung from the minarets all over the city.