Al Kindergarten

The last time I learned a new alphabet, I was about three feet tall and missing my front teeth. I remember singing the Alphabet Song, suffering through some backwards Ds and Es and generally moving on to the more important parts of kindergarten which, in my mind, included watching the class caterpillar turn into a butterfly, creating dyed macaroni necklaces and imagining what it would be like to walk on the ceiling when I was supposed to be sleeping during naptime.

I do not remember learning an alphabet being this hard.

Last week, I started a five-day-a-week, four-hour-a-day Arabic course at Damascus University. Just like learning English in kindergarten, learning Arabic begins with getting the Arabic alphabet under your belt.

Unlike English, the Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, a least one-third of which require the vocal calisthenics of Kermit the Frog to pronounce. There’s another catch: Each of these 28 Arabic letters can be written in three different ways, depending on whether the letter makes its appearance at the beginning, middle or end of a word.

In case you’re keeping track, that’s 84 new letters to learn. And these letters aren’t just simple circles connected to straight lines like a “b” or a “p”. There are curves, ovals, circles, triangles, dots and they all run from right to left.

Arabic letters are admittedly much more beautiful than those in our alphabet and involve more skill to transcribe all of the tessellations of letters. If I could write faster than a kindergartener, I’m pretty sure writing in Arabic would feel like painting. However, one missing dot here or an extra curve there and you’re into Zuzuland, a place my cousin here as introduced me to as the Arabic version of our Lalaland. Zuzuland. Of course.

So basically, reading and writing Arabic one week into lessons is like playing an Olympic-level, verbal version of Memory. I am definitely not winning the gold by any stretch of the imagination.

In fact, I think I may be the very worst student. At least, Gregory from Switzerland, who is engaged to a Syrian-Swiss girl and living with her family here, and I are tied for last. We often exchange looks of exasperation as our 10 classmates, most of who are either European or American, carry on limited conversations on topics that include vocabulary we have learned.

Thus, from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M., Sunday through Thursday, we discuss our names, our nationalities, whether or not we are married (a very key question for both men and women here in Syria) and what hobbies we like (although, at this point you have to choose between cooking, reading and sports unless you have figured out how to look up words in the dictionary).

That is, if I can get to class. While I may be learning the alphabet in class, starting to sound out words and even sharing some semi-intelligible biographical detail with my classmates, outside of class, there is a world beyond my name, my nationality and my apparent love of “al ree-yaa-dah” (sports). I have had to get creative with communication and this has caused more than a little trouble. In the past week, since I moved out of my Uncle Zoo and Aunt Alia’s apartment and, hence, lost my free translators, my linguistics missteps have landed me at a mosque when I meant to go to the circus and at the Kuwaiti Embassy as I tried to make it to an art gallery.

One morning, when I asked a taxi driver to take me to Damascus University, I ended up in a dirt lot full of mangy cats and the remains of a cement structure. I was already five minutes late for class, so I jogged through the dirt under the 90-plus degree sun towards the direction of a main road and flagged down a second taxi driver.

Panting and covered in sweat and dust, I said “Please. I want Damascus University” (“Fuh-duhl. Bid-dee jah-mee-yah dee-mossh-k”). For whatever reason, he interpreted this sentence as “Fuh-duhl. Bid-dee Four Seasons.” The concierge at Damascus’ nicest hotel, who is undoubtedly more accustomed to dealing with the wealthy visitors from the Gulf who lounge in the lobby at all hours of the day and night, looked at me with a mix of pity and annoyance as I asked him to translate: Could my driver please take me to the university so I wouldn’t miss my entire Arabic class and so I will communicate with him better in the future?

Yet, as much of a Herculanean struggle as it is to learn Arabic and as little of the language as I understand right now, it is clear that there is some real beauty when these 28 letters get together. When we are conjugating verbs and making adjectives fit with nouns, my 23-year-old teacher, Hala, often talks about “making the music.” For example, there are little symbols you can add to sentences in Arabic, simply to make the wording sound a little more formal and flow better. Here’s a (very) rough example: In Arabic, you could write “I like dogs." Then, you could add one of the special symbols to the sentence and it would still mean “I like dogs”, but it would sound like “I-yah like-ah the dogsssss." It’s not a matter of picking different words to describe something, but it’s more like singing: You have to use the words you’ve got, fit the sounds together and hit the right tone.

There are also words in Arabic that don’t seem to translate in English and capture snapshots of the region’s culture and history. For example, “sahk-er” is word used by Bedouins to describe a really brave person. Describing members of your family, particularly your cousins, aunts and uncles, is also unique. Instead of just saying Cousin Bobby, Aunt Alma or Uncle Lambykins, in Arabic, you use words that explain exactly how everyone is related to you. If Cousin Bobby, for instance, was my dad’s brother’s son, he would be called my “ibn ommi." In other words, the son (ibn) of my uncle (ommi). Without having to say another sentence, you know exactly how Bobby fits into my family, perhaps the single most important entity of one’s life here.

Just as I don’t remember learning the English alphabet being as hard as learning the Arabic alphabet, I don’t remember finally decoding English being as exhilarating as it’s been to get a small hint of Arabic understanding. I’ve started to pick out words here and there when my relatives are talking which has given me a sense of relief, having worried that they were talking about all the stupid cultural mistakes I was making. Even if I get lost in a taxi now, I can pick out bits and pieces of the news on the radio which included news today about “Fran-zia” and “Suur-riya," Sarkozy and Assad.

And just a couple of days ago, for the first time in 27 years, I was able to write my name in Arabic (see the video). It felt like a big moment. I just hope the D wasn’t backwards.

Family Fridays

On Fridays, Damascus shuts down.

Most shops close. The usually crazy traffic slows. Everyone sleeps in, and, if you aren’t waking up at a relatives' house, it’s more than likely you’ll make your way there at some point in the day. You should arrive with an empty stomach.

Fridays in Syria are the equivalent of our Sundays. After the Sunday through Thursday work week here, Friday is a day of prayer, rest and family. Accordingly, for friends my age here, Thursday is the night they go out big. Whatever the case, when you wake up on Friday, there is a palpable calmness across the city, further enhanced by a heat that could make even a Porsche move in slow motion.

On Thursday afternoon, my Aunt Alia called me and said I should come over to her and Uncle Zoo’s apartment at 11 am on Friday. My uncle Nabil was visiting from Los Angeles and so, she said, we were going to the mountains for lunch. In my head, I would arrive at 11, we’d all get into the family car with a picnic basket, drive up to the mountain overlooking Damascus for a leisurely lunch – maybe some bread and cheese (Ok, maybe I was having a bit of a Swiss Alps fantasy. Can you blame me? It’s really hot and dry here. Who couldn’t use a little Lederhosen and green grass in their lives with weather like this?) and return at 1 pm or 2 pm at the latest to go our own ways. I had to meet my Arabic tutor at a café at 6 pm. I figured I had more than enough time.

But I underestimated the rules of Friday, which are as follows: 1. Move as slowly as possible. 2. Family trumps all other cards.

There is also a third rule (3. Eat. A lot.), but we’ll get to that.

When I arrived at Zoo and Alia’s apartment across town from Abu Roumaneh, the neighborhood where I’m now living, I was nervous. Not only was I hepped up on the freeze-dried coffee and powdered milk I’m learning to love and drink each morning, but I was also eight minutes late. I worried that the whole family might be waiting for me in front of the apartment building, tapping their feet and tsking.

I spent half of the taxi ride thinking up excuses, none of which seemed quite believable: “I had to feed my cat”, “I spent 20 minutes looking for a taxi”, “The taxi driver got lost going to your house where I’ve come via taxi at least 10 times without getting lost.”

As I dashed up to the building, there wasn’t a person in sight. What if they’d left without me? Oh no. I jumped into the elevator, quickly jumping off to ring their doorbell. Mousliyah, their housekeeper, let me in and ushered me into the living room where I found Uncle Nabil in his pajamas, watching Al-Jazeera.

“Oh. Hey Ommo,” I said, giving him a hug and wondering where the rest of the family was. “How’s it going?”

“Hey Dania. Good,” he said, sitting back down and smiling peacefully.

“I guess you got the memo about the wife beater,” I said, pointing to my white, sleeveless top and his white, sleeveless night shirt.

This is not a joke I would have been able to make with my Uncle Zoo, namely because I don’t think American slang translates all that well. But Uncle Nabil, like my dad, came to the US in the 1960s so he knew what I was talking about. Still, when Zoo came out five minutes later, walking slowly to the couch, it was clear that he, too, had received the white wife beater memo.

Unfortunately, the memo about the family pajama party we were apparently going to have had not made it to my box.

An hour passed. As I drank another cup of freeze-dried coffee and watched CNN, all my relatives dressed into their nicest clothes. Then, Nabil and Zoo left to go to the mosque for prayers. I called my tutor to tell him I would be late, if I even showed up. Clearly and a bit to my frustration, I was no longer at the driver seat of my life.

Another hour had passed when Nabil and Zoo returned and, at 2 pm, the four of us got into the car and headed out of town, south towards Lebanon. Within 10 minutes, we were far away from the tall apartment buildings, cement and pavement of Damascus, and were zooming through desert. If you’ve ever been to Joshua Tree or Palm Springs, you know the type of landscape. In addition to hills of sandy rock, there were silvery orchards of olive and fig trees in the distance.

The uncles sat in front. They had their windows down. Wind was blowing through the car, muting Arabic folk music full of ouds, violins and wailing singers. On the side of the road, I saw a family standing around the front cab of a truck, each holding small Turkish coffee cups and talking. I also saw two men sitting on a rug, holding hands and laughing. We entered a small valley where there were fruit and vegetable stands on either side of the road offering fava beans, green plums, apricots and delicious smelling roast chicken, cooked on site.

After 30 minutes, we started climbing a hill. With the folksy music in the background and the winding up the incline through little towns, I started to feel like we were in the kind of movie you see when you watch television late at night in a foreign country like Italy or Turkey, the kind of Old World movie with very little plot and lots of music montages. The kind of movie that would have a tagline like “They wanted to have a picnic, but instead, they found a lost village on a hill.” or “They were four people on a desert journey, hungry for adventure, family togetherness and lunch.”

Finally, stomachs rumbling, we arrived in the town at the top of the hill, Bloudan. In the wintertime, my aunt told me, Bloudan is a ski resort. But on this day in June, the town’s power to provide breezy relief from the arid land below was a poorly kept secret: Cars were crammed together around the hillside and crowds of people moved in and out of several restaurants.

Our restaurant (see the photo above), an open-air, three level place built right into the hillside, was reminiscent of a certain genre of restaurants I’ve really loved to visit during past trips to Syria. These restaurants are like nothing I’ve actually been to in the US, but remind me of the types of restaurants featured in 1950s movies, particularly movies with musical acts. They are typically huge, with tables centered around a pool or other ornate man-made creation involving water, but they don’t feel ridiculously decadent. I haven’t surveyed guests at these places, but they feel accessible for people from all walks of life. There is practically a waiter for every two tables, running around in a bow ties and vests, and thick smoke – both from cigarettes and hookahs – hangs heavy, along with the cologne and perfume of guests. Here in Syria, you go to these restaurants and sit for hours, eat through little plates of appetizers like grape leaves and hummus, then tender pieces of lamb and chicken, and finally platters of apples, apricots and plums. You lounge, drink coffee, smoke hookah and stare at other people. It’s as much an opportunity to eat as it is to lay back and feel like you’re in another era and on another planet.

Aunt Alia told me that this particular restaurant used to be a popular place for people to find their future husband or wife. You would come to the restaurant in your best clothes and, if you saw someone you liked, you would ask your family to inquire about this particular person and go from there.

For two hours, we sat in a sunny corner under a tree, ate more food than any of us really needed. I was prodded several times to “Eat! Eat!” My family here has this way of making me feel like I’m anorexic, even when I’m stuffed. We talked and then, by the time the waiters brought small cups of coffee and tea, we were silent, simply staring at each other in heavenly food comas and with a comfort that one can really only feel with their family. Around us, families and married couples all seemed to be on a similar hedonistic continuum. I think I saw only two families leave a table the entire time we were at the restaurant. The restaurant even provided long cloaks, the same as Bedouins wear in the desert, for guests who were chilly in the fresh mountain air.

We crawled back to the car and started the drive back to Damascus. No one talked, but soon, my three relatives were singing folk songs together and so it went until we arrived back at their apartment sometime around 6 pm. They plopped on the couch, watching a little of “Noor”, a Turkish soap opera dubbed in Arabic that has captivated a majority of people in Damascus, if not the country. Soon, they said, they would all crawl into bed for naps and wake up in the warm darkness of the evening, and drink Turkish coffee on the balcony. As I ran out to try to find my tutor and see if we could squeeze in even an hour of work, I couldn’t help wanting to stay in slow motion with them.