Noor

** A quick apology to regular readers – I'm so sorry for the delay in entries over the past couple of weeks. I have been repeatedly sick with a mysterious bacterial infection that has caused several days of debilitating fevers and general discomfort. Hopefully, a superhuman strength medicine (prescribed by my doctor in Monterey and bought at the pharmacy here for $2!!!) will soon do its work. Fingers crossed very tightly. I have also been traveling regularly to Jordan where I have met with government officials and others in Amman (an amazing city) in an attempt to interview Saijida Al-Rishawi, one of the participants in the November 2005 hotel bombings that killed my cousin and uncle. Sentenced to death by hanging in November 2006, she is now in a women's prison just outside of Amman where, according to her attorney whom I interviewed, she spends her evenings singing to herself in English. I am now waiting to hear from the Jordanian government as to whether they will honor my request. With all the traveling, the meetings and the fevers, I've been pretty wiped out, but I have so much to share with you and hope to catch you up as quickly as possible now that I am semi-up and running again -- DA **

As the intolerably hot summer rolls on in Damascus and we sleep through the afternoons and eat watermelon and wild cactus fruit through the night, there are big questions in the air.

Will Syria and Israel make peace through ongoing talks in Turkey?

Will Syria open more of its markets to foreign investors and what will happen if and when that happens?

Are Mohammed and Noor really getting divorced?

You may have heard about the Turkish soap opera Noor which has recently received attention in the Western media for its popularity here in Syria and throughout the Middle East. The Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) – or someone who sold the show to MBC - bought the rights to the show which was then called Gummush, dubbed it in amia, the Arabic "street dialect" spoken throughout Syria and Jordan, renamed the show Noor and started playing it to wide acclaim.

And by wide acclaim, I mean wide acclaim. Here in Syria's capital, Damascenes young and old, rich and poor, male and female, dig this show. There are posters and t-shirts featuring photos of the characters and tag lines like "Noor: Love and Romance" on every third street corner, around the bookstores at Damascus University and in bus stations. Perhaps I own a poster.

At 5 pm, 10 pm and 1 am, one of the three times the show is broadcast each day, you need only step outside in Damascus and be in ear shot of the Noor theme song – and most likely, you'll hear the theme in stereo.

One night, I was in a greasy kebab shop packed full of men shushing one another so they could follow the plot. Another night, I was walking through Bab Sharki (literally translated as Eastern Door), one of the entrances to the oldest parts of Damascus, the oldest city in the world, when I heard the dramatic drum beat and twangy violins and I knew immediately that it was 10 pm.

Watching Noor also happens to be a great way both to learn Arabic and have something to talk about with just about anyone on the street, in a taxi or at a party. So along with my fellow Syrians, I, too, have become entirely engrossed in the happenings of Noor despite the fact that I'm never sure exactly what's happening.

Thankfully, the plot appears to be very simple. In a ritzy mansion on the banks of the Bosphorus live four generations of the Fakri family. There's Mohammed, the hot, 30-something business man; Noor, his equally hot wife who has her own fashion line called, surprisingly, Noor; Mohammed's mother, a red-head with an intense face lift who occasionally plots against Noor; Jido (grandfather in amia) Fakri, Mohammed's grandfather, the official family peace broker; Mohammed's sister, an artist who is married to Mohammed's best friend, Anwar; their cousin Bana, a mischievous business woman who, at some point, was involved with some sort of Istanbul mafia (at least, as far as I could follow); another cousin, Fagher, who recently went on a long trip and came back being played by another actor (Don't you just hate when that happens?); and their two servants, a man and woman that recently married and always seem to have bad luck.

As is prerequisite for the soap world, every Noor character is superhumanly attractive and is prone to major life incidences on a regular, if not daily, basis. Just in my short, three-month stint as a Noor fan, I've seen at least four car accidents, three marriages, two near-divorces and a Christmas episode to boot.

But there are lots of ways in which Noor is nothing like a Bold and the Beautiful or an As the World Turns. It's a lot more innocent. While an American or British soap opera might have several extra-marital affairs, a car wreck and a miscarriage in one episode, one divorce in Noor can take up to seven or eight episodes as we find out what each character thinks about the impending divorce and the couple cry in their separate rooms to Turkish love songs.

Much has been made in the both the Western and Middle Eastern media about how modern the characters in Noor are compared to the Arab viewers watching the show. Apparently on Al Jazeera earlier this week, my Arabic tutor, Hussein, watched the woman who does the voice-over for Noor's character debate a scholar as to whether the show is positively influencing society with its subject matter including divorces, abortion and affairs.

While I can't really imagine a television show becoming such a source of discussion in the US (imagine if Jason Priestly had argued for the social benefits of Beverly Hill's 90210 on Crossfire), here it makes sense. The two other most popular soap operas, La Mise and Bab Al Hara, follow much more conservative plots.

La Mise, another dubbed-over Turkish soap opera, is the story of a man who wants to marry a woman, but fate seems to always keep them apart. Personally, I find the show really boring. However, when I lived with my Uncle Zoo, he often yelled at the characters and had to be reminded by my aunt that it was only a television show. I also know a 38-year-old businessman who recently had to stop watching the show because he couldn't handle the heart ache between the couple.

Bab al-Hara, a show that started during last year's Ramadan and will start again in several weeks with this year's Ramadan, is set in Damascus during the French mandate in the 1930s and doesn't have nearly the number of opportunities to insert the risqué situations of Noor.

So perhaps folks here watch Noor for a glimpse of what life is like in the West. Or perhaps they are watching blue-eyed, chiseled Mohammed – played by Turkish model Kivanc Tatlitug - who is H-O-T.

Modern, hot or not, most of all, I enjoy the show's wonderful Turkish quirks. Many of the key scenes in the show happen around the breakfast table where the family eats cheese and cucumbers and drinks that delicious, sweet Turkish tea in little glasses.

There is a lot of musicality to the show, too. How many characters in Dynasty, for example, belonged to an oud-playing club like Jido Fakri? In one recent episode, a good five minutes was devoted to good ol' Jido and his friends strumming their ouds and singing what I imagine were traditional Turkish songs in the mansion with seemingly no connection to the episode's plot. In another episode, when Noor and Mohammed had one of their many arguments, Noor was looking longingly over the Bosphorus as a drunken Mohammed stumbled around somewhere in Istanbul. Suddenly, she began to sing, and it seemed as though her song called Mohammed back to the mansion.

Which brings me to tell you about the strangest "Noor" episode I've watched yet.

Let me set the scene up for you. Remember my 75-year-old aunt who named her cat Nancy after Nancy Ajram, the Middle East's Britney Spears? Well, my aunt also happens to plan her entire social calendar around Noor episodes, despite the fact that the 5 pm episode is always a repeat of the previous evening's 10 pm show.

I was visiting her in Aleppo this past weekend to celebrate my 28th birthday. Between my aunt trying to introduce me to Aleppo's most eligible – and apparently oldest and baldest – bachelors and, after coming down with another high fever, going to the doctor (which turned out to be a plot on my aunt's part to introduce me to yet another bachelor), we devoted our lives to Noor.

Both wearing long gallabiyas (I borrowed one of her long muu-muu-like robes), we sat on her sofa by the air conditioning, drinking coffee or eating her special soup, and watched attentively to see whether Noor and Mohammed were going to divorce.

For weeks, our favorite couple had been having problems stemming from one fateful night. Mohammed had gone to his ex-wife's house to visit his son and, drunk or tired (I haven't figured out which), he passed out in his ex-wife's bed. In flash backs set to Turkish music, we learned that nothing had happened between Mohammed and his ex-wife (who also used to be confined to a wheel chair but somehow miraculously now walks).

Noor couldn't handle the disrespect Mohammed had shown her and she demanded a divorce. Episode upon episode dragged out as Mohammed tried to woo Noor back. He apologized. He searched all over Istanbul for her when she disappeared and brought flowers to her. Finally, he gathered his whole family and his ex-wife, who told Noor that nothing had happened between her and Mohammed, and he told her how much he loved her in front of everybody as she stood on a balcony. Still, Noor held steadfast.

On this particular afternoon in Aleppo, my aunt and I lay side by side in her bed together under the air conditioning, watching as Noor and Mohammed said their goodbyes the night before they were scheduled to divorce. Mohammed had driven Noor home after they announced over the family dinner table that they were getting divorced. At a traffic light, their special song came on the radio coincidentally and a young street girl offered to sell them a dozen red roses.

"She said, 'I hope you are able to have love with this girl'," my aunt translated for me. "See, even she knew that there is something between them!"

After putting the flowers in water and letting Mohammed see their baby, now destined for life as a child of divorced parents, Noor shut the door of her newly purchased condominium as Mohammed walked to his Mercedes.

Suddenly, heavy metal music accompanied by a chorus of Turkish singers started up. In slow motion, both Mohammed and Noor walked back to the door where they had just left one another, neither one knowing that the other was also having second thoughts about the divorce. But Noor didn't open the door and Mohammed didn't knock.

I thought this would be the end of the drama, but who was I kidding? We were watching Noor.

When Mohammed arrived back at his mansion, he found one of the long-stemmed roses lying on the floor of the car. He walked in his backyard with the rose, looking at it longingly, and finally tossed it into the family swimming pool. Meanwhile, Noor took the bouquet from its vase and, with tears streaming down her face, pushed the lever of the garbage can with her stylish boots and threw the roses away.

The choir and electric guitars continued. So did my aunt.

"I hate her! I hate her!" she screamed at the television. "What's he gonna do? He's gonna kill himself. Then what?"

Mohammed walked towards his house and Noor walked to her bedroom to check on their baby. Suddenly, both walked back to their respective flowers. Mohammed fished his rose out of the pool and Noor put hers back in the vase and placed them next to the baby's crib. Crying, though totally unaware of the absolute synchronicity of their emotions with the dramatic metal music, they looked longingly at their flowers and smiled through their tears.

And then the episode went to commercial.

Days later, when my aunt followed me back to Damascus and took over my bed as her Noor watching station, we learned that, in fact, Noor and Mohammed would get divorced. Yet, immediately after the official court proceedings, they would be involved in a dramatic car accident in which Mohammed would have to pull Noor from a burning car.

It seems our summer passion in Damascus continues.