Rational Grounds

Damascus Week One has been slow, spent mostly registering for classes, and I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that while there's a lot of bureaucracy, none of it is really Catch-22-Monty-Python-Douglas-Adams funny. The primary pain in the ass is that there's only ever time to do one thing a day. All the relevant offices are open at the same times, generally 10:00 to 2:00, yet in different parts of the city. Once you're done at one office, hey, take the rest of the day off. Everyone else has.

When not in line at some office I've been exploring the city as much as possible, noting key landmarks (coffee shops, liquor stores, internet cafes, etc.) and trying to make sense of the mini-bus transport system. My first ride ended up showing me quite a bit of the countryside south of Damascus before we looped back; for a bit there I thought we were heading to Amman.

My first days were spent seeing sights with a PhD student from Virginia who'd preceded me to Damascus by about a week, the most impressive of which was the Tishreen Panorama. This is a citadel style building on the northeast outskirts of the city built with the help of the North Koreans. "Tishreen" is the Arabic name for October, and naturally the place is dedicated to celebrating the October War of 1973. It sits in a big open plaza with, on the right side, 1973 vintage Syrian armaments and, on the left side, Israeli tanks and jeeps captured in the war. Oh, and the carefully collected but still-very-much-disassembled parts of an F4 Phantom. An imposing iron statue of Hafiz al-Assad stands at the entrance, hand outstretched giving the order to attack.

When we got there Andrew (the PhD student) and I were the only tourists in evidence. Our tour consisted of various paintings of historical scenes from pre-Roman, Roman, Islamic, medieval, and modern Syria, plus scenes of Syrian victories in the October War, and a ten minute video showing the heroic Syrian forces training and in battle. We did have to stand for the Syrian national anthem that preceded the video.

The actual "Panorama" part of the Tishreen Panorama was in the top floor of the building. It's a 41' high, 130-odd foot around oil painting that completely wraps around the top floor. The central seating/viewing area turns slowly and continually, allowing you to take in the entire, um, panorama. The scene is the battle of Quneitra, the Syrian city in the Golan Heights the Israelis had taken in 1967, and that the Syrians were in the process of taking back. Apparently one can go to Quneitra and stand in a particular spot and see the entire landscape as it is depicted here, sans combatants.

Once we were sick of the spinning panorama, we were taken down to the final room chock full of pictures of Hafiz al-Assad meeting every major international political figure from the last 30 years and two more huge oil paintings. The first is al-Assad apparently leading a parade of all the citizens of Syria as children bring him flowers. Opposite this is al-Assad and Kim Jong Il in arms, waving to noone in particular. All in all the place reminded me strongly of the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia, if only for the blissful sincerity of our tour guides.

Since taking the rather humbling placement exam last Tuesday life has started speeding up. I met quite a number of fellow students that day and I'm now living with a couple of them in Old Town, near Bab as-Soghir. I've traded the privacy and air conditioning of my hotel room for a much better Arabic learning environment (we're also living with a few Arabic teachers) and cheaper cost of living, which I suppose is why I came here in the first place. My stomach is a little better - thanks to all who offered advice and condolences on that topic. I'm sharing stomach ache cures with the two Romanian students who just moved into the room across the way, and eating potatoes and leben (the local yogurt) as recommended by my friend Rashid who just got over a bout of the ol' Assad's Revenge. So things are on an upward swing.