Coffee (mornings) and (window) cleaners

Marhaba! I write this as the last missive from unemployed-wife since from Wednesday onwards I will be employed-as-an-architect-wife! So that’s exciting, but of course there are downsides. For one, it means I won’t be able to go to any more wives’ coffee mornings. There are more coffee mornings here than you can shake a stick at; in cafes, in hotels, in houses. Granted, I’m generally the youngest there by about 20 years but if you want chat about how you can’t do anything in the UK for ‘health and safety’ these days, or the bad driving of Arabs, then these are the place for you. You also meet some very amusing, very friendly people – one lady was explaining why she hasn’t made or decorated cakes for years – ‘I stopped making them when me and my daughters all got fat’.

I have finally found somewhere in Doha that teaches Arabic and went for a ‘placement test’ to find out what level I was. I had a chat with a woman, who despite me saying I had learnt Syrian Colloquial Arabic, wittered away to me in Fus-ha (very formal) and then told me I was Level 2 but it wasn’t ‘haram’ (forbidden/taboo) to go in at Level 1 (the lowest) if I felt more comfortable. Haram, my arse. I did not spend six months learning how to say ‘I liked Patrick Swayze’s bum in Dirty Dancing when I was 13’ in Arabic to then sit in a classroom learning the numbers. So, Level 2 it is and once she realises I can READ and WRITE (which her test didn’t bother to find out) she’ll be sorry.

Meanwhile, our flat is looking increasingly like ours rather than a hotel, and I’ve realised that you can’t walk around naked on the 18th floor because sometimes men appear at the windows unannounced to clean them. We have been taking advantage of the facilities, and are kicking ourselves for not having procreated so our kids could use the special children’s gym – complete with brightly coloured, mini rowing machines. We continue to attempt to walk around our area and are challenged by pavements-not-yet-built and piles of bricks.

We went to an 8 Hour Motorbike Endurance race. Yes, 8 hours, round and round a racetrack, on motorbikes. We stayed for an hour, eating puddings in the VIP room with no real clue what was going on. We’ve been visiting the malls some more, and discovered that all the drugs you need a prescription for in the UK you can just buy in a pharmacy here. I spent a day at an Islamic Art conference which, because it was ‘supported’ by the Emir, was not only free to anyone who wanted to go but involved a load of academics flown in from the UK, US, Lebanon and Egypt and an obscene number of freebies. We’ve also been strolling along the cornice, along with practically every other child in Qatar and their bikes. There’s a lovely café, and the Bahraini man there gave us tea AND spoke Arabic to us. What a result.

And I watched some French jets do some impressive stunts from our balcony. Mr A assures me that this is NOTHING compared to this weekend’s Red Arrows display.

Now we really need to sort out booze licenses and buying a car (or two). Both seem to be crucial. There is only one alcohol distributor in the country, and you need your special ‘infidel westerner’ card to buy anything. In terms of getting around, there is very little public transport and not many taxis so we really need some permanent wheels. We went to talk to a man about a car… ‘What kind of car are you looking for?’ … ‘Um, one with four wheels, maybe even this four-wheel-drive we’ve heard about, four doors, automatic…’ So that’s only half the cars in Qatar then……

Condensation and consumerism

(Written in Qatar, 28 October 2007)


We have now been here a week and are working our way through our boxes. Luckily we've found the Lambeth Council recycling bags.

Mr A has done his first full week of work for a year and a half, and is only mildly in shock. His colleagues are probably still recovering from his first day when he sported patches of un-shaved beard that he'd missed in the steamed up bathroom mirror. We are getting used to the low hum of Doha as a million air conditioning units whirr away, and the sounds of construction work beginning in the middle of the night. In fact the city of Doha is almost one very large construction site, which as an architect makes me feel right at home.

We walked down to the Corniche yesterday and failed to join in with celebrations to mark the opening of Qatar's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Qatari officials were keeping people on the dual carriageway running parallel to the corniche, rather than allowing them in to the fun as the crowds were too large. Since everyone in Doha had been invited to join the fun, this meant a lot of people standing on top of flower beds feeling a little disenfranchised which doesn't fill me with enthusiasm for their ability to organise an Olympics. Luckily we walked back via the Sheraton and watched the Olympic-fireworks across the bay whilst sipping beers which more than made up for any frustration. Then we got take-away Pizza Express salads and watched ER which, I think, summarises nicely the creature comforts.

We have also found the Cigar Bar of the Four Seasons Hotel (Note: hotels are going to crop up a lot. They're the only places you can get an alcoholic beverage) and hung out with Al Jazeera journalists who we're hoping will be our new friends. And we have been shopping, a number of times. There are a couple of malls which are ENORMOUS and one of them ('Villagio'!) has gondoliers pushing small children down a 'canal' - Hennes on the left, Topshop on the right, Gap just coming up.....

We don't officially exist in Qatar yet, since we don't have the all important ID cards. But we have had our fingers pricked, our blood smeared onto a glass slide, and our blood groups ascertained so apparently we're on the way. The weather isn't as hot as we were expecting - about 30-35 degrees - but quite humid. It's always mildly disconcerting when your cereal bowl drips on to your legs as the condensation forms on the side from the cold milk you've put in it. And we do have a lot of cold milk as we attempt to fill the enormous fridge in our kitchen. In fact, we need a lot more of everything as we expand to fill a 3-bedroom, 4-bathroom, 5 television apartment. We have been forcing ourselves to use the outdoor swimming pool downstairs too. Actually, I used it a bit too enthusiastically with some ill-advised breast stroke and have buggered my neck. Which leaves Mr A to unpack the remaining books...... what a shame.

We are of course always keen for news and messages of love. Don't send any pork.

Damascus and Doha

(Written in Syria, 30 September 2007)


Yes, we’re leaving. Syria is in mourning. To help the nation get over it, we’re not leaving by plane but by train, on a sort of farewell tour if you will. From Damascus we go to Aleppo in the north. And from Aleppo we take a 30 hour train (where there is apparently no food or water provided, yippee) to Istanbul. Where we link up with the pride of Britain, Easyjet, for a return flight to beautiful and historic Luton.

In our last month here, we did a little tour of Jordan, when I abandoned my principles and got behind the wheel of a massive 4x4 with two vast petrol tanks. Mr A realised he still obviously looks 12 years old, judging by the number of strange looks he got driving it across the border. We visited the ancient city of Petra (of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade fame) where we rode two farting donkeys up about 500 extremely precarious steps to see a ruined monastery – the donkeys were determined to overtake each other on hairpin corners overhanging 100 foot drops, which made it quite an eventful ride. Walking down in 45 degree heat was pretty tiring, so we felt sorry for the larger German lady struggling up on her own. We would have recommended she take a donkey but we suspect the Bedu didn’t want to risk losing one under the strain.

We also toured Wadi Rum (of Lawrence of Arabia fame) in the 4x4 with a Bedu tour guide. I cautioned Mr A to drive slowly to preserve the environment and avoid disturbing the desert tranquillity. But eventually our guide demanded the keys to what was obviously one of the more fun cars he’d been in that week – and he drove us round the various sites at about 70mph, handbrake turning around sand dunes. And finally we swam in the Dead Sea after caking ourselves in strange grey mud. The water feels more like salty oil really, but still, the floating sensation is quite amazing, kind of like being a spaceman. It does make sleazing a lot easier, as slimy men have obviously discovered through practice that women are unable to swim away from them as they ask questions like “Why don’t you want to talk to me? I’m just saying you’re beautiful! You’re Russian? My father went to Ukraine once!”

Back in Syria, I bought a dead cow’s back from the leather market here, and made the whole house stink of dead animal. The idea was to make a bag out of it, but in the end I have traced the patterns of the leaves in our garden and cut out lots of small leather leaves. Obviously.

While I was away, Mr A spent a rather crazy weekend in a Syrian friend’s village about 4 hours drive from Damascus. It was the very definition of ‘immersion’ training – he was forced to wear a jalabia for the most of the weekend, including while taking a motorcycle tour of the region, pretend to smoke a cigarette through a hollow branch (still no idea what the point was), eat enough to feed a family, drink probably 25 cups of Arabic coffee, and explain at least 10 times why he had so far failed to conceive a child. (“But I have been married for only three years and I have six children!”) It was all very good for the Arabic as no-one in the family spoke a word and he heard new usages, such as “ALLAH!!”, shouted in expectation of impending doom by his friend’s elderly mother every time he went over a speed bump while driving.

He also spent a couple of hours at a Christian festival, held on the first day of Ramadan. While the rest of the country was solemnly fasting and abstaining from any prohibited substances, Christians in a few villages were out on the streets with litre-bottles of Arak, dancing and setting off firecrackers from 4pm until dawn the next day. The British delegation found the ‘liberal’ attitude to fireworks amusing for a while, but after a couple of hours of enormous Beirut-style explosions going off around them, they tired and decided to leave. They were then confronted by a fantastic example of Syrian policing, as a roadblock had been erected to stop cars getting in AND OUT of the village. Their protests that they didn’t want to stay for the next 12 hours and that there was a pregnant woman in the car, were, until a senior officer turned up, meeting deaf ears. They were not an exceptional case, apparently, as “everyone’s pregnant today”.

My uncle R was here for a week. He arrived tired and moaning of sitting next to some idiot that kept sticking his elbows into him while he was sleeping. That idiot turned out to be visiting our friend here and coming to supper at ours the next night. Cue some rather embarrassing conversations about how cramped plane seats are these days. His first night was also a bit of a disaster as he got here on the second day of Ramadan, which plays havoc with all opening and closing times, and means that some restaurants only serve food at certain times. But you would think when you book a table at a restaurant miles from anywhere else for 9.30pm that they might tell you that there is no food until Suhur at 12.30am. “But sir, there is no problem. We can serve you tea for 3 hours while you wait.”

It’s also been exam time - I went back to the UK for my viva and passed. Mr A has also taken his final exam. He is now ready to speak Arabic in a city where everyone speaks English fluently.

Finally, there is a happy ending for the tortoises, as they are being transferred to a garden where they will be looked after by professionals (i.e. the handyman). We thought we had lost the female one since we hadn’t seen her for a week. But happily we are writing this to the dulcet tones of tortoi rutting…

Mobiles and MC Jabu

(Written in Syria, 22 August 2007)


A penultimate update from sweltering Syria… we’re now just over a month away from finishing our time here. Boo. I write in the midst of an exciting week for me… last Tuesday I became perhaps the first person ever in Syria to have my car towed away, by leaving it in front of the Polish Embassy and a big no-parking sign (‘I thought it said please park here’). Luckily I carefully noted down exactly where the car had been taken, so we could easily direct a taxi there – ‘karaj hajaz’, ‘the car-pound’. Eventually, a £3.50 fine to recover the car gave us a new appreciation of why you should always commit parking violations outside the London borough of Lambeth. My erratic behaviour (I may be suffering from some sort of tropical brainrot) continued until this morning, when I very kindly gave Mr A’s mobile phone (left on the bed) a thorough spin in the washing machine. ‘What’s that bashing noise?’ he asked. The response: ‘The washing is very heavy today.’

We’ve also had a number of visitors in July and August, who did their best to destroy the good reputation we had built up over 6 months here. For example, T showed cultural sensitivity by kicking a man’s prayer beads away while visiting a mosque. (He later got his comeuppance though, walking straight into a road sign with a loud clang - a Syrian found this so funny he actually got up from his seat in order to stand and point) H, Mr A’s brother, enjoyed his visit, and won’t forget his special ‘medical’ massage at the hammam which was slightly more intimate than he expected… but he didn’t quite stay long enough to fully adjust to the Middle-East, making the observation just before he left, as Mr A cut up a taxi, that ‘maybe it’s just me, but when I see a car full of angry Arab men my instinct is to be scared.’ A visit to the Umayyad Mosque with them meant I had to wear the ewok outfit again (full length brown cloak with hood). We went to visit St Simeon with M and N, where a very pious man (you guessed it, St Simeon) stood on a 15m column for 39 years over a thousand years ago. It was rather windy, and Mr A spent an hour translating the ramblings of a man who decided to tell us everything we already knew about the place. For an hour. On a really hot day.

Other notable events (from our point of view) since we last wrote:

- Two weeks in Egypt, spent pottering around mosques and pyramids in Cairo and learning to dive in Sharm el Sheikh. In Cairo, we remembered how many slimy men there are, and sailed up the Nile whilst surreptitiously sipping bottles of beer. In Sharm we were amazed by huge numbers of semi-naked drunk British tourists being calmly watched by Gulfi ladies in full niqabs sipping tea and smoking shisha. Also, Mr A had a brainfreeze in a strong current and descended accidentally to 37m (18 being the maximum allowed for idiots like him). His ears hurt. I looked pretty cool in my diving garb. We then stayed in a posh resort (also in Sharm) with permanently horrific loud music and we saw as many fish snorkelling off the coast as we had in the whole of our (very expensive) diving.

- A good day for the 1 million-plus Iraqis living in Damascus, when they won the Asian cup. Mr A watched it in a café full of Iraqis, who found it mystifyingly hilarious when the commentator starting going on about how ‘today, all of Iraq is glued to this game. Today, for just 90 minutes, even the suicide bombers are taking a break… etc etc.’

- Our first visit to the ‘hakawati’, a story teller in the centre of the old city. His routine is to veer between the sublime – impassioned recitals of great works of Arab literature, maintaining the centuries-old Arab tradition of oratory – and the ridiculous – answering his mobile mid-way through an exciting bit of the story, yelling at teenagers that aren’t paying him sufficient respect, and suddenly bringing down his enormous cane on a metal plate in order to scare the crap out of Italian tourists.

- The birth of even more kittens in our garden, causing me severe anguish. Caught between finding them sweet and vulnerable, and knowing we can’t keep them, I spent half the time giving them milk and the other half ignoring their pitiful squeaks as like lemmings they dutifully climbed up onto the wall by our kitchen to be with their mother, then inevitably fell 8 foot onto the stone floor below, one after the other.

- Two somewhat surreal concerts – the first an Arabic rap outfit playing in the finest old Damascene house (Arabic lyrics we picked up – ‘I’m drunk… there’s a carbomb’… not sure how the ideas related), the second a Los Angeles latino-rap fusion group in a Roman amphitheatre in northern Jordan. The highlight of the latter was clearly the moment when the elegant elderly Jordanian man next to us, who had up until that point appeared more interested in his Gauloise cigarettes than the music, developed a curious passion for one of the rappers, standing up to yell ‘yalla M.C. Jabu, yalla! Salaam! Salaam!’

- A Saturday night at the family house of our Arabic teacher, the only old-town house still occupied by the family that built it – a beautiful courtyard house with fountain and huge lemon trees. We mainly played with his son for four hours since he is possibly the most adorable one year old in the world. And then we listened to Russian folk music on a record player.

- Last but not least, the tortoises’ becoming frankly disturbing with their energy levels. We have some explicit video we may try to put on the internet to truly appreciate the abuses that go on everyday in our garden.

Got to run - we’re going to Jordan to get very hot and look at some more old stuff (Petra).

My-parents and marriages

(Written in Syria, 30 June 2007)


Apologies for the two month wait for this - we’ve been rather busy. Since we last wrote, F and Z have been to visit, as have my parents. Much fun was had. The whole of Syria laughed at my mum’s hair. My Dad had a particularly good time – he had to dispose of the bodies of four kittens murdered by a marauding tom cat (or at least he’s our top suspect) in our front garden and then spend a full night getting up every two hours to protect the mother-cat and remaining kitten from the still-marauding tom. The next day, after enlisting Mum’s help, he constructed a kitten-escape route AND a kitten catcher! Much to everyone’s relief, particularly tired-Dad, the kitten survived its ordeal and is now happily integrated into the feral cat family that we hate living in the garage next door. We all went to Palmyra, where we saw history’s campest Roman centurions and F and Z pretended not to notice that my Mum was wearing fingerless fishnet gloves (‘I want keep my hands covered – they might get sunburnt’).

I then disappeared to London for a month, leaving Mr A to fend for himself - read a month of take-aways and hangovers. Confirmation, if needed, is provided by a waiter in every takeaway restaurant knowing him by name, and asking why he hasn’t been visiting so much in the past two weeks (i.e. since my return). Sterling stuff - doing his bit for wealth distribution amongst the waiters of Damascus. Meanwhile, there was a referendum to decide whether the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, should rule for another seven years. Cue a lunatic month of parties, demonstrations, banners and posters whilst everyone makes clear their affection for the great man (e.g. huge banners on the side of roads – ‘we, the Indian restaurant workers of Damascus, love you Mr President’). The combined cost of all these banners and lights probably equals the GDP of a small African country. In a shock result he won and now can happily govern until 2014 with his First Lady (who’s from Acton!) by his side. Mr A also spent a weekend in Beirut – shopping in Virgin Megastore, eating croissants in Café Paul and avoiding being blown up.

In London, I took my exam (passing by the skin of her teeth), spent a lot of time at home feeling like I was still 18, drank a lot, went to France, wrote a very boring thesis and complained about how expensive London was. Mr A popped over and we snuck in a cheeky riverside lunch in London where we sat next to TWELVE pregnant ladies having the poshest pre-natal discussions ever: ‘I just can’t wait until I can eat everything again – I’ve so missed foie gras’.

Two weeks later, Mr A ‘popped’ over again for D and E’s wedding and drove us there in Damascus-style…. There’s a very small gap in which a car could, possibly, turn right just in front of that huge lorry hurtling towards us – yes, Mr A nips through. But he did get us there in one piece, and enjoyed being there, and didn’t mind too much when one guest sang necrophilia-themed songs as we all went home.

Now we are both back in Damascus, and I’m struggling to remember any Arabic. Mr A continues to witter away to anyone who will listen. We went to our first Queen’s Birthday Party at the Ambassador’s Residence. NO ferrero rocher. But I did meet an 86 year old British lady who got married in Damascus in 1949 and has lived here ever since. She took us on a tour of the old town with a running commentary – ‘this [18th century courtyard house] is where my office was when I was secretary to the President, and he asked me to summarise a controversial novel, and I said I will but not until you release that Canadian prisoner’. She’s my new best friend. Meanwhile, we’re preparing to go to Egypt on Sunday. A little mosque-visiting in Cairo and scuba diving in Sharm el Sheikh should prepare us for another three months of hardcore Arabic study. No, really, we’re very busy. Tomorrow, we’re going to the wedding of our Arabic teachers sister. Mr A is worried – her son has taken to calling him ‘Mama’ in company. What is the appropriate response to a one-year old thinking you look like a Lebanese hjiab-ed woman?

Sadly, due to the heat, the tortoises have been somewhat subdued of late, so no more filth just yet. But since I’ve been suspecting that Lady could be Randy and Andy’s mum, I’m not sure it’s such a bad thing. We’ve been loading them up with cucumber in the hope that they won’t die whilst we’re away. Fingers crossed.

If Magaluf is booked up this year

(Written in Syria, 16 May 2007)


Ms A has abandoned me briefly so I thought I'd do my bit for the Syrian tourist board and quickly remind you that if you still haven't planned your holiday for the summer you're very welcome here. It is a pretty amazing place to visit with a load of fairly unbelievable Greek/Roman/Byzantine/Arab/Ottoman tourist stuff (if you're into that) and at least three good restaurants and lots of sun if that's more your scene… all our visitors so far claim to have enjoyed themselves, but perhaps that's just what they tell us. Just in case you had any reservations, a few old chestnuts are addressed below.

1. Nobody has to wear a hijab, niqab, abbaya, burkha or any other variation. Unless I say so. Actually women do have to dress up like an ewok to see the main mosque but that makes for some quite amusing photos.

2. It must be one of the safest cities of its size. A friend of ours did manage to get his iPod stolen and then returned twice in the same week by different workmen in his house, but that's the only crime we've heard of since we arrived and it was all pretty polite.

3. Certainly there's no Damascus branch of Wetherspoons, but booze is very much available… it ranges from high quality and really quite tasty Lebanese wine to the local beer, Barada (rather worryingly named after the city's main river, which looks a bit like your typical British canal, with black/brownish water full of bikes and shopping trolleys), which has an alcohol volume of "3.5% - 5.5%" depending on this week's batch…

4. Disappointingly for a place that calls itself the Middle-East it's not yet scorchingly hot. We still haven't turned on our A/C and you'll remember Ms A’s description of snow in March... Over the summer it will heat up quite a bit but I wouldn't expect it to be too different from southern Spain at the same time. Like the British, Syrians are capable of endless discussion of the weather and seem constantly surprised by how much / little rain / sun there is for this time of year.

5. Syrians mostly love the British. Most opening conversations run as follows: "British? Kwayyis (Great)!! Tony Blair – NO GOOD! British people – GOOD! Why you have this guy Tony Blair?" I'm not sure how these conversations will go after June 27.

6. There's no bacon, but there is a lot of meat. And lots of hummus if you're vegetarian. And lots of cakes and baklava if you're a fatty.

We'll be here until the end of September. We'll then be in Doha, which has more sun, sea, sand and 5* hotels than Damascus, but nothing older than 1970.

Mr A

In-laws and India

(Written in Syria, 29 April 2007)


Well, the A-A caravan has been very busy entertaining parents/in-laws and then travelling to India.

We went on a roadtrip with Mr A’s parents – to Krak des Chevalier (the geeks among you will note we have been there before, Crusader Fort, very windy); Aleppo (beautiful hotel in a converted house, citadel – where I thought a young chap wanted to be my friend but he just wanted to see my camera, lots of juice bars and offal); and Lattakia (beach).




We stopped off in Doha for 24 hours on the way to India. It couldn’t be more different from Damascus, we got a bit of a culture shock….. draft beer, pop music, a Virgin Megastore, really clean streets, extremely hot, billions of building sites and a serious lack of visible Arabs. I made the British Embassy security guard laugh his head off by saying good morning in Arabic (he’s Nepali). The flat we’re going to be living in (at least when we first arrive) is on the 18th floor of a tower, has at least five Phillipino boys at the entrance saying ’hellogoodmorninghowareyou?’ and an utterly ridiculous Americanised name. The building also comes with a swimming pool, jacuzzi and last but not least a magical bathroom, where you go in for an early morning pee, shut the door behind you, and then find there’s no way out…. Eventually, after much shouting and screaming, Mr A found a maintenance man with a screwdriver, and I was released.

India was a lot of fun. We spent a couple of days in Mumbai – getting hot in rickshaws, hanging out in J’s air-conditioned flat, eating pig products, Chinese take-away and fondue (Did you know you can get vodka delivered to your house in Mumbai? Now that’s our kind of city). We did go down to the must-see-tourist-old-building-stuff in the central Mumbai, but we had breakfast first in a genuine Indian café – which meant we both needed the loo pretty speedily. After an hour of 10 minutes looking at stone Vishnu’s in the museum, 5 minutes sitting down to recover, 10 minutes in the ‘loo’ (a hole), 10 minutes looking at pictures of Vishnu, 5 mins …… etc etc we gave up and went back to J’s bijou flat. Then the three of us headed to stay with Uncle R in the middle of nowhere in Gujarat. They’re pretty keen on Gandhi there, and so the whole state is DRY. We had decanted a bottle of vodka into a water bottle, and then made J carry it so that we wouldn’t get into trouble on our Diplomatic passports. It turns out we didn’t really need to bother, since R’s friend has the biggest drinks cabinet we’ve ever seen. And you can buy booze from the police if you run out. We went for supper with a seriously Hindu man who, when asked ‘what time do you get up in the morning?’, gave us an extensive rundown: ‘there were problems with the USSR and America in the 1960s and 70s …. it was called the cold war …. Hinduism is all about creation and destruction … and South Africa is better than Zambia’. And got a 5 hour train back, where loads of people came to chat to us - try explaining to someone that you come from London, yes you are British, but you’re living in Syria at the moment, no that’s not in north London, no you won’t be there forever, you’ll be moving to Qatar in October. Confusion all round. Meanwhile, Mr A wasn’t very well and couldn’t hear anything so started taking some antibiotics that R had. But it turned out that they have a side effect of giving you a bad tummy so Mr A felt even worse. We then headed to Goa where we have no funny stories as our days were divided between lying on sunloungers, eating and sleeping. Actually there was one thing that made me laugh – the female security guards at the airport frisking me to check I wasn’t carrying a bomb had spotted me talking to Mr A. They asked me (whilst giggling) if that was my husband, I said yes, they exclaimed ‘but he’s so small’. Mr A is not amused.

In other Syrian news, there have been elections in which a man with a head like an egg was running. We’re not sure who votes in elections here - you get to decide who sits in parliament to rubberstamp what the President has already decided, but if you’ve ever been picked up by the police for anything political you can’t stand for election or vote. We haven’t yet met a single person who voted. We found the remains of a roman road and aqueduct half-way up a big hill outside Damascus. Actually a shepherd had to show Mr A where it was (and gave him some oranges and Islamic tips en route), and then he took me there. I clambered up in flip-flops so my feet are now full of thorns but it was okay because we ate processed cheese at the top whilst boys in pick-ups held drag races on the road below.

I have been learning how to read in Arabic and feel like an illiterate 4 year old. Mr A has been playing football with young Syrians and now knows the equivalent of ‘nutmeg’ – ‘egg’ (i.e. you have two between your legs). It’s much hotter so we’ve been hanging out in our garden, with our fountain. And ….. having been slightly starved whilst we were away, the tortoises (Randy, Andy and Lady) have been munching their cucumber and are, you will be pleased to hear, AT IT once more.

Flares and the French

(Written in Syria, 30 March 2007)


No dramatic news this week – the snow has stopped (it only ever lasted one morning) and it’s sunny, though still a little chilly. Some men came round to ‘lay some turf’ in our garden and turned it in to a huge dirtbowl which we studiously water every day hoping for a hint of grass. During the palaver, a gold-toothed gardener took advantage of my distraction - trying to think how to say ‘one tortoise is missing’ in Arabic - and copped a feel of my boob (disguised as gesticulation). I gave him an extremely stern look and refused to give him any tea.

Talking of boobs, Mr A’s cousin E visited us last week with her friend C. We encouraged them to go the hammam (which I hadn’t been to yet – I wanted them to be my guinea-pigs) and it turns out that you pay £2 to lie in a puddle of dirty water on the floor while a larger-lady massages your boobs! We feel proud we gave them the genuine Damascus experience. They seemed slightly surprised. Mr A is keen to point out this is not what happens when he goes to the hammam. Men just get all their skin scraped off and their neck violently realigned with a clicking sound you think only happens on films.

Also, with E and C, we visited some ruins south of Damascus where we met a man in 70s flares who showed us round. It turns out that this is a euphemism for taking us to the top of ruined 1st century AD buildings and telling us we’re standing on the theatre, whilst Mr A points out a clearly visible theatre just next door. (Normally chaps wear flares with pointy toed shoes but he must have left his at home.)

On Wednesday we went to the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, where there is a ghost town you can wander around and look over to Israeli military watchtowers. There is only one building left in use, a café right next to no-man’s land, where we stopped for tea. It was a suitably sobering experience, sitting next to the barbed wire and hearing only the whistle of the wind through the trees, where once there was a thriving town. It probably would have been more sombre had it not been for the unexplained presence of an 8-foot Santa Claus looming over our table.

Last night we went to a party at the Total (as in French oil company) villa. My french is pretty hot so we chatted away (or not, ‘bon soir, hello, how are you?’). We had been invited by a French couple, the girl-part of which was playing in the band. They knocked out some French classics, or at least we presume they were classics as everyone else was singing along. One member of the six-piece was a saxophonist who didn’t seem to worry himself with what the rest of the band was up to. Then, the band finishes and…………………………….. on comes Dire Straits! Which it seems the Frenchies are mad keen for. Who would have thought……. A party. In Syria. Drinking red wine with hundreds of French people. Listening to Dire Straits…. now that is what this foreign adventure stuff is all about.

Mr A’s parents arrive on Monday for a while, and then we’re off to India for 10 days. So the next missive from us will be snaps of us hanging out with my uncle in some village far from civilisation. And then maybe a few of us on a beach in Goa just to piss you off.

We’ve attached the latest update on the tortoises – they are still at it. And the cats are perverts.

What’s with the snow?

(Written from Syria, 16 March 2007)


Well, the major shock of this week is that as I write this email I’m looking out to a garden where the tortoises are cowering because it is SNOWING. It seems to me that I’ve moved to the Middle East under false pretences. How am I going to get the pasty skin to a mild coffee-colour with no rays?

Last week it wasn’t snowing, but I was lying on the sofa, watching some rubbish TV. I remembered that I was making chicken stock and hadn’t checked it for about 2 hours so was probably about to cause major embarrassment by burning down the building. I ran (like the wind) down the corridor. I turned to go in to the kitchen and forgot that Mr A had closed the door earlier to stop the whole apartment smelling of chicken bones. And, yes, I ran head-first into the door. Fortunately, I sustained only minor bruising to my nose and a stubbed toe, and got a huge spot on my nose shortly afterwards so you can’t really see the bruise for the carbuncle upon it.

We went to the Crac des Chevaliers last weekend – a huge crusader fort on top of a hill. Apart from the numberplate falling off our car (it’s back on now), everything was good. They had a carpark that golfers might enjoy. Mr A had a particularly good day – a Syrian girl also visiting the Crac took a shine to him and asked to have her photograph taken with him. I’m pretty sure that her photograph is now poster-sized next to her bed. Apparently Mr A made a ‘very funny’ joke to her, something about him wanting a fee. Maybe that’s why she then followed us around for a while.

Mr A has also been taking lessons in Arabic swear-words and has a test on them next week. His personal favourite is a hard-to-pronounce word that literally means to stick your finger up someone else’s bottom, the closest equivalent in English being, we think, to piss someone off. Other innovative uses of language include ‘may god destroy your house’ and the timeless ‘son of a dog’.

And finally…. I beat Mr A at pool last night (and in one break potted 3 balls). All that hanging out in Peckham pubs rather than revising for A-Levels obviously paid off.

Insh’allah, all is well with all of you…

Tortoise Nooky

(Written from Syria, 2 March 2007)


Marhaba from sunny Syria. Having had monsoon-like rain this week and loads of thunder, today is really lovely. Since Friday is the equivalent of our Saturday, we have been taking it easy. Mr A played football this morning (and claims he scored ‘the goal of the game’). He’s been coughing with exhaustion ever since. We have been sitting in the sun in our garden watching the three tortoises that have appeared. It seems that they’re horny little things and that there’s only one female. The two lads have BOTH been getting it on, quite literally, much to our amusement/horror. You’d be surprised at how much noise rutting tortoises make.

In other news, we won a ‘pub’-quiz last night. We almost made our fortune (£22 between four of us) but decided that Damascus is a small place, so we’d share the love by buying the runners-up some drinks. Hopefully they’ll now be our friends!

Also this week: I went to a beauty parlour with my Arabic teacher and a woman who I couldn’t understand removed most of my eyebrows. I had shits. Mr A bought a Blood Diamond DVD for 50p and there actually is a large man’s head in the middle of the screen for the entire film. We tried to buy a car but got caught in an incredible downpour and given that all the car showrooms have corrugated iron roofs, we would essentially have been selecting a car based on frantic gesticulation and yelling – we’re going back tomorrow. And, we went to the Mexican restaurant very near our house for the third time, and for the THIRD time didn’t take enough money with us to pay for our food. Luckily these Syrians are pretty understanding.