Seatbelts and Subtitles

As we head into summer we find ourselves struggling for daytime activities that won’t involve getting too hot, meaning weekends are mainly spent by the pool (with Mr A trying very hard to not let a single ray of sunshine hit his somewhat pasty skin), at a shopping mall or at home.  Within a mall one can obviously shop, or eat at a café (perhaps eating ‘outside’ in the piazza like thoroughfare of the mall – it’s almost the same as being in Italy), or go to the cinema.  A few weeks ago we went to watch The Reader in one of the thirteen screens of our local mall.  We presume that in the first half of the film, Kate Winslet must take her kit off a fair bit, but it was hard to tell. As a result of the stringent censorship, all we got was half an hour of confusing, disjointed scenes of her and her young lover getting dressed or undressed, out of or into bed, into or out of a bath.  Luckily she then kept her clothes on for a while so we were able to track the story of her history as a guard as Auschwitz, the lover growing up, Germany post-war, trials etc.  As you might expect, a key element of this was more than a few references to Jews and Judaism, which were, Mr A noticed, totally absent from the Arabic and French subtitles; slightly confusing for the non-English speaker. All things considered, a film with nudity and Judaism may not be one of the best film choices in a cinema in this part of the world.

We spent a long weekend in Damascus last week (where, talking of Jews, Israel doesn’t officially exist – but graffiti on a wall said ‘Death to Israel’ so I think it depends on your intent).  It was an opportunity to remember the crazy driving (though since we last were there the taxi-drivers have started making the front seat passengers put their seat belts on before pulling out without looking).  Such safety initiatives were slightly undermined by two fire-engines bringing the 3-lane motorway from the airport to a standstill by u-turning into the oncoming traffic of a sliproad. 

On arrival at the airport, a man in a surgical mask quizzed us on our swine flu symptoms.  While waiting for us to complete a questionnaire, he asked where we were from and then talked excitedly about the ‘six zones’ of London.  We were mystified and told him confidently him that there were far more than six areas in London.  Only as we picked up our bags did we realise that the poor guy must have meant the Underground zones. He was crestfallen – we have clearly been away too long.

Some friends from London were visiting Syria for a couple of days so had the pleasure of being shown around the Old Town by Mr A and me which distracted them a bit from thinking about their luggage languishing somewhere in an airport in Cyprus.  This involved me vaguely pointing out some things that I thought were interesting (ice-cream shops, women’s co-operatives with irresistibly expensive handmade goods, old buildings) while Mr A methodically quoted dates and expounded historical context (‘the oldest arch in Syria’).  We took them to mosques and courtyard houses, up Mount Qasioun for sunset and back to the Old Town for supper.  It was lovely wandering around relatively cool streets (a mere 38 degrees!) with smells of jasmine and abundant bougainvillea.  We restricted ourselves to buying huge amounts of mezze rather than any carpets, lamps, mother-of-pearl furniture or fabrics.

Whilst making our way to Beit Ananias (where Saul/Paul was converted – and where we came across a group of Chinese pilgrims weeping and ululating to the strains of acoustic guitar. Weird) I spied a courtyard house in the process of restoration and invited myself in.  Within minutes a friendly man arrived, whose job it is to keep an eye on the house during the building works that, luckily for him, have so far taken seven years.  Full of original plasterwork and niches, the building is supposedly on the way to becoming a hotel/restaurant and you could see sections of newly carved mashrabiya screens amongst the timber scaffolding and detritus.  The caretaker seems to spend most of his time looking after the cats (‘you must meet Lulu’) and tortoises that live there.  It is traditional for each courtyard house to have at least one tortoise, but Mr Caretaker brought another from his farm and from the two impossibly tiny baby tortoises we were shown it seems they’ve been keeping themselves busy.  We 

spent the next ten minutes trying not to crush them with a misplaced foot and graciously refusing cups of tea. [It seems appropriate to update longstanding readers that the tortoises from our garden in Damascus were last seen in rude health, though not having procreated].

The rest of our time was spent with Damascus friends which was, as always, brilliant.  Mr A smoked more shisha than he should and I ate my weight in cherries.  We pottered around the ‘suburbs’ of Damascus and refused to go to the Embassy bar. I remembered how much Arabic I’ve forgotten while visiting Syrian friends and admired their live prawn in a tank, and then we watched typically Damascene Russell Brand DVDs.

So, all in all delightful.  Now we can spend the coming weekends watching the very expensive TV package that Mr A has procured which appears to show every sporting match in the whole world as well as Holby City.  Ah, a summer of rugby, tennis and cricket.  I couldn’t be more excited.  Nor could the cats – they LOVE tennis so much that we are slightly fearful for our TV screen.