Marhaban from the Middle East! - Damascus, Syria

Marhaban from the Middle East!

I hope everyone is having a GREAT summer! I have been dying to continue to stalk the McDermott Network here in Damascus, but unfortunately I have problems accessing the EMPSN on any computer other than my non-Middle Eastern-compatible Mac. Either way, it is good to feel like a full-time McDermott again, and it is very safe to say I miss the family very much.

I cannot begin to describe the wonders of the city of Damascus. This is, indeed, the oldest inhabited capital in the world, and as such there is so much to see! I am very fortunate to have some family members that are more than willing to take me around the city to show me the sites. There is no way that a two month stay will do this city justice, but I am happy to say that I have been to many of the stereotypical tourist sites along with many hidden treasures in Damascus.

I don’t even know where to begin. The city of Damascus is split into many different sections, but the one most historically rich and most interesting is known as “Old Damascus.” As hinted by the name, this is where the old villas, markets, mosques, etc. are located. Damascus is home to the oldest hotel in the world! It is two stories high with beautiful arches carved over three thousand years ago! Also, in the old city lie the tombs of John the Baptist and the daughter of the Muslim caliph Ali, both in two exquisite mosques (the former in the famous Omayyid). In the Omayyid mosque, I saw the first sun calendar in the world, the location Muslims believe St. George re-appears, and also the location many people believe Jesus will return. My favorite spot in the old city and one of my favorite parts of all Damascus would have to be Hamadiyya, the famous market strip full of venders selling spices, jewelry, clothes, home décor, and food, and home of the famous Arabic ice cream (vanilla ice cream with pistachio) that they compact with a special machine until it forms a solid that you can literally hold in your hand as a single piece and bite into! My roommate tells me you cannot eat ice cream with your hands, but here it would be totally possible.

The best thing about Damascus is the abundance of places to just walk around and enjoy the culture. The people are extremely friendly and willing to help (there is no way I could have figured out how to use the bus otherwise!), and the food is both abundant (at least lunchtime is supper, so you can walk off the five hundred pounds of food that you definitely didn’t need) and yummy! Also, the nightlife here is wonderful! But it has been rather exhausting: Arabs like to go out starting at 1:30 a.m. and often don’t get in until 4:30/5 am!! Also, arguille smoke (hubble bubble?) and cigarette smoke have been following me everywhere I go :/.

One amazing weekend trip that I must write about was my two and a half day excursion to Jordan. My family and I took a taxi to the capital, where we stayed with my mom’s ammay (aunt from father’s side) for one night. We then woke up early the next morning to take a tour bus that took us around some of the most famous sites in the country. We first stopped at the religious site where Moses supposedly turned rocks into wells; you can still see and drink from the wells still there today! We then went to the main tourist spot in Jordan: Petra. Petra is an old city from the Byzantine Empire that spans 45 kilometers and has some of the most astonishing ancient architecture in the world. The site has, in fact, been recently named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World! It was very beautiful, but the only problem is that we only had about four hours and the site is so spread out that we were only able to see one of the main doors and a few tombs. After Petra, we went deep into the desert to a popular site known as Wadi Rum. Here we experienced the sand dunes of the arid Middle East; we rock-climbed, saw some quick sand, watched the sunset, and had a mini Bedouin style dance party to end the night! We then drove back to Amman, and after staying the night our family took us to see the city itself. Amman is quite different in that the entire city is literally built on a mountain, so you see these houses built on the edge of cliffs! It was a really interesting and beautiful place to see. I am hoping to also take a trip to Lebanon (hopefully the rebels will stop fighting in the South and hopefully the Syrians will secure the border and hopefully I will get another VISA so I can get there!), and North Syria to see Palmera and go to the beach!

I have, of course, been studying the Arabic language as well. Let me tell you, Arabic is one heck of a trip. Vowels aren’t written half of the time, the alphabet is completely different than what we are used to, all writing goes right to left, and worst of all the written language I am learning is not spoken ANYWHERE except the news and in official government documents. If you walk in the streets you will hear a completely different Arabic than that taught in my classroom. Fortunately, my upbringing, my current living situation with an Arabic family, and being forced to find my way around the city all have forced me to learn the local dialect. I do feel that both my formal Arabic and my daily Arabic have improved ten-fold since I have been here, and I only wish I could stay longer to really get it down.

Summary: I miss you guys, but Damascus rocks!

Studying in Amman, Jordan

Dear McDermott faculty and friends,

I arrived in Amman last Wednesday, and have had a few days to find my way around the city. I spent Wednesday and Thursday getting settled into my little flat (figuring out how to work the gas stove, adjusting to cold showers). Friday I hitchiked, er, took a bus out to the Dead Sea where I covered myself in mud and tried, unsuccessfully, to force myself under the extremely salty water (pictured below). On Saturday, I ventured to the ruins of a Roman amphitheater downtown (pictured above) and then to a rooftop cafe with a spectacular view of Amman (pictured below). I have placement exams this Wednesday, and classes will officially begin on Sunday. In the meantime, I'm practicing my Arabic in the local shops and with the few friends I've acquired thus far. Amal, my landlady, visited Sunday night with her son and daughter-in-law, and we had a long discussion about the process of learning Arabic, women's rights in the Muslim world, and the challenge of being a businesswoman in the Middle East. I was surprised to learn that this tiny little woman covered with the traditional hijab (who travels only when accompanied by her son or husband) is an astute entrepreneur with multiple real estate ventures across Jordan. Tonight I'll be cheering for Deutschland in the EuroCup at a cafe in the Jebel Amman area of the city with Alla, a friend of my roommate, then back to my flat to study for Wednesday's exam.

Hope all is well in Dallas!

Ma Salamaa,

Sara

Greetings from Greece

Hey Everyone,

My summer has been so BUSY so far, but I am really having a blast. I started in the Bahamas, snorkeling and working on research data for my thesis. I am in Greece now and have been filming on several different islands and in Athens. The documentary is getting really interesting. (We just found out that the island of Sifnos has 26 towers all over the island from centuries ago, and an Australian recently discovered they were once used to communicate from one side of the island to another, through means of sight. Impressive much??) I had trouble with my internship on Ios, but I fell in love with a hotel on the island of Sifnos and will be working here instead. The job is a lot of fun, and the owners and staff treat us like we are family. They also have a 3-year-old son who says he's in love with me. Teehee. Anyway, I am sure a lot more will happen this summer, and I will tell everyone about it when it does. Have a great summer, wherever you are!

Holly

Buon giorno di Roma!

Buon giorno di Roma! I have almost completed my first week in Rome and it feels indescribably wonderful to be here. Nothing could have prepared me for how breathtaking it is to be caught up in such a vibrant city—racing motorini (souped-up mopeds?) zip by next to ancient ruins that seem to be on every corner.

My apartment is very close to the Colosseum (a five minute slow walk) and borders a park that is filled with locals (often accompanied by very cute dogs) and tourists alike. There are flowers blooming all up and down my street and I don’t think I have ever smelled anything so beautiful in my life. Most of the streets here seem to have hidden surprises—beautiful flower bushes, ancient ruins, sweet boutiques.

I have gone to most of the main monuments already: Trevi Fountain, Fountain of the Four Rivers, St. Peter’s (pictured above), Sistine Chapel, Colosseum (of course), the Roman Forum…it seems like the list just goes on and on! There is sooooo much to see I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fit it all in. Rome has sucked me in and is begging me to never, ever leave!

I start school at John Cabot University on Monday. The school is located in a very hip district called Trastevere, which comes alive at night for a club/bar scene. I can assure you I’m having a lot of –responsible—fun. All the Italians are so friendly and I’m picking up the language fairly quickly.

With such long days I have been getting sleepy pretty early, so buona sera and ciao!

France

It’s interesting, but being in Paris in a French immersion program makes me desperate not only for the occasional connection with home, but also a deluge of English. Consequently, I troll google news – and the story that struck home today was about the New York Phil playing in Pyongyang. Apparently Kim Jung Il couldn’t make it to the concert – being too busy trying to figure out how to not dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons, presumably. The cited reason was that he couldn’t be bothered to attend since Condoleeza Rice flew to China to bolster the Six-Nation agreement instead of dropping by his country so his starving people would have to be hidden from her.

Obviously I’m worked up about this. When I was in China, the U.S. Ambassador was a little late to a dinner he had scheduled with us because he was working on the Six-Nation talks, and then during the meal we got to talk to him about the situation for more than an hour. So many people in the world are so oppressed, and it makes me mad! The next step is to figure out what to do about it. Public health efforts and other development work is crucial, I believe, but true economic and political freedom is still a work in progress for many, many citizens of the world.

But perhaps music does represent freedom. I think of Shostakovich and his poignant and pointed musical critique of Stalinism on one hand, and the fiercely free and haunting traditional melodies of South Sudan on the other. There is a huge difference in the technical sophistication of the pair, but both ring so strongly of a sacred defiance.

I went to a concert by the Paris city orchestra and chorus yesterday night at St. Sulpice. They played part (thankfully…if it had been four hours long the subway would have stopped running and I wouldn’t have been able to get home) of a Wagner Opera, a Brahms chorale work and Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, (in French, the translation is less charitable – the “Unachieved” Symphony!) but the real treasure of the night was a piece I’d not heard before but LOVED entitled Le Mort de Boris Godunov. It’s fantastic, and Mussorgsky has this same deliciously effective air of defiance. Not only does he break most of the “rules” of western composition, but he also flouts death itself– the piece is a totally beautiful cacophony of joy in the face of sorrow and grief.

It’s hard to believe, but I think it was even more wonderful than all of the lovely food I’ve been eating. My host mother is quite a cook, and she’s also very indulgent. She told me that she loves cooking for me because I like everything, but honestly she’s just incredible. We have 4 and 5 course meals every night, she buys the cheese she knows that I like best, and tonight she made sour cherry soup for me. Heaven will be stocked with this particular dessert, I can tell you, and it knocks the socks off of ambrosia.

My pants don’t seem to be much tighter, however, and that is perhaps because I walk around everywhere. I’ve traipsed through all of the arrondisements (districts) of Paris now – not lost, per se, because I could find where I am on my map if I so desired – but rather, wandering so as to get to know the city. I do this after my classes end at 1 pm, and it has been a fabulous time to think. I also haunt museums! I have unlimited access to the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay as a student for only 30 euro, which considering the time I’ve already spent there is a ridiculously low per-hour cost. I probably didn’t think I would say this when I was a freshman, but I am so very thankful for Dr. Brettel’s class now! He structured his art history class as an analysis of the influence Paris had on various painters, and threw in some composers to boot. How perfect, right? It’s sort of the way I felt in Rome, too, when I went right after taking AP European History, which of course included oodles of information about painters, architects and their works.

I have to leave chez moi by before 8 am though, in order to get to class on time – so my night life is a bit restricted. Most diversions don’t even start getting wound up until 11. The four or five times I’ve been out until 2 – the absolute limit since the last subway trains leave the outskirts of Paris on their treks across the city at 1:30 – I have paid dearly the next day. So, coupled with the fact that I’m easily spooked on the metro at night by myself, I’ve learned my lesson. However, I want to fully experience Paris, and one of my friends lives only about 5 minutes away, so when we go out we always try to ride back together. I feel perfectly safe, actually, although one friend had her phone stolen out of her pocket and another had her wallet stolen out of her purse while it was sitting on her feet at a movie theater, and therefore I have doubled my vigilance.

But now, having traveled to Florence, Pisa, London and Oxford over the last few weekends, I appreciate Paris so much more as home. I feel in place now, and it’s nice to have a place that I feel like is mine. My French keeps improving, and it was actually a relief to be back in Paris after Italy and even England for some reason. I have to think sometimes about English words…I had the hardest time thinking of “altruism” the other day.

I got to see ’02 Scholar Sophie Rutenbar in London, which was great. She is a truly remarkable person! I also spent a day with my mentor from my experience in Sudan and his wife and their son and got to see his lab at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (the British way of saying “public health”) where he is a Fellow. I got to see Chagas under a microscope and see lots of bugs that are responsible for spreading diseases. Oxford was a bit of a whirlwind, but I got to visit the Rhodes Scholars’ Common Room and drink their very fancy glass-bottled, logoed sparkling and still water (and elderberry juice) and eat their brownies. I have now eaten White House brownies (for Presidential Scholars), Ross Perot’s brownies, Mrs. McDermott’s brownies, and the Rhodes Scholars’ brownies. I’m really being honest here – Mrs. McDermott’s taste the best. I also had dinner with one of Sophie’s friends in the Hall at Merton College, the first college at Oxford to admit students. It was BEAUTIFUL. New College at Oxford is apparently where the Harry Potter eating scenes were filmed, and each of the halls is pretty similar. Merton recently had an alum give 10 million pounds for the food services at the college, so as you can imagine the food was quite good, especially for what is essentially a cafeteria. I hope that our trusty dining hall development committee will do just as good a job :)

I miss everyone in Dallas!