Ana bamoot Sureea! (I am OBSESSED with Syria!)

What an incredible Spring Break! Five of us wanted to go to Syria... so we did! (How cool is that?!) The most incredible week of my life includes traveling to four major cities in Syria with the most flexible, positive and fun traveling buddies I could have ever asked for (thanks guys!).

Since I have spent hours uploading and organizing a million pictures from Syria I will try to keep the stories short! Also most of them are only funny in Arabic anyway.

So four of us (Yacoub, Hanan, Reem and I) took a taxi to the border and then a bus to Damascus. We decided to head out to Latakia (a northern city on the Mediterranean) first and then we would make our way down to Damascus throughout the week since Damascus is closest to Jordan. While waiting for the bus to Latakia we bought some sweets (a bad start to a whirlwind of binge-eating sweets and hummus-related dishes). I just love Emily's excitement in this picture as it adequately describes how we all were feeling!



LATAKIA.

The bus to Latakia was wonderful. For 3 dollars we got a movie, water, coffee, chocolate and more sweets. Nice. And as usual, Yacoub sat next to a random Arab guy and spoke to him the entire three hour ride. As soon as the bus arrived in Latakia, Yacoub informed us that we would be eating at his house as he graciously invited us. Why not? (Soon to be a theme of the trip.)

So we met Ala (our host) who is a third year college student at Tashreen University in Latakia. He lives in an apartment with two roomates so we hung out with all of them and cooked dinner together. That consisted of Ala cooking what looked to me like a bag full of two animals (boiled then fried) and me cooking eggs for the vegetarians (Yacoub and Hanan).

From the left: Ala, Reem, me, Hanan and Ala's roomate (names aren't my strong-point).

Speaking Arabic with Ala and his roomate for a few hours was actually quite beneficial in the long run because the accent is quite different in Syria in comparison to Jordan. After that we seemed to be able to understand everyone quite easily.

After literally begging us to stay at his house for the night, we escaped to go to our hotel reservations right by the harbor in Latakia. Here were are with the hotel-owner Muhammad (nicest guy ever) who is slightly obsessed with "Tin Tin" a French cartoon character, who he cut out pictures of a placed him on every poster of Syria he had. (Syria was once a French colony so some people speak French as well.)
In the morning we ate breakfast with a Canadian guy who had been traveling for 8 years and had been bumming around in Latakia for the past two weeks. This was our first experience with Syrian food and man oh man was it amazing. (Better than Jordanian food!)

We all tried Fetta (a mix of Tahini, hummus, chick peas and fried bread on the bottom) - INCREDIBLE. See below:
Note Reem's face in this next picture... she must have known how much we would be eating in the future. So delicious and worth it though!

He then gave us a tour of the "American Quarter" which is just a nice strip of restaurants and shops in town. After we said our goodbye's, we wandered around the town for a bit. After wandering down one of the many alleyway's, we met Abdullah who then became our tour guide of the area. He took us through this incredibly old part of town.


After he gave us advise on the best beach to go to, we agreed to meet up with him again tomorrow to eat at the restaurant "Abu Sways" which was very popular place for your everyday working Syrian to eat in the area. Off to the beach! First time in the Mediterranean and it was stunning. We went to the beach with black sand too... you know, trying to be unique and all.
Before we went out to dinner we watched the sunset from our apartment mezzanine.


In the morning we headed back to the restaurant Abu Sways and ate the most delicious hummus variations I have eaten in my life. And believe you me, I have eaten my fair share of hummus in Jordan. They mixed them all in these huge vats in the front of the restaurant.

After breakfast we grabbed a taxi to head right outside the city to the Citadel at Salah ad-Din. It really was incredible. The castle was perched on top of a heavily wooded ridge that was surrounded by deep ravines. In fact, however, part of this canyon was man-made! A canyon! It was created by the Crusaders in the latter part of the 10th century. The history goes that only after a siege of two days, the armies of Saladin breached the walls and took over the stronghold.



ALEPPO

In the afternoon we were off to Aleppo where we planned to meet Ata at our hotel at night. Luckily we had no problems there - it was a joyous reunion at the hotel which was followed by a delicious dinner nearby.

After dinner we bonded with our hotel owner, Ahmed, who was hilarious. We actually hung out with him again the next night and I wouldn't mind hanging out with him again - really fun guy!


The following day was jam-packed with everything one should do when in Aleppo. For breakfast we heard about an amazing "foul" place (a well-known bean dish that is very affordable). Here is "Abu Foul"! (The most adorable man ever!)


After breakfast, we bought soap! Aleppo is known for its pistachios and olive oil soap. Needless to say, we also bought a ton of sweets with pistachios in all of them and snacked on them for the rest of the trip.
Then in addition to exploring the city we stopped and checked out the Great Mosque. Since we are women and don't wear the hijab, we all had to wear Harry Potter cloaks. No complaints here.


We also talked to a group of kids for a while which was fun! I was lucky enough to capture this adorable moment with this little boy and Ata.
For lunch we sat at an outdoor cafe right outside a gigantic citadel. Talk about a great view! At the restaurant we tried "Fatoush" which now is my favorite Middle East dish. It is a delicious salad with pita chips on top - I realize this may sound simple, but you have to taste it! Here are some photos of us at the Citadel.


The view:
We also quickly found out that if we go up to any food vendor on the street, point at something and then innocently ask "What is the name of that?!" in Arabic - we get free food! This is literally fool-proof. Amazing. Here is me eating this weird sweet that was covered in flour.

While Aleppo was beyond amazing - we had to press on! After reading a bit about the history of Hama, a smaller city in Syria, we decided we wanted to make a quick two hour stop in Hama on our way to Damascus.

HAMA

There was a massacre in Hama in 1982 and stains Syrian history as one of its darkest moments. Without going too much into detail, I will try to explain the situation. Beginning in 1970, Syria was ruled by the Ba'ath Party (the secular political party that also ruled under Saddam in Iraq) under the presidency of Hafez Al-Assad. The Al-Assad family are the religion Allawite, which is a sect or branch of Shiite Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, gaining much strength at that time, were opposed to the ruling of an Allawite, being from the Shiite side of Islam and not Sunni like the Brothers. In 1980 the Brotherhood attempted to assasinate Hafez Al-Assad. After the failed attempt, the government passed a law making membership to the Muslim Brotherhood punishable by death. Then in 1982 the Brotherhood declared Hama a "liberated city" after removing a few government and party related people from their homes. The Al-Asad government response to this was to shell the entire city and warn that anyone left in the city would be declared a rebel. It is uncertain how many people died, but the numbers range from 10,000 to 25,000 - and the city was essentially leveled.

So on the bus to Hama, Ata sat next to another random Arab man and you guessed it, we were invited to his house! It was excellent. The house was incredibly nice, we talked and ate for 5 hours, and Muhammad's (the man Ata sat next to) mother stuffed us with a gigantic lunch, a round of tea, a round of coffee and topped it off with a round of fruit. I also think I may have eaten an entire chicken (yet again) considering I had to pick of the slack of everyone else (Yacoub, Hanan and Ata are all vegetarians and Reem was feeling sick). And I really did need to pick up the slack - Arab mothers yell at you when you don't eat their food!

Here is the family! (Love them!)


After we ate and chat, Muhammad, his brother and his sister took us for a tour of Hama. We saw a bunch of the waterwheels that Hama is famous for as well.


A portrait of Bashir Al-Asad (the current president and son of Hafez).

After barely escaping yet again (they insisted we spend the night) and far surpassing our 2 hours in Hama original plan, we headed to Damascus at 8 PM.

DAMASCUS

...is amazing, incredible, and everything an old city should be! This is a picture of the indoor market:

We saw this banner a lot. In the center is Bashir Al-Asad (the current President), on the left is Ahmadinejad (President of Iran who is quite notorious for his comments relating to Israel and the US) and on the right is Hassan Nasrallah (the current leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon). It is essentially a huge love-fest of anti-Americanism. Jolly good. This may be a good time to note that there is absolutely nothing from America in Syria due to the bilateral sanctions. Although it was refreshing not to see a McDonalds.
One of the most amazing and history-filled places we went was the Umayyad Mosque. Hanan (the Religious Studies major) knew much more about it than me but I learned quite a bit about it from her. It is said to have the tombs of both Hussein (son of Ali, very famous in Islam especially to Shiites) and the head of John the Baptist.


Tomb for the head of John the Baptist:


After exploring Syria for quite some time (man, did my feet hurt by the end) we ate the world-famous ice-cream from Damascus! It was thicker than normal ice cream and by far much more delicious! Not to mention that it was rolled in pistachios and cashews!


More walking through cobblestone streets...That night we went out to eat with one of Hanan's friends she knew from a program in Michigan. He took us to this great restaurant that was perched on a hill that overlooked all of Damascus. Truly incredible. (Sorry! No picture can do that one justice!)

In the morning I bought more sweets with pistachios...
Then we went to a brand new Shitte mosque , Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque. In 1985 Iranians began the construction of this mosque as Ruqayya is a saint in Shiite Islam. The mosque was brand new, sparkling with mirror mosaics and packed with more Iranians than I have ever seen in my life. You may be able to imagine the confusion when we would go to ask someone a question in Arabic and get a blank stare, not realizing they were Iranian and only speak Farsi. And this worked the other way as well as we were approached by many Iranians interested in us and at first we thought we just didn't understand the Arabic until we realized it was a different language. Phew.

The tomb of Ruqayya. Many women were crying.


We also checked out some of the Old Damascus Houses:

Unfortunately (we assume from the Foul) Ata was sick the second day in Damascus. Conveniently, that was also his 21st birthday. He came out with us later in the day after sleeping through the morning and early afternoon to see the last storyteller in all of Syria. About half way through the reading he ran out of the cafe and puked outside, steps away from the Umayyad Mosque (one of the most holy mosques in Islam). We like to say that although he may not have drank on his 21st birthday, he did continue the tradition of throwing up.

The storyteller! (He liked to slam his stick a lot).

We also had met up with one of our friends, Majdi, from our university in Jordan. So we went to get ice-cream again under the pretext that Majdi never tried it yet. Really we just wanted it again.


And ended it with a lovely dinner at a restaurant with a gorgeous indoor courtyard! This is Majdi, Hanan and Yacoub at the restaurant.

The Dream Team!
And believe me... this is really a short version of all the excitement we had! I think I want to study or live in Syria now after I graduate - Inshallah!

Where next... Egypt?

I'm famous!

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March10/IntensiveArabic.html

Thought you may enjoy this. The Arabic word says "snacks."

Food Triplets

I have failed you all. I haven't written in over two weeks!! Sorry about that. I have been suffering (slash absolutely loving) from massive amounts of food intake and you know, trying to master Arabic. I may have mentioned this before, but Arabic is essentially two languages plus. So we learn both the Levantine dialect (spoken in Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon) and Fusha (the written language). So there are two words for more words than I can handle. But it doesn't end there. I now have friends from Iraq so they tell me a third word in addition to the ones I already know. Then of course there are a collection of words within the dialect in Jordan itself. Just today, for example, Ata asked the word for misquitoes (he was unfortunately recently bitten alive in Wadi Rum) and Munther proceeded to give us 7 words. 7!!! This could possibly be a combination of what people say if they are Bedoin, what people say in Jordan, what people say in Syria... etc. And what is worse is you can't really just learn one because every person only seems to know one version of a word, so we are constantly corrected even though we are often just saying another version of a word. Exhausting!!

Onto my most recent adventure. So not this past weekend but the weekend before that, Hanan, Selowa and I went to none other than Munther's family's house. Two of his brothers have families that live in Sahab, a town nearby, and their houses are literally back to back. So Munther set up a trip for all the girls to visit both of the wives (each one has individually cooked with us at our apartment), cook with them and then spend the night. Unfortunately Leyla, Reem and Sarah were all feeling sick so it ended up just being the three of us.

So we arrived in Sahab at about 1 PM and Munther's brother (Abu Fadi) picked us up and drove us to his house. It was incredibly nice and perhaps the most spotless house I have seen in my life. So we came in and were greeted by Om Fadi and 20 Ahalyn wa Sahalyn's, the greeting that means "welcome" in Arabic.

Cultural note: the father in a family is refered to as "Abu ____" (fill in the name of the first son) and the mother is "Om _____" (fill in the name of her first son). This is common to refer to people in the Middle East and it is a sign of respect. Unfortunately, the name that they use to fill in the black can only be filled in by the eldest son's name, never a daughter. What happens if a family only has daughters, you ask? Then you are Abu or Om ____ (fill in the blank with the name that you would give your son if you had one). Ah... equality.

Back to my story. So we set down our things and went straight to the kitchen. Now, we were under the impression that we were to be cooking with the wives, but this was not the case apparently. Since we were "late," aka 30 minutes late, Om Fadi said she had cooked everything. We were hungry anyway so no problem. We walked in the kitchen and there was a gigantic plate of delicious rice with chopped almonds. Admire its beauty below:


So we were very thankful and shocked at how much she had cooked. This was about as much rice as she had cooked with us previously at our apartment and that was for all 12 of us. Oh how little we knew. Then she said she also had made chicken. Two. Full. Chickens. ....stuffed with rice. So naturally we thought that was crazy since we were only three people. It didn't stop there. Next came the grape leaves... approximately about enough to feed a full army.

And mashey which is hollowed out zuchinni and eggplant with meat and rice. (Note the two full chickens in this picture).


Now note the change on Hanan and Selowa's faces as she then brought out two huge salads, stuffed cabbage and yogurt with pieces of lamb in it.
This one is just Hanan looking adorable haha.

So with another Ahalyn wa Sahalyn, we began to eat the feast that she had cooked for 100 people. And oh was it delicious. I refilled my plate maybe three times and we STILL barely made a dent in the food. This is a picture of the rice after we were finished.


At one point during the meal I reached with my fork to grab two pieces of grape leaves. Om Fadi then asked me if I like them and I told her the truth, they are one of my favorite foods. Never tell the truth! She proceeded to insist on giving me a giant spoonful of 15 more. As if I didn't have enough food on my plate! Here is my plate when I was finished... unable to finish all the grape leaves of course.


Oh and here is the chicken that I personally tackled (Hanan is a vegetarian). I think I ate half.

You see... there is this thing about eating at someone's house in the Arab world ... you feel guilty. So saying "no thanks I'm full!" is not an answer. The hosts get visibly upset and think that you do not like their food because you didn't lick the plate. I think we had to say about 20 times that we are full and had no room left in our bodies until Om Fadi stopped pressuring us to eat more. It's worse than you everyday peer pressure.

So after lunch/the biggest meal I have ever eaten in my life, we went to drink soda (as if I wanted something carbonated) on the porch. We had a nice discussion with Om Fadi and Abu Fadi too. It was just hilarious to us because every time we would say something nice about Jordan or nice about the food they would say Ahalyn wa Sahalyn. Not only that but there was a time when there was a break in the conversation, a brief moment of silence, and Abu Fadi said Ahalyn wa Sahalyn.

After we were served a round of tea and then a round of Turkish coffee, we decided we should head over to Muna's house (the wife of Munther's other brother). So we walked around next door. I love Muna! She is so warm and nice to talk too. Plus she has four boys and no daughters so I think she really loved talking to us and just having women in the house. After talking for a while with her, her husband and three of the sons, one of the son's brought out a gigantic cake for Muna's husband's birthday. I was joking around and said that Hanan was hungry and wanted a big piece, so Basil (the eldest son) proceeded to cut literally an eighth of the cake as one piece and hand it to me. It barely fit on the full size plate. Ahalyn wa Sahalyn.

So a little later on we had dinner. Note: a "light" dinner. Which was of course, still way more than enough. Also they had the largest bread I have ever seen!

Here is the dinner. Pretty normal to spread out a plastic cover on the floor and everyone eat on the floor. I love it like that! There were a ton of vegetables, bread, hummus, foul (bean mix) and this weird spam that Arabs seem to love.

Much easier to handle than our lunch. So we spent the night at Om Fadi's house and returned to Muna's house the next day at around noon to cook lunch. Surprise, surprise - Muna had already cooked it. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of this lunch but it was just as large and buffet-worthy as Om Fadi's lunch. It was a platter of rice with about 2 chicken's worth on top, a potato and meat dish, yogurt and salad and about a million grape leaves. Nearing the end of room in our stomachs, Muna left the room for a moment and we all fell over on the ground saying that we were going to die. I felt like a stuffed pig. Good metaphor Jill, because 10 minutes later she brought in a gigantic platter of fruit. Finish it off with an apple - why not? This was then followed by two rounds of sugary tea and sweets.

Overall we LOVED the weekend. It was so fun to actually have a homestay even if we were treated as the guests of the century. Later in the day we talked to Munther about it and told him all the food they gave us. He knew exactly why. So apparently when he goes to his brothers' houses he refuses to eat anything. Anything! It was difficult enough to say no after three plate-fulls! He said he did it because he wants to show them that they don't need to do all that just for one guest. His little "lesson" seemed to have the opposite effect. He thought they partially might have wanted to prove to him that people will eat and enjoy their food so as a jab at Munther, they stuffed us to oblivion. Nice on, Munther.

More than that, apparently there is a rivalry between the two wives since they do not like each other. A little silly in my opinion since they have lived next to each other for 9 years. So most likely they were also competing with each other trying to see who could make the most amazing meal. This perhaps is why each one of them made 6 meals worth and enough to feel a hundred people. Crazy!

Moving on to more recent news... we just had our first day of school after a break. Munther was giving a lecture in Germany so we had Wednesday through Tuesday off from class. It was awesome. Leyla, Jafar and Nasr went to Syria; Reem, Ata, Ghawwar and Sarah went to Wadi Rum for two night; and five of us stayed in Amman: Hanan, Selowa, Khalid, Yacoub and me. I finally got to catch up in a few things I had been putting off and I spent a ridiculous amount of time with Mazin, our Iraqi friend from the school I have been teaching at. I'll save that for an upcoming post though!

So now we have school for three days and then we are on break yet again! Horray for the month of March! Anyone know what else makes March so amazing - you guessed it those of you who love me the most, my birthday! I can't believe it is already tomorrow! So I planned for all of us to go to Dubliners, an Irish pub oddly located in Jordan, tomorrow for the celebration. I invited a few of our Arab friends too although most of them cannot go because they live in Zarqa, which is about an hour away from where we live in Amman. Regardless I am super excited to have my first legal beer (considering I am turning 21) in Jordan at an Irish pub. I seem to like spending my birthdays abroad considering for my 20th I was in Nicaragua. Who wouldn't want to pick pineapples in Nicaragua for their birthday. And I am totally not being sarcastic.

I shall write about other recently adventures in teaching English to Iraqi Refugees in my next post. Insha'allah I will write on Thursday before I am off to Syria!