Damascus the next week

November the 29th December 3rd

...Marcus and I are sitting outside a cafe, smoking a nargile and trying to decide what to eat.

It is late afternoon. Merryl is at the hotel, taking a nap. She is still adjusting to a total change in lifestyle and her parasympathetic nervous system is having a romp. We are smoking a nargile. The cafe is situated in a quiet backstreet, but still it is busy. We opt for a fatteh, which is baked chick-peas, hummous, olive oil, and bread. We ask for a chicken fatteh, but the waiter tells us there is no meat. We were planning on heading down to see the Ummayad Mosque; we have been planning to since yesterday. We just seem to be unable to muster the energy to do anything but eat, sleep, smoke, and drink the Baileys and Vodka Merryl has brought with her. We are discussing bowel movements. It is a topic of much fascination between us. During our trip through Syria we have both been very ill with traveller's diarrhoea. We are both commenting on how things are pretty stable for the first-time in over a week. The waiter brings our fatteh, with pickles and bread. I tuck in ravenously, scooping the hommous into the bread from within a huge bowl, drizzled in olive-oil. A guy approaches us both and smiles and asks us if we are European. We nod and say we are English. He looks at us with a cheeky grin and tells us we are drawing attention to ourselves by eating fatteh with bread. It is apparently not the done thing. I look up to see several smirking faces, and I try and suppress a laugh, my cheeks bulging with fettah...

Over the next week we decided take it easy during our stay in Damascus. Taking it easy basically meant doing very little. Getting up late, drinking fresh juice and eating falafel. Wondering down to the old city each morning, and exploring a new area. We took a walking tour around the city. Along Shia Al-Qaimarriya to Bab-Touma, through the Christian Quarter and back through the city to the wonderful coffee house An-Nafura where, each evening the raconteur, Abu Shady, recounts one of the stories from One Thousand and One Tales; he is a Hakawati - a professional story-teller. He sits each night with on a throne in the middle of the coffee house and speaks for an hour. We went in to watch him not one night, but two in a row. Although the stories are spoken in Arabic, just sitting watching and listening to him is mesmerising.

We also bumped into Per out of the blue, sitting by the side of the road, on Shia Al-Qaimarriya. We arranged to meet him that night for a meal, in the swanky Elissar restaurant in Bab-Touma. The restaurant was amazing. The food was delicious, the service exemplary, and the price next to nothing. We actually ate in there twice. The first time with Per and the second with Rachel, and some of her friends. The next night we met up with Per and took him to An-Nafura to watch the story-teller. He brought with him a friend staying at his hotel on Straight Street, named Ammar. Ammar was a lawyer in Baghdad. But had to leave his home because of the civil unrest in Iraq. He is a Sunni muslim, as Saddam was. Much of Baghdad is under Shia control now and for some time he was under constant threat of violence. He has been in Syria nearly a year now. He is hoping to return home around Christmas time.

... The Hakawati is in full swing. The cafe is jammed with people and smoke hangs thick in the air. He sits on a rich, ornate, chair with a high back, set on a podium high on the rear wall of the cafe. He has a huge book in one hand, and is brandishing a sword in the other. His voice is booming, deep, and compelling. He has a fierce and piercing look, his eyes take in the entire room in a single sweep. Each time you get a thrill of excitement as if they may land on you and single you out. Waiters rush around serving chai and coffee. They sometimes shout in reply to questions he throws into the audience. I have no idea of what he is saying, but his eyes spark with fire. He suddenly slams his sword down onto the chair. Two young children with eyes like saucers, sitting in front of us, leap off there seats in surprise. Their mother starts to laugh as she catches the look on their faces. I do the same. A collection plate comes around for the Abu Shady. We had already put money in the night-before. It is the same procedure, but we are happy to pay. Per is asking me how much he should put. I try to explain to him in a whisper under my breath. Merryl squeezes my hand that she is holding. I suddenly realise the room has gone quiet and the Hakawati is staring at me over his horn-rimmed glasses. He is less than amused...

We got a chance to explore the amazing Ummayad mosque. Although we elected to do this on a Friday - the holy day in the Muslim calendar. We spent a lovely couple of hours walking around this beautiful building. Merryl had to change into a robe that covered her whole body and her head. You pick these up from the special "putting on special clothes room" outside of the Mosque. Once she was dressed up like a munchkin we headed inside. The mosque is huge. There have been temples at this site going back to 3000BC (as I mentioned before dedicated to the God, Hadad) When the Romans occupied Damascus they transformed it into the temple of Jupiter and expanded it massively. It was then converted to a basillica with the advent of Christianity and is thought - and why not, everywhere also does - to have the head of John the Baptist buried here in a casket. Indeed there is a shrine dedicated to him [he is known as the prophet Yehia in Islam]. When the Muslims arrived in 636AD most of it was converted into a mosque. I say most of it, because the Christians were still allowed to worship in the west part of the temple. I find this harmony in the tolerance of the two religions heart-warming, but that is Syria all over. It didn't last however the Christians were ousted by the Caliph 70 years later. For over the next thousand years it was a mosque, and by historical accounts, every niche, nook, and mihrab, was decorated in shimmering gold. The mosque was lit by 600 lamps, and must have shone with unparalleled grandeur in the warm sunshine. The open courtyard is adorned with mosaics especially on the west-side. In the centre of the courtyard stands the ablutions fountain, with the dome of the treasury, and dome of the clocks on either side. Three minarets tower over the courtyard: The minaret of the Bride, Al-Gharbiyya minaret to the south-west, and the minaret of Jesus to the South-East, where local tradition states that the Lord with appear to shephard the chosen few into heaven on Judgement day. As it was a holy day we could not enter the prayer halls during prayer so we were restricted to the courtyard. We did get to visit the shrine of Hussein in east of the Mosque. This is where the bones of the grandson of the prophet are interred in a beautifully decorated glass, and jewelled, sarcophagus. It is very popular amongst the Shiite Muslims as his father, Ali, was the founder of Shiism.

...I am marvelling at the sheer size of the mosque. We have been walking around and watching the Damescenes go about their holy day rituals, from the minarets we can hear the dulcet tones of the Mouezzin, sending the message of Ezan. drifting across the spires of the old city. Entwining with antiquated weather vanes and satellite dishes. Marcus and I have just been into Hussein's shrine. I spy Merryl as we emerge into the courtyard. I wave her over to ask her if she wants to see it. She is dressed from head to foot in a oversized tunic in order to cover her body and head. We enter the shrine. Kids are playing inside. Running amok and laughing and rolling on the floor. People are sitting chatting randomly around the inner area. An Imam is talking to a Shiite woman who is covered in soft, black, clothes, from head to foot. Only her dark eyes, with their long lashes, are visible from beneath her Burkha. We follow the flow of the crowd into the shrine itself. An incredibly ornate glass dome stands in the corner. People are approaching it on there knees. Kissing the glass and mouthing low and rhythmic prayers...

We caught up with Rachel far longer after than we arrived than we hoped. She had been very ill with the flu, but she dragged herself out to see us for lunch one afternoon. She did not look like she had much strength but it was very nice of her to come and meet us. We had a fantastic lunch in a restaurant in the Muslim area of town called Abu Roumana. It also meant Merryl got to meet Rachel. As per usual, Marcus and I ordered and ate far too much. No wonder we are always ill. As time went on, she got better though. It turned out Souq Saroujah was one of her favourite hang-outs. So we'd often meet there for a tea and nargile.

We managed to get up to the Jebel Qassioun and catch the panoramic view of Damascus. I never really appreciated just how big the city was until we stepped out of the taxi. It is vast. My friend Omar tells me that in the summer people take picnics up on to the hill above the city and watch the sunset. I used to do the same thing on Primrose hill in Camden. I would say the view would be amazing here as the sun went down. Unfortunately it is a little too chilly here in the evenings at present.

We hung out in Souq Saroujah a fair bit. Marcus spent a night there with some people studying Arabic at Damascus University. We managed to go to a restaurant with Per and Ammar and watch a Sufi perform a ritual Whirling Dervish act. It is quite amazing to see. Sufism ascribes to, among other things, the use of dance in order to, not only worship, but to connect to the universe by surrendering to the emptiness; a trance-like meditative state achieved through dance. It is quite something to see.

...The restaurant is quiet. For Damascenes, this is pretty early. We are sitting, eating a buffet service meal. There is a Sufi dancer performing with his son. Merryl is talking to Ammar about Iraq. Ammar is a very charming and integral man. His positivity amazes me. He is exiled from his home in a country where he is less than welcome. He cannot get a job here, even though he has trained as a lawyer. He lives in a hotel with no heating. Per and Ammar must leave the hotel separately as he cannot be seen to be spending time with European tourists - We do not know this at this time, but in five days time he will come to our hotel to say good-bye before we leave for Jordan. Our hotel owner will tell him we are asleep and tell him he cannot stay in the hotel as he is an Iraqii. He then will forget to tell us he called until we are about to leave - For now though, he talks with us about his home. He is elegant and graceful in repose, however every once in a while you see beneath his social mask and nothing but pain is there. He and Merryl are talking about having children. Ammar says he loves kids, but will not plan to have any himself. Merryl enquires as to why - his response is he does not want to bring children into a world such as this. Behind him the Sufi performers are spinning faster and faster, father and sun in tandem. Their skirts are perfect upturned domes pulled and held aloft by the centrifugal force of their dhikr. one palm pointing outwards, the other to sky to receive the energy of the universe...