Roamin' with the Romans

Daytrip #1. As life develops a daily rhythm here in Damascus I find the wanderlust stirring me in unplanned directions. With an apartment, daily classes+homework, general knowledge of a familiar city, a gym membership and (very) basic communication skills, it is easy to sink into an apathetic splendor, scarcely wandering into the vast unknown. No thanks. So a week ago I was asked on friday night if I had any desire to visit the city of Bosra. Basra? like the Garrison City in Iraq?? No. BOsra, in southern Syria. Whip out the guidebook; OH, there it is! What's there to see? Reading Reading. Can't focus on the lines... Bah, who cares, it's a trip...

So Early the next morning off we go to Bosra in the south of Syria. An important dot on the map of three ancient civilizations: Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic. Who knew? Alright, so maybe I actually did read every line for line in the Lonely Planet, but where knowledge comes from is irrelevant, so long as its credible, right? If my knowledge is guidebook + wiki fusion I can still rest easy knowing that anyone who tries to contest my thoughts will utilize the same tools. Right now Bosra doesn't have much in the way of sights or (contemporary) culture. So that leaves a plethora of ruins from first the Nabateans, then by the Romans (who made it their capital of the province Arabia Petraea), then the Persians took it over, finally to be recaptured by the Byzantines. The city changed hands again the 7th Century and became an Islamic posession and remained (more or less) so. (never mind that there is no Islamic Empire anymore, depsite what they would have you believe) (I think Wikipedia disregards the coming of modernity, the Ottoman Empire, the French colonization and the modern Syria state, but that's a rant for another time)

To be succint for once, Bosra has a major historical footprint. Here are 16,000 words to make up for above.


RM Jeremie + mosiac before entering the fortified Roman theatre

Nice and cool despite 40+ deg. outside

Before the PC, Tablet had a different meaning

Scale is lost, but the Romans know how to make a big theatre. I promise.

from the theatre, as a spectator.

Welcoming Uncle Hafez

Around Bosra ruins. (outside the theatre)

I think that during this photoshoot in the more or less open ruins we pissed off the Gods. I guess if I were an eternal being and kids were running around on the unprotected ruins of my ancient cilization I'd be angry too. While wandering through Bosra we decided it would be a great photo-op to take a picture of us standing on adjacent columns. So we set up our cameras to self-timed shots, and all his the "shoot" button, but in transit I jumped from a Roman fence, lost my fickle Birkenstock and managed to stub my toe on some ruins enough to peel have my (big) toe's nail back. At the same time I hear a sickening thump as japenese plasticmetal + gravity comes in full contact with roman stone. Fortunately not my camera, and after an hour of fear and sadness technology prevailed. My toe also healed, though it took a few days.


This is the photo that caused so much pain. I'm to the bottom left, pulling my toenail back into place.

Bloodied, but attached.

Crazy man. Good thing the gods weren't mad at him.

(they love these pillars, eh?)

The population has decreased over the centuries and the small local village makes use of what they can for their own homes. Good for them, bad for archeologists.

Essential camel shot.

Then we hopped in a minibus and drove to another city in the south, perched atop Jebel Druze, called Shahba. What did we see there? More ruins!


en route landscape

moodsy, rugged-individual picture with mountain + moon

Old + New.

Bottom Line: civilizations come and go, but they're hard to kill. I just hope that when our civilization falls that the rust bucket automobilies and the wooden and brick homes we've constructed can withstand 1800 years. Something tells me that our evanescent society won't hold up against the cold eternal face of stone. Way to go guys.

E

I always loved a good Rumsfeld quote...

So I was walking back to my guesthouse yesterday and there was this giant cow sitting on the sidewalk….but no seriously it was HUGE. I had to walk out into the street just to pass by. I wish I had a picture but you’ll just have to take my word for it I guess.

Anyway, it’s been awhile since I posted, which is largely the result of my busy schedule the last few weeks. My translator Swastika started on July 1, and since then we’ve been interviewing everyday at the Kathmandu and Lalitpur offices of BDS, as well as Cruise Aid, which is one of the community-based organizations under the Federation of Gender and Sexual Minorities of Nepal (founded by BDS). She’s been terrific- as a recent graduate of social work here in Kathmandu, she already has experience interviewing and translating, and is aware of some of the obstacles I’ve faced to obtaining a substantive interview (like getting people to voice their criticisms). She did her field work as a student at BDS as well, and so is familiar with the organizational structure of the offices, as well as a number of staff members. She has also become a good friend of mine since we spend most work days together now- it’s so great having someone to show you around and help you find places when you don’t know where you’re going! Between my host sister Tara and Swastika, I actually have gotten to know Kathmandu pretty well, which has made things a lot more comfortable for me here.

Since I haven’t done much tourist-ing in the last 2 weeks, I just tell you a little more about how my work is going. I’ve come up against a couple obstacles this month as I’ve gotten deeper into my case study. The most obvious is that since I don’t speak Nepali, I often miss conversations about events or programs being held at the various offices that would be helpful for my project. I typically need to ask very directly if I can go to an event because the staff I am in contact with don’t seem to think that it’s the sort of thing I’m interested in, and if I’m not even aware that anything is going on then I usually end up missing the event (this week it was the human rights training for staff members). I think that I’ve made it clear that I would like to observe the workshops, however, and so this week I think I will get the opportunity to sit in on one.

The second major obstacle I’ve been facing is the absence of a clear paper trail on a lot of the programs that they have done over the last 9 years. Whereas we tend to document everything obsessively, the reports here at BDS are scattered through various locations, and I need to give a heads up in advance if there is any report I’m interested in looking at since it takes a while to track them down. At this point I have some documents and know I’m missing a couple more, but on the whole it’s hard to know whether there are any major reports that I should have that I don’t even know exist (the unknown unknowns anybody?).

The staff at BDS, however, is very accommodating, and when I figure out that there’s something I need to that I don’t have they are happy to help me out. As my key informant Pradeep warned me at the beginning of my project, doing any kind of work in Nepal requires a high degree of personal initiative, otherwise nothing will get done. With Swastika at my side, however, it is much easier to let them know what it is I’m interested in, and so my case study has definitively sped up considerably. So far I’ve done about 30 interviews, with about 20-25 to go in the next couple weeks. Whew! Needless to say I’ll be busy, but not too busy to enjoy a few days with my supervisor Magda when she comes to do her site visit this week! I already have a few fun things planned for us, so hopefully the weather cooperates and I have some more pictures to share with you next week!

P.S. I'll add some photo's in a few days...right now it seems that the blog is suffering "technical difficulties."

Living the (literal) High Life

It's nice not being homeless in Damascus. Not that there was ever any risk of that, but to live in a wardrobe is incredibly different than living in a suitcase. When we initially got to Damascus our hostel host offered us to stay in his apartment for 2000 SYP a month (equivalent to 500 CAD) which divided by 3 would be... hella cheap. Unfortunately, he thought our French "Institute" was the French Embassy and so the relative closeness he described was fictitious. So back to the drawing board for the weary travellers, spending exorbatant amounts of money each day in a cushy hostel. The next day we went to our Institute and looked to see what they had posted. The first post seemed promising, advertising a 2 bedroom apartment very near to the French Institute. We met with the landlord who seemed willing to negotiate the 2500 SYP a month, under one condition: no boys. Our mixed household was quashed, and while my compatriots had a comfortable 2 bedroom dwelling, I was again homeless. The landlord's name was Osama (reoccuring theme, eh?) and he actually had 2 2 bedroom apartments. So we went back to the insitute and tried to figure out what to do, having not given Osama a definite answer.

While putting our heads together a boyman walked into the institute and said "hello" to us. His name was Jeremie and was from France. He arrived in Damascus two days before and was looking for an apartment. ohhh really???? He went into the institute, came our a little while later, and then I asked him, having met him 55 minutes earlier, if he needed a place and a roomate. He said, "euhh, bah, oue." (but in English) and so 20 minutes later we were scoping the APT. After a brief deliberation it was ours and that evening we moved in. Jeremie and I on floor 4, Leah and Jordan on floor 3. Their APT is nicer and had AC, but hey, we've got the balcony and the view so we winl.

SOur apartment has a tiny kitchen, 1 1/2 baths, 2 separate bedrooms, a salon that has a TV room/ attached hallway/dining room and then a wrap around balcony with access to the roof. In other words, on top of the world and big. For about $300 CAD per person a month, things could be worse. Not to mention 3 minutes walk away from classes, so the 8:10 alarm for an 8:30 class is manageable. Here are some pictures, emphasis on the view of Mount Qasioun (جبل قاسيون):


View from my bedroom window


Bookshelf: Nerd alert, 5 Arabic Text/Reference Books


Hallway/Dining Space (in the background in the TV/salon)


Our (messy) Deckspace


Down from the Roofstairs


View of the Mountain. Civilization creeps up like a fungus.


Sundown from the rooftop with da moon


Mount Qasioun again

Our neighborhood is in the embassyville of Damascus. Our apartment/institute is in the neighborhood Shaalan/Abu Romaneh whereas our hostel was in the walled Old City. In between is "central Damascus" which is essentially the "real-person" commercial district, still more vibrant than our niche, but not as impressive as the old city (from which my last blogs pictures were taken). So while it is large and relatively cheap (surprising since this neighborhood in notorious for expensive rent) the neighborhood is for the foreigners/well to-do locals. Maybe living in the old city would be more fun, at least we're near the study destination. Below is a Damascene map for orientation:



So good roomate, good place, and okay location. Not bad at all. My roomate and are are getting into cooking things, exploring things, and generally being travellers. I think we have a lot in common and that we'll be very compatible flatmates and travel companions. All in all, things are looking up. (literally) Lets just hope Osama fixes our Air Conditioning.

E