Occupied Palestinian Territories
South Africa
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Ethnic Drinks
The punishingly air-conditioned coffee shops are imported directly from suburban Atlanta. There are at least seven damn menus on every table: drinks, food, ice cream, "gig guide," wireless internet guide, comment card, a flyer advertising the new opening in Heliopolis...
The TVs play BBC News on mute, and Celine Dion and Evanescence dominate the airwaves with an occasional announcement: "Hey everybody! Try a Beano's new Cajun Chicken Sandwich! A light and healthy snack!"
In the neon orange menu, under the section "Ethnic Drinks," you can find Lime Hibiscus, Blackberry Hibiscus, and Tamarind & Sobya Blend: "They are a wonderful choice that have many proven health benefits... from fighting fevers to lowering blood pressure."
On the opposite page, these drinks fall under the category of Mashroubat Masri, or "Egyptian Drinks." This categorization and translation are emblematic of how upper-class Cairo imagines itself. Repulsive.
The service in institutions like Beano's sucks. There are five waiters standing like innocent vultures, watching you sip and munch. Hands folded behind their backs, they wear pressed khakhi and smile, just as the boss said. As they strive to be elegant, they subtly slide you a coffee exactly below your chin. The milisecond after your last bite, your plate vanishes. They're instructed to say "thank you" every two seconds. When you speak to them in Arabic, they respond in English. After I say, "We are Arabs, let us speak Arabic," they smile and, after a hiatus of Arabic, they defer to English.
Outside, through the windows frosted with "Beano's...the place to be...yourself," crumpled black and white taxis roll by. Whenever a Cairo taxi breaks, it launches into a squeaky rendition of "It's a Small World." So, at any given moment, you are bound to hear the first three bars of "It's a Small World" while walking down any busy street in Cairo.
I hate this city. I just hate it. The food sucks, and the air-conditioning units rain on pedestrians.
There is a Gold's Gym on a boat on the Nile. The sails on the Nile feluccas have become canvases for Coca-Cola advertisements (this was not true two years ago). And every Pizza Hut is flanked by a Hardee's, McDonald's, and a KFC, resulting in a continuous swath of fast food red on the city block.
Nestled outside of the window of the KFC (or was it Hardee's?) was a boy of about ten in blue shorts and plastic sandals, his head in his elbow. We both had dirt in our toes, but I sleep on a bed at night.
While I type into my MacBook gazing ahead at the shelf of Beano's mugs for sale (no one will ever buy them) and the columns of fresh books in the walls (no one will ever read them...I'm probably the first to notice them), all I can think of is returning to Beirut.
A year ago, I was on a nasty Egyptian ferry on my way to Paphos, Cyprus while Israeli warplanes were ripping Lebanon to pieces. From Paphos, we had dinner in Laranca with Constantine, a boisterous Russian with a wild history as a private-insurance agent. I saw the sun rise in Agia Napa and flew first-class to London the next day.
From the window of the Air France bus, I saw my mother waiting for me at Porte Maillot. She hates sweating and went on about the heat wave in Paris. When we returned to the apartment, we turned on the news. We sat before the screen together. Her anguish was simmering. I wasn't alone.
The TVs play BBC News on mute, and Celine Dion and Evanescence dominate the airwaves with an occasional announcement: "Hey everybody! Try a Beano's new Cajun Chicken Sandwich! A light and healthy snack!"
In the neon orange menu, under the section "Ethnic Drinks," you can find Lime Hibiscus, Blackberry Hibiscus, and Tamarind & Sobya Blend: "They are a wonderful choice that have many proven health benefits... from fighting fevers to lowering blood pressure."
On the opposite page, these drinks fall under the category of Mashroubat Masri, or "Egyptian Drinks." This categorization and translation are emblematic of how upper-class Cairo imagines itself. Repulsive.
The service in institutions like Beano's sucks. There are five waiters standing like innocent vultures, watching you sip and munch. Hands folded behind their backs, they wear pressed khakhi and smile, just as the boss said. As they strive to be elegant, they subtly slide you a coffee exactly below your chin. The milisecond after your last bite, your plate vanishes. They're instructed to say "thank you" every two seconds. When you speak to them in Arabic, they respond in English. After I say, "We are Arabs, let us speak Arabic," they smile and, after a hiatus of Arabic, they defer to English.
Outside, through the windows frosted with "Beano's...the place to be...yourself," crumpled black and white taxis roll by. Whenever a Cairo taxi breaks, it launches into a squeaky rendition of "It's a Small World." So, at any given moment, you are bound to hear the first three bars of "It's a Small World" while walking down any busy street in Cairo.
I hate this city. I just hate it. The food sucks, and the air-conditioning units rain on pedestrians.
There is a Gold's Gym on a boat on the Nile. The sails on the Nile feluccas have become canvases for Coca-Cola advertisements (this was not true two years ago). And every Pizza Hut is flanked by a Hardee's, McDonald's, and a KFC, resulting in a continuous swath of fast food red on the city block.
Nestled outside of the window of the KFC (or was it Hardee's?) was a boy of about ten in blue shorts and plastic sandals, his head in his elbow. We both had dirt in our toes, but I sleep on a bed at night.
While I type into my MacBook gazing ahead at the shelf of Beano's mugs for sale (no one will ever buy them) and the columns of fresh books in the walls (no one will ever read them...I'm probably the first to notice them), all I can think of is returning to Beirut.
A year ago, I was on a nasty Egyptian ferry on my way to Paphos, Cyprus while Israeli warplanes were ripping Lebanon to pieces. From Paphos, we had dinner in Laranca with Constantine, a boisterous Russian with a wild history as a private-insurance agent. I saw the sun rise in Agia Napa and flew first-class to London the next day.
From the window of the Air France bus, I saw my mother waiting for me at Porte Maillot. She hates sweating and went on about the heat wave in Paris. When we returned to the apartment, we turned on the news. We sat before the screen together. Her anguish was simmering. I wasn't alone.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Gugulentu
"Every week," said Laura, "we bury around seventy to a hundred of them."
Due to HIV/AIDS.
--
I took a portrait of the healer in Gugulentu. Cheetah and zebra skins hung outside. She had five and a half teeth. I came to shake her hand, and she embraced and kissed it. When she posed for the camera, she'd shut her mouth only to burst into laughter by the time I snapped the photo. When Laura told her that her husband left her for the third time, she also burst into laughter, warmly and comfortingly. "Get a white man!" she yelled.
Laura said that when she took the call to be a healer she knew that her husband might feel neglected by her spirit which, as a healer, was sometimes over-extended. She underlined that her husband has left her a number of times with no warning, no explanation and that he returns just as spontaneously. It was with raw self-confidence that she told me this, and I felt like she expected me to be in shock, or at least in awe of her resilience.
There was a brief, comfortable pause, and she cracked, "And he just looks at me!!" The "he" being me.
Laura is an entrepreneur. She runs a jazz bar in Gugulentu, where her uncle once played, and co-manages a small company that provides township tours. She lives across the only public green space in Gugulentu and wants one day to turn her roof into a cafe. She picked me up in a Mercedes and, when I told her I came from Lebanon, she was taken aback with shock. "It's war all the time, there," she taught me. Of course, I told her otherwise, touching on how Beirut was far more dynamic and safer than Capetown. In the end, she made fun of herself for thinking like an American.
We drove and walked around two townships--Qualanga and Gugulentu. The poverty was severe, and the stench of trash, piss, and trash hung in the air in the alleyways. We stepped into a room in a government project, about the size of a King size bed, that housed three families. The vast majority of the township homes do not have running water although there is a central tap that residents can use. No one leaves their home at night for fear of crime, which Laura tells me is rampant after the sun sets. In fact, the car that I rode in had been stolen and broken into, but luckily the burglars left it on the side of a road not too far from Gugulentu. Incidentally, I was the only "white" person about.
Unlike Capetown and especially Stellenbosch, Qualanga and Gugulentu had vibrant public spaces. The punishingly cute Cape Dutch architecture of the "Mother City" gives Capetown a sort of haunted feeling, and the bodies on the sidewalks and in the waterfront cafes look like figurines glued into a 3D rendering.
Capetown is hosting the World Cup in 2010. They are building a new soccer stadium in Greenpoint, far far away from any township. I can't imagine how ashamed the organizers must be of their city. It makes me wonder how they will attempt to distract the hoards of tourists from the injustice still ingrained in their society.
The American city has excelled in sustaining such unofficial injustice: I'm sure Capetown has learned a lesson or two.
Due to HIV/AIDS.
--
I took a portrait of the healer in Gugulentu. Cheetah and zebra skins hung outside. She had five and a half teeth. I came to shake her hand, and she embraced and kissed it. When she posed for the camera, she'd shut her mouth only to burst into laughter by the time I snapped the photo. When Laura told her that her husband left her for the third time, she also burst into laughter, warmly and comfortingly. "Get a white man!" she yelled.
Laura said that when she took the call to be a healer she knew that her husband might feel neglected by her spirit which, as a healer, was sometimes over-extended. She underlined that her husband has left her a number of times with no warning, no explanation and that he returns just as spontaneously. It was with raw self-confidence that she told me this, and I felt like she expected me to be in shock, or at least in awe of her resilience.
There was a brief, comfortable pause, and she cracked, "And he just looks at me!!" The "he" being me.
Laura is an entrepreneur. She runs a jazz bar in Gugulentu, where her uncle once played, and co-manages a small company that provides township tours. She lives across the only public green space in Gugulentu and wants one day to turn her roof into a cafe. She picked me up in a Mercedes and, when I told her I came from Lebanon, she was taken aback with shock. "It's war all the time, there," she taught me. Of course, I told her otherwise, touching on how Beirut was far more dynamic and safer than Capetown. In the end, she made fun of herself for thinking like an American.
We drove and walked around two townships--Qualanga and Gugulentu. The poverty was severe, and the stench of trash, piss, and trash hung in the air in the alleyways. We stepped into a room in a government project, about the size of a King size bed, that housed three families. The vast majority of the township homes do not have running water although there is a central tap that residents can use. No one leaves their home at night for fear of crime, which Laura tells me is rampant after the sun sets. In fact, the car that I rode in had been stolen and broken into, but luckily the burglars left it on the side of a road not too far from Gugulentu. Incidentally, I was the only "white" person about.
Unlike Capetown and especially Stellenbosch, Qualanga and Gugulentu had vibrant public spaces. The punishingly cute Cape Dutch architecture of the "Mother City" gives Capetown a sort of haunted feeling, and the bodies on the sidewalks and in the waterfront cafes look like figurines glued into a 3D rendering.
Capetown is hosting the World Cup in 2010. They are building a new soccer stadium in Greenpoint, far far away from any township. I can't imagine how ashamed the organizers must be of their city. It makes me wonder how they will attempt to distract the hoards of tourists from the injustice still ingrained in their society.
The American city has excelled in sustaining such unofficial injustice: I'm sure Capetown has learned a lesson or two.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
(Un)ethical Tourism
Last night, two hundred or so international theatre academics, hoary and hip, climbed into buses and were shuttled to the Spier Wine Estate for dinner at Moyo, supposedly one of the biggest restaurants in South Africa. As we walked through the rows of torches, black waiters in silk, cheetah vests and with electric white face paint ushered us in. It was freezing, and there were blankets--with "tribal" patterns--draped over every chair. My ceramic plate sat on a bamboo place mat; at the center of the table, a stronghold of Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz.
The winelands of the Eastern Cape are remarkably like Epcot, I thought.
Luckily, I was sitting next to S from Lille and A from Perth. While the black women in neon pink afro wigs and white wedding dresses belted tunes echoing The Sensations, we stuck our noses in chai. Our cynicism had reached its limit, and we were cold.
But it's entirely hypocritical of me to criticize the trip to Moyo. After all, this morning, I went on a private wine tour. By the third day of the conference, the discourse had become rubbish, and this town, Stellenbosch, is miserable. There was a tourism booth right in the center of the conference center, and I passively fell into its grip. So, this morning, instead of sitting in tortuously uncomfortable chairs and drinking sour coffee while some dumb bell from Pretoria rattled on about multicultural ensembles, I fell in love with salmon wine (white wine made from red grapes; the skins, which give the wine its color, never make contact with the juice).
Banal as this may sound, the landscape down here is stunning. On the Airport-Stellenbosch road, which is flanked by townships, I got lost in the green horizon. The visibility level is uncanny. Miles of rolling hills dotted with giant bonsai looking trees give way to charcoal and zucchini mountains. Sure, in the desert, you can also see for miles, but there is no color. So it feels like you're standing in the middle of the ocean, a two-dimensional eternity. Here, the color of the landscape coupled with the erratic topography give you a unique sense of three-dimensional placement. I felt positioned by my environment.
My guest house, the Caledon Villa, is the winner of the Stellenbosch excursion. Every morning, I use seven pieces of fine silverware to eat breakfast. The napkins are tightly wrapped--almost sadistically--and contorted into obelisks on the bread plates. There are four miniature bowls of jam at the center of the table. As she asks me how I'd like my eggs done this morning, Rene lights a candle before setting a pot of tea on top. I start off with an appetizer of homemade bran cereal with a bowl of guava, pineapple, and slices of fine jambon (1. Big Spoon, 2. Small Fork). The toast arrives in a carriage, and after buttering (3. Butter Knife) I smear on the jam (4. Tiny Spoon). The eggs are never over-cooked (5. Big Fork, 6. Big Knife), and I usually squeeze them in between the toast to make a little sandwich. By then, Johan, the friendly owner of the guest house, inches over to say good morning, and I fix myself a final cup of tea (7. Teaspoon) before retiring back to my glorious room, monitored by Queen Elizabeth.
I'm going to Capetown tomorrow and have been debating whether or not to go on a township tour. EVERYONE I talk to (even Lonely Planet, source of all truth) stresses that it's "dangerous" to go alone or, worse, in the evening. I asked the hotel managers about the train, and they said that, while first class is okay, it's "generally dangerous." This must be how some Israelis talk about the Occupied West Bank. Many of the Afrikaaners I've met map space through a discourse of fear. Through this language, they carve out and dispose of chunks of their country.
Unfortunately, I'm ignorant and don't know any locals, so I don't know how to deal with it. I want to see these places and to witness the appalling contrast between the wealth of Capetown and the poverty of the slums/ghettos/townships/shantytowns. But the thought of taking a TOUR to a township zoo-ifies the whole experience, dehumanizing both the spectator and the object during the process. After the tasting at Waterford Estate, I didn't think I could go any lower. Maybe I'll out-immoralize myself after all...
The winelands of the Eastern Cape are remarkably like Epcot, I thought.
Luckily, I was sitting next to S from Lille and A from Perth. While the black women in neon pink afro wigs and white wedding dresses belted tunes echoing The Sensations, we stuck our noses in chai. Our cynicism had reached its limit, and we were cold.
But it's entirely hypocritical of me to criticize the trip to Moyo. After all, this morning, I went on a private wine tour. By the third day of the conference, the discourse had become rubbish, and this town, Stellenbosch, is miserable. There was a tourism booth right in the center of the conference center, and I passively fell into its grip. So, this morning, instead of sitting in tortuously uncomfortable chairs and drinking sour coffee while some dumb bell from Pretoria rattled on about multicultural ensembles, I fell in love with salmon wine (white wine made from red grapes; the skins, which give the wine its color, never make contact with the juice).
Banal as this may sound, the landscape down here is stunning. On the Airport-Stellenbosch road, which is flanked by townships, I got lost in the green horizon. The visibility level is uncanny. Miles of rolling hills dotted with giant bonsai looking trees give way to charcoal and zucchini mountains. Sure, in the desert, you can also see for miles, but there is no color. So it feels like you're standing in the middle of the ocean, a two-dimensional eternity. Here, the color of the landscape coupled with the erratic topography give you a unique sense of three-dimensional placement. I felt positioned by my environment.
My guest house, the Caledon Villa, is the winner of the Stellenbosch excursion. Every morning, I use seven pieces of fine silverware to eat breakfast. The napkins are tightly wrapped--almost sadistically--and contorted into obelisks on the bread plates. There are four miniature bowls of jam at the center of the table. As she asks me how I'd like my eggs done this morning, Rene lights a candle before setting a pot of tea on top. I start off with an appetizer of homemade bran cereal with a bowl of guava, pineapple, and slices of fine jambon (1. Big Spoon, 2. Small Fork). The toast arrives in a carriage, and after buttering (3. Butter Knife) I smear on the jam (4. Tiny Spoon). The eggs are never over-cooked (5. Big Fork, 6. Big Knife), and I usually squeeze them in between the toast to make a little sandwich. By then, Johan, the friendly owner of the guest house, inches over to say good morning, and I fix myself a final cup of tea (7. Teaspoon) before retiring back to my glorious room, monitored by Queen Elizabeth.
I'm going to Capetown tomorrow and have been debating whether or not to go on a township tour. EVERYONE I talk to (even Lonely Planet, source of all truth) stresses that it's "dangerous" to go alone or, worse, in the evening. I asked the hotel managers about the train, and they said that, while first class is okay, it's "generally dangerous." This must be how some Israelis talk about the Occupied West Bank. Many of the Afrikaaners I've met map space through a discourse of fear. Through this language, they carve out and dispose of chunks of their country.
Unfortunately, I'm ignorant and don't know any locals, so I don't know how to deal with it. I want to see these places and to witness the appalling contrast between the wealth of Capetown and the poverty of the slums/ghettos/townships/shantytowns. But the thought of taking a TOUR to a township zoo-ifies the whole experience, dehumanizing both the spectator and the object during the process. After the tasting at Waterford Estate, I didn't think I could go any lower. Maybe I'll out-immoralize myself after all...
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Monday, July 9, 2007
Elizabeth II
There is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth above the bed and a trilingual New Testament on the left nightstand. I'm drinking Rooibos tea and savoring that shit-I-feel-so-clean-I-should-be-in-a-Johnson & Johnson-commercial feeling that follows only the most epic of showers. I'm flanked by four down pillows that smell like lavender, and my glasses are clean. For the first time in a long time, I'm all alone. And it's awesome.
The winter is crisp in the Western Cape. I don't understand a word of the English here, but the wine is delicious. Stellenbosch seems to be very much like Princeton, except that it's tucked in a valley of vineyards behind a family of mountains and that there is a black population. Magic Flavor is the local, cheap Chinese joint, and the two cellphone stores--Malik's and Abdallah's--also sell arguilehs. At the pizza place, there was a competitive conversation on drinking, vomiting, and passing out, and Capetown is an hour away.
Upon my return from Syria, I barely had time to breathe in Beirut. The city is ever yet under tight military control. There are a few more private security officers hanging out in front of the lobbies of ritzy buildings, and the army has planted what is essentially a small military base in Hamra (they call it a police station). Dozens of Mustaqbal flags have popped up around West Beirut, and Syria has "pulled" its students from public Lebanese universities.
In Beirut, I returned to Mama Hiam; reunited with my dear friend, V; partied at Club Social with L, A, and R; went to the theatre at AUB (I ought to have written about that, but I've been lazy and incompetent); and hosted friends for lunch just hours before I took off. From my palatial room in this Dutch guesthouse, I see that the days between Syria and South Africa were precious and deep, as time should always be.
The winter is crisp in the Western Cape. I don't understand a word of the English here, but the wine is delicious. Stellenbosch seems to be very much like Princeton, except that it's tucked in a valley of vineyards behind a family of mountains and that there is a black population. Magic Flavor is the local, cheap Chinese joint, and the two cellphone stores--Malik's and Abdallah's--also sell arguilehs. At the pizza place, there was a competitive conversation on drinking, vomiting, and passing out, and Capetown is an hour away.
Upon my return from Syria, I barely had time to breathe in Beirut. The city is ever yet under tight military control. There are a few more private security officers hanging out in front of the lobbies of ritzy buildings, and the army has planted what is essentially a small military base in Hamra (they call it a police station). Dozens of Mustaqbal flags have popped up around West Beirut, and Syria has "pulled" its students from public Lebanese universities.
In Beirut, I returned to Mama Hiam; reunited with my dear friend, V; partied at Club Social with L, A, and R; went to the theatre at AUB (I ought to have written about that, but I've been lazy and incompetent); and hosted friends for lunch just hours before I took off. From my palatial room in this Dutch guesthouse, I see that the days between Syria and South Africa were precious and deep, as time should always be.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Upon Cremation
When I'm cremated, I want my ashes to be released in the winds between the White and Black Deserts.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
ChamTour
How does the immigrant dream of the ceremonial visit to the homeland?
Ten days ago, I met my family in Syria, and together we all hopped on a shaky ChamTour van and ventured around the country. It had been fifteen years since my mother last returned, and it was the first time that all six of us, sister-in-law included, descended upon the homeland. For months, we've been stirring up Cham-hype, and two days ago on the road from Palmyra it all came to a cathartic end as my brother ceremoniously projectile-vomited gallons of swamp into an empty plastic bag.
With a hole in it.
As he coughed and gagged, brown liquid melodically spouted out from below. We opened the van door, and I took this pouch of elixir from his hands and dropped it on the overgrown grass lining the highway, alongside rusted cans of Ugarit Cola and petrified packs of Marlboro Reds. The color returned to my brother Z's face, and we were all glad to know that he had found a relief from his crippling stomach pain. We rinsed the floor of the van with some Baqeen water and drove onwards to Damascus.
The Syria Tour was a tragedy, in the finest sense. My parents, R and Y, had been delighted by the chance to take us up the coast, through the mountains, up the Orontes River, and into the middle of the desert. But town after town, restaurant after restaurant, forgotten monument after forgotten monument, a cancer of humiliation slowly festered and matured in R and Y.
At Qal'at al-Hosn (aka Krak des Chevaliers), they followed the tour guide's narration with a forced enthusiasm that just barely neutralized their grief for the decrepit state of this dumbfoundingly majestic castle. At lunch in Lattakia, the waiter failed to deliver R's lemonade after at least seven gentle reminders, and he served Y's grilled fish well after the rest of us had digested our entrees. To top it all off, it took him seventeen humid minutes to deliver the check. Furious, my father got up and left the restaurant and scolded the manager and the waiter as they chased after him, waving the check over their heads. In the car, my mother R went on a rampage, exclaiming, "If these people want tips, they should give us decent service. I would never tell anyone to come to Syria!" She spoke in Arabic so that the message would hit home with the driver, Amaar.
Our van broke down. The rooms at Tidmor (aka Palmyra) weren't air-conditioned. The music at the roof-top restaurant in Halab was too loud, so we moved tables. The chicken took hours of preparation at the Francis Hotel. And all of the archaeological sites were a wreck.
My parents were disappointed. Very disappointed. They left Syria nearly thirty years ago. Now, they are addicted to Purell. They wear polychromatic visors and backwards baseball caps. They coat their bodies with DDT when we dine al fresco. They don't know how to deal with taxi drivers. They are bored by the Damascene social sphere. And my mom is obsessed with documenting every sheep sighting in Syria. To say the least, they have embodied many of the norms of upper class American culture, and they either could not or chose not relinquish those standards in the place that was once home.
Just as in Oedipus Rex, the peripeteia and the discovery coincided on our last night in Palmyra. We went to dine at Bedouin Corner. The entrance echoed a Disney theme park ride, and a melange of drums, voices, and strings erupted into song as my brother stepped out of the van. In shorts and goatee, my brother said, "Assallam 3aleykum." Pleasantly surprised, they responded in a chorus, "3alleykum Assalam!"
Everyone laughed.
We were welcomed by a waiter in a galabayeh who offered us wine, araq, and beer. Shortly thereafter, a tour bus of sixty Greeks pulled in, and this time the band followed them into the tent-dining room. After dinner, there was debke, and my sister got up and danced while my sister-in-law snapped away on her camera. When the spectacle had come to an end, the band, "TIDMORE BADAWEN GROP" [sic], came to sell us their CDs. We bought two. To support the local tourism industry. The way we like it.
My parents were smiling all night. They felt so at home clapping with the Greeks.
They're leaving Syria this weekend, and I doubt they will ever visit that place again. Estrangement must be painful. I thank Z, the choragus, for vomiting for us all.
Ten days ago, I met my family in Syria, and together we all hopped on a shaky ChamTour van and ventured around the country. It had been fifteen years since my mother last returned, and it was the first time that all six of us, sister-in-law included, descended upon the homeland. For months, we've been stirring up Cham-hype, and two days ago on the road from Palmyra it all came to a cathartic end as my brother ceremoniously projectile-vomited gallons of swamp into an empty plastic bag.
With a hole in it.
As he coughed and gagged, brown liquid melodically spouted out from below. We opened the van door, and I took this pouch of elixir from his hands and dropped it on the overgrown grass lining the highway, alongside rusted cans of Ugarit Cola and petrified packs of Marlboro Reds. The color returned to my brother Z's face, and we were all glad to know that he had found a relief from his crippling stomach pain. We rinsed the floor of the van with some Baqeen water and drove onwards to Damascus.
The Syria Tour was a tragedy, in the finest sense. My parents, R and Y, had been delighted by the chance to take us up the coast, through the mountains, up the Orontes River, and into the middle of the desert. But town after town, restaurant after restaurant, forgotten monument after forgotten monument, a cancer of humiliation slowly festered and matured in R and Y.
At Qal'at al-Hosn (aka Krak des Chevaliers), they followed the tour guide's narration with a forced enthusiasm that just barely neutralized their grief for the decrepit state of this dumbfoundingly majestic castle. At lunch in Lattakia, the waiter failed to deliver R's lemonade after at least seven gentle reminders, and he served Y's grilled fish well after the rest of us had digested our entrees. To top it all off, it took him seventeen humid minutes to deliver the check. Furious, my father got up and left the restaurant and scolded the manager and the waiter as they chased after him, waving the check over their heads. In the car, my mother R went on a rampage, exclaiming, "If these people want tips, they should give us decent service. I would never tell anyone to come to Syria!" She spoke in Arabic so that the message would hit home with the driver, Amaar.
Our van broke down. The rooms at Tidmor (aka Palmyra) weren't air-conditioned. The music at the roof-top restaurant in Halab was too loud, so we moved tables. The chicken took hours of preparation at the Francis Hotel. And all of the archaeological sites were a wreck.
My parents were disappointed. Very disappointed. They left Syria nearly thirty years ago. Now, they are addicted to Purell. They wear polychromatic visors and backwards baseball caps. They coat their bodies with DDT when we dine al fresco. They don't know how to deal with taxi drivers. They are bored by the Damascene social sphere. And my mom is obsessed with documenting every sheep sighting in Syria. To say the least, they have embodied many of the norms of upper class American culture, and they either could not or chose not relinquish those standards in the place that was once home.
Just as in Oedipus Rex, the peripeteia and the discovery coincided on our last night in Palmyra. We went to dine at Bedouin Corner. The entrance echoed a Disney theme park ride, and a melange of drums, voices, and strings erupted into song as my brother stepped out of the van. In shorts and goatee, my brother said, "Assallam 3aleykum." Pleasantly surprised, they responded in a chorus, "3alleykum Assalam!"
Everyone laughed.
We were welcomed by a waiter in a galabayeh who offered us wine, araq, and beer. Shortly thereafter, a tour bus of sixty Greeks pulled in, and this time the band followed them into the tent-dining room. After dinner, there was debke, and my sister got up and danced while my sister-in-law snapped away on her camera. When the spectacle had come to an end, the band, "TIDMORE BADAWEN GROP" [sic], came to sell us their CDs. We bought two. To support the local tourism industry. The way we like it.
My parents were smiling all night. They felt so at home clapping with the Greeks.
They're leaving Syria this weekend, and I doubt they will ever visit that place again. Estrangement must be painful. I thank Z, the choragus, for vomiting for us all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)