Day 28 In a Man’s World

 

Synopsis : This was an uneventful day.  I visited the Museum at Deir Ez Zoor and then took the bus from Deir Ez Zoor to Raqqa.   But I also had beer in a roof-top restaurant and crashed a Syrian Wedding party which both will make this day memorable nonetheless.FROM DEIR EZ ZOOR TO RAQQA – MORE INSIGHTS INTO DAILY LIFEIt was Friday.  I figured that was the reason, why the 5:30 AM call by the muezzin did not end after 3 minutes, but turned into ½ hour of Koranic recitations blasted via loudspeaker at maximum levels.  That was a bit much at that hour of the day.  Otherwise, I find the call of the muezzin a welcome partition of the day – I am always surprised when I hear the next call about how much time has passed.  It makes me think for a minute about what I have accomplished in the interval.   I recognize the main prayer and I appreciate the different intonations by the different muezzins.  I had to laugh passing a mosque yesterday, where the muezzin seemed to have a cold as he coughed and sniffled between the verses.  It had a human touch that surprised me.  I thought that most of these calls nowadays are just played from tapes.  I wonder if that 5:30 AM sermon is appreciated at that hour by the faithful around.  In Southern Lebanon, I remember entire sermons being broadcast from every mosque.  As you walk the streets during prayer sessions, you are within ear shot of about three loud and scratchy sermons all trying to outdo the other.  Quite chaotic.  I heard that the residents are trying to end this custom.I had stopped by the local museum in Deir Ez Zoor twice already, only to find it closed.  Once on a Tuesday – an unusual closing day – and once too late in the day.  Today, since I was going to leave town, I was there by 8:30 AM and it was open.  At least the main gate was open.  I was the first visitor.  The guard opened the heavy chained doors to the exhibition halls and then was on my heels the entire time to prevent me from taking pictures.  I don’t know what the deal is with that as all the objects are stone and not even flash light can harm them.  But I got some pictures nonetheless.  Even though the objects on display were only second rank behind Damascus, the display was creative and innovative.  They must have a good curator here!  Well labeled and put into context by recreating some of the original settings, this small museum was well worth the three attempts seeing it.  The range of objects is narrow, focusing mainly on one excavation site 65 km outside of town.Yesterday, I had hiked out all the way to the new bus station at the outskirts of Deir Ez Zoor to find out when the overland bus to Raqqa would leave – these buses at the most go every two hours and it is good to know the schedule to avoid unnecessary waiting.  Noon, I was told, so I got there shortly after 11 AM to go through the usual passport-ticket-police routine.  But lo and behold – the guy yesterday must have forgotten that today is Friday and no buses go to Raqqa at all!  The best I could do is to catch a bus to Aleppo that would drop me off about 8 km outside of Raqqa.  The thought of standing in the middle of nowhere with my entire luggage was not appealing, but I took a chance and got lucky.  Within minutes a taxi took me to town for a mere $2 and directly to my hotel.I had given the driver the name of my hotel – the only grimy mid-range hotel that was listed at the Lonely Planet.   But the taxi driver shook his head and told me that he would bring me to a different hotel right across. I trusted his judgment and rightly so.  This hotel, hotel Karnak, is not even mentioned in the Lonely Planet but beats the grimy one by a large margin.  It’s over my budget, but I have little choice.  I can easily do with simplicity and less comfort.  But I have a hard time coping with outright filth and decay.The grimy hotel was recommended for a roof-top restaurant which I visited after strolling through town.  I located the two bus stations which I would need for my day trip tomorrow and for continuing my trip in two days.  I also located the internet – always a priority to keep in touch and to keep this blog going.  I would never find these places without local help.  No markings in letters that I can make out at all.  It tells you that the clientele around here are not foreigners like me.The roof-top restaurant was nearly empty, except for three hookah-smoking old guys.  The height allowed an unobstructed view across town.  As in Damascus, I was struck by the number of satellite dishes on each of the roofs.  All shapes and sizes, many of them rusty and bent.   I ordered my meal and tea – not the typical black tea but “flower tea” as the Syrians like to call herbal tea.  There was none and I must have looked quite disappointed.  “Do you want beer or wine or whiskey”, the waiter asked? Whiskey?  Beer?  Wine?  Where am I?!  Sure, I want a beer, I said.  I had to order one to believe it.  And I am darned if he did not return with a beer as if there was nothing to it.  I tried to ask him about why he could serve beer in public in a country where alcohol is not served.  His English was limited, but he told me this much:  Single men come to the restaurant (Muslims, presumably) to drink as much as they want because nobody can see them.  He said if there are two or three people, they come and smoke and eat but never drink as one could tell on the other.  That explains half the story.  But how does this restaurant have a license to serve alcohol in the first place?  My guess is that it is operated by a Christian?  I have to find out more about that.On the street I met Ra’ad.  He was one of those guys who call out some English words to me all day long.  But he had a good command of conversational English and told me that he was an architecture student and also owned an antiquities shop.  Wow – that’s my kind of a guy to get more information!  In the usual boundless generosity of the locals, he offered help with anything and at any time.  I asked him if he would meet me for dinner tomorrow after I returned from my trip to tell me about life in Syria.  Only if dinner were on him, he insisted.  After we fought over this for a while, he accepted that dinner would be on me.  He was overjoyed at the opportunity to speak English.  He said that his father had started to expose the children in his family to English at about the age of 5, but that he rarely has an opportunity to practice it.  He is one of the first intellectuals I have met.  I am looking forward to talking to him tomorrow.I headed to the Internet to send off yesterday’s report – it is a pain in the butt to navigate programs on the internet all in Arabic.  Icons are only of limited help.  I cannot save changes, log out properly, etc without help.    But there is no chance I can even try to figure out this language.  It is too complex.As I was wrapping up the day to return to the hotel, I came by a place with a lot of music and noise.  I could not help but check it out.  There was a big hall with lots of people inside and as things go around here, the minute people caught sight of me they waved:  “Come here”, “Welcome”.  And so I walked right into a wedding.  I just wanted to stand in the back to observe for a while, but people practically pushed me to the main pedestal on which the bride and the groom were sitting like on a throne, to receive greetings and gifts.  “Surah, surah” they told me and that is a word that I figured out by now:  Photo, photo!  I was too happy to comply and so I took photos of the couple who thought it was very amusing to have me there.  I then retreated to the back and sat with the children.The building was a big octagonal with a circular raised platform in the middle.  Tables were placed on the outer section of the hall which left a large open space between the raised center and the people.  Soon, that’s where three guys started a line dance which drew one by one by one of the men into it.  Before soon 30-40 men were doing a line dance around the central platform.   Too cool!  I took some video footage of it.  About three women joined with their husbands.  This was quite mesmerizing.Overall, a fraction of all the guests were women with a few girls, all seated with a few husbands presumably, in one part of the building to the right of the couple.  The rest were men; old and young.  And there was a children's area – all boys it seemed.  That’s where I sat.   Soon, I was pulled away from the children’s table into the middle of the men’s section – I guess that is an honor.   From my visit in Pakistan I remember, that Nicola and I had to eat with the men (even though we are women), as we were considered honored foreign guests (of the men) and it would be an insult to the men if we were joining the women instead.  It’s a man’s world around here.  I wonder if I will ever get closer the women to talk to any of them about their perspective on life.  I will have to find a way.Good night.