Day 34 The Al Jdeida District
SYNOPSIS: I walked a particular district in Aleppo today and had dinner with Olaf and one of his colleagues, Dirk – another researcher from the former East of Germany.IF WALLS COULD TALK AND WHY I STILL CAN’T GET ANSWERS ABOUT LIFE IN SYRIAAleppo is made up of dozens of distinct districts, more than 22 of them “illegal or informal” settlements as I learned in the talk a few days ago. Most of those are not recommended for visitors as crime rates are often high – including drug problems, tribal conflicts, discrimination against women, etc. Everything you don’t see downtown exists, but at the fringes. But along with the legal and quite prosperous suburb, there is little reason to visit there due to the lack of historical value.The heart of Aleppo consists of three areas that every visitor will encounter: The Old City centering on the Souq and the Citadel. The Al Jdeida District, which literally means “new little quarter” but by now is quite old with many 17th century buildings; and the truly New City. In the New City there are stores, most of the hotels (all price categories), and things like the Internet, the city hall, the National Museum, lots of banks, etc. Most of the buildings stem from the 19th and 20th Century. I go there every day at least once for one or another reason – mainly to post my blog. The Old City is where I live. I have explored the souq, and the citadel, but there are numerous alleys and streets I have not been to yet. And there is Al Jdeida. It was founded for Maronite and Armenian refugees and much of the buildings are from the Ottoman era going back to the 17th C. Some of the top end hotels are located there. I took ½ day to just stroll around.What is most striking are the extremely narrow streets. Many of them dead end and are not suitable for cars. All you see is walls and street lights high up and occasional small-sized wooden doors. There seems to be a preference to tiny doors around here. My Khan door – which is huge – closes around 7 PM and after that you literally have to squeeze through a door no taller than 2.5 feet! Our reception hall door is so short that I have almost no clearance and Olaf has to bend down by a full head. Hardly any of the doors I saw going into these big stone walls at Al Jdeida today were full human size.You think you are walking through fortresses there. If you refresh your mind on my blog on the court-yard villas of Damascus, you will get the picture. Once again, all real life happens inside. And inside your jaw drops at the comfort and space that is created around fountains, fruit trees, Iwans – large, arched niches on a raised platform facing North for cool outdoor living in the summer. A visitor can get a sense of this architecture by stepping into about every hotel in the district. Without fail it is a courtyard villa, beautifully restored and gives you an insight into the rest of the houses which are residential and usually locked. There was hardly a person on the street. Why would they? Either you are working or you have your private outdoors, inside – as paradoxical as that may sound. That’s why I particularly enjoyed the three girls peeking out at me as I walked into their dead-end street.At night I had dinner with Olaf and Dirk. They humored me as I was complaining that traveling alone comes with hardly ever going out to eat. They recommended a fine roof-top restaurant from where we could see the citadel lit up at night. They served beer there, so you can picture three beer-drinking Germans on one of the tallest buildings in Aleppo last night talking about this and that, except about Syria. It is hard to get insight answers from two Germans who work with an international team of specialists on water treatment, about the life of girls, the cost of marriage, the army, average salaries, etc. I am just hanging out with the wrong crowd. But wait! Next week I will be staying in Tartous with a friend of Maria’s. And he may even have some sisters!? We shall see.Good night.