Language barriers in the living room

Hussein and I walked through the courtyard and into an entry where a door was standing open. A woman inside stood and welcomed us in. She looked as if she could be a grandmother, but her hair was still jet black. She wore a purple house dress and plastic sandals. The room where she had been sitting was a living room with an attached kitchen, seperated by a high archway in the shape of the upper half of an ace of spades. The home was clearly Christian, with crosses on the wall, pictures of the virgin Mary with child, a calendar with biblical verses written in Arabic, and so forth. Also, the woman wore a gold cross on her neck. A television was showing what appeared to be a soap opera.

She clicked the TV off and she and Hussein began talking in the colloquial Damscene dialect of Arabic, quite different than the variety he had been using to talk to me. I understood my introduction to her, her name is Haifa, but beyond that I really couldn't understand most of what they said. Scholars of Arabic will tell you that the Syrian dialect is very close to 'pure' literary Arabic, but to this I say horseshoes and hand grenades. The sentence structures, conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns are similar, but many words are completely different and verbs are employed in a different way. I studied Syrian colloquial the quarter before I had left for Damascus, but I mostly only learned the local ways of saying hello, goodbye, and some other pleasantries. This conversation was moving too fast and employing too many words that I had never heard before.

After some discussion I was brought to see the room I was being offered. We passed through a large formal living room and dining room and up a flight of stairs that led only to what would become my room. It was nice, as large as the apartment I had had in Ohio, divided in two sections by an arch similar to the one between the kitchen and living room. On one end was a bed over which was a ceiling fan, on the other was a small desk and chair. One entire wall was open to the outside by windows with neither glass nor screens. Through them could be seen the central courtyard of the house, where there was modern outdoor plastic chairs and a bench swing. The courtyard had obviously been much larger at one time, but was now divided by a high wall that was added later to make two houses out of one. This wall also divided what had once been the central fountain, which now served as a flower bed. The original courtyard must have been spectacular, some forty feet on each side, and it was still very nice on this half. I have since discovered that most homes in Bab Touma have an open central garden like this one.

Haifa explained the deal for the room, and Hussein tried to semi-translate it for me into standard Arabic with some English. But his English is more limited than my Arabic, so to ensure the arrangements were clearly understood, he called a colleague on his cell phone and we passed the phone back and forth so the woman on the other end could translate for us. The agreement was that I would pay 8000 Syrian pounds a month for the rent, plus an additional 10000 if I wanted to eat with the family and enjoy free access to whatever I found in the refrigerator. I thought the second figure sounded a little expensive, but I ultimately determined that this was a pretty good deal and paid it. The total comes to a little under $340 USD a month.

It turns out that her cooking is quite good, so the only time I eat out is when getting together with friends, and even then a good dinner only costs about 300 SP, or about 6 dollars, with good service that expects very little for a tip. Meanwhile, at home I am served coffee and tea throughout the day, I never cook, and I never do the dishes. I tried to do them once, but she wouldn't have it. Meals come much later than they do in America, lunch is at about 2 p.m. and dinner can be as late as 10:30 or 11 o'clock. In between are servings of fruit of all varieties, which also functions as dessert after dinner. There is always a tray of cheeses, butter, olives, and preserves in the refrigerator, which I continue to have with pita bread for breakfast, like I did at the hotel my first morning here. In fact pita bread is a necessary part of every meal, the fork is often used only to scoop things into the pita bread, or is not used at all.

When I first met Haifa I thought that she might live alone. I could not be more wrong. There is also her husband, George, and their youngest daughter, Rasha. They have two other children living in Damascus, both married, one with two young kids, and they all visit several times a week. (Their eldest son is away studying opthamology in France.) There is their 'fifth daughter', Natalie, from Algeira, and three other girls living there, Katia and Sosan, and Mariam who has moved out and been replaced by an American grad student, Nicole. The neighbors also visit frequently, as do many other friends. Yet the house is large enough to handle all of this without feeling too crowded, and its really quite nice to have a social scene in one part of the house and my own private room in another. I can come and go from this as I like, there is never any sense that I am obligated to stay and socialize with guests until they leave.

The best part of this is that I am learning the local dialect whenever I spend time at home. Only a few there speak any English - Rasha, Katia and Sosan, and obviously Nicole - so I am forced to speak Arabic most of the time. Haifa and Natalie speak French almost as often as they do Arabic, so I'm picking some of that up too. Sometimes when I don't understand an Arabic word, they say it in French, and I'll understand it because it just sounds like the English equivalent with a French accent. Still, much of the time the converstaion leaves me behind in the linguistic dust. With that many people around, they can't always stop and explain things that I don't get. Certain topics have a vocabulary I don't know at all, and this can be very isolating. My best conversations are one-on-one. When there is a group, all I can do is sit and listen and try to get as much as I can.

All-in-all, a great place to live. I've heard some stories from other students in the program, and I think I'm very lucky. I will miss these people when I leave.

In upcoming entries: Palmyra, Maalula, Beirut, and of course, Damascus.