Shades of Rockwell shine through as a backpacker gets a shave–one of many Middle Eastern grooming traditions for males.
Dorm bed at the Haramain Hotel, a centuries-year old home in Damascus.
Mother and children stroll the gritty souk of Aleppo, Syria on market day.
Well, almost colorless. . .this shabby facade, part Hollywood haunted house and part soda-shop-wafer, was everywhere in Aleppo.
At the Al Gawaher Hotel in Aleppo, Syria, we spent nine days (and Christmas) recovering from the past three couchsurfing episodes. In this city, when not gazing at its black-wafer-cookie-architecture, authentic bazaar, frequent stares and intimidating citadel-with-moat, we sat in our 50 degree room and enjoyed an Arabian network of satelite television, including four English-speaking channels! Pure gluttony with CNN, Seinfeld, Rocky and dumb Christmas movies followed. Anything to remind us of America.
But sitting in the heated (!) lobby on our very first day was what did me in. We caught a special on American football, a special which by some miracle had chosen to focus on a team called the Denver Broncos and present a photo-music montage (code for tearjerker) of 1995 Super Bowl clips as Cher sang the national anthem.It was quite a moment.
Thanks to fellow travelers, we are sometimes grimly reminded of America’s downfalls. We get shit for our fast-food, our “fake football”, our allegedly difficult border patrol, No Child Left Behind test-score-obsessed teachers, tawdry exports like Brittany Spears. . .and of course, Bush.
Yet, still. Despite ALL of that, what we most often find ourselves saying is: You know, America’s not such a bad place after all.
(I know the title sounds like a Country Music Telelvision Countdown Contender, but bear with me.)Black-hooded women, not a speck of face-skin to be seen, scurried toward home, in groups of three along the littered streets. On the main avenue, smoke rose from a schwarma stand, hovering above the gingham, picnic-table-patterned heads of moustached, Muslim men. While CNN had always painted those Arab-symbolizing scarves flowing freely in the sun, tonight they were wound tightly, more like turbans, to battle the winter wind. The whining violins of an Arabic tune were never quite out of earshot. The few palm trees now made claw-like shadows on the street and the racks of pashminas were put away for the night.It was 10:57 PM on Christmas Eve and we were on our way to “midnight mass” at the Latin Church of Aleppo, Syria. We were well-acclimated by now, and although we didn’t dare hold hands in public, there was no real threat in the air. Earlier that day we’d found the Christian Quarter, a maze of alleys with the black Braille-looking doors of a dungeon and multiple churches–one for Orthodox Greeks, one for Latin Catholics, one for Armenian Orthodox, one for Maronites, even others. A whole quarter for us?
I was prepared for a calm, reflective visit–with Christians only 11% of the population, how many could be at midnight mass? But peaceful was not what the universe had in mind. The cathedral was so packed we could barely make it in the door and having been misinformed, we arrived just in time for communion. But we took our place in the mobbed line, gazing at the creamy walls, ballroom chandeliers, understated crucifix, soft paintings and positively beautiful people. All obviously arriving straight from the salon, Christian Syrian women, no matter their age, were highlighted, styled, eyelinered, manicured and pocketbooked to near perfection, wearing an odd, but beautiful mix of class and bling–obviously without a headscarf in sight. The men, as we’d come to expect, were quaffed.
Not until this moment on our trip had we been so conspicuously so out of place and so clearly underdressed. But we couldn’t dwell. I simply vowed never to look down on a casually dressed church-goer ever again and swallowed the body of Christ, facing the stares with a soft smile on my way to the back of the church.The service was in Arabic, but we could sense the rhythms and syllables of a familiar verse here and there. We sang Go Tell It On the Mountain in our own words and Oh Come All Ye Faithful, too, before sinking into a pew for some prayer.Here we were. In Syria. With a whole cathedral full of familiarity to bring us back home.I’ve always believed that no matter which higher power I end up worshipping, Catholicism has provided a wonderful platform from which to leap. Or stand on. Or take a rest upon. When I speak with someone who grew up without religion–with nothing to. . .come back to, to, I am instantly grateful.It’s been foreshadowed, in one way or another, that I might someday return to Catholicism. While I’m not yet certain of that, tonight, I had a greater appreciation than ever before of what I’d been given as a child. Something very concrete, or perhaps sometimes more like marble or stone, to hold on to.
