I'm wrapped in a double sleeping bag (there's a winter one inside the summer one), and my little hands and fingers on them are being warmed up by an infra red heater in my new dwelling. The temperatures here are abnormally low – yesterday morning the lowest was 1.7°C and today it is almost 7°C. Even in January, when the temperatures are at their lowest, I hear they normally never fall under 5°C. The houses here testify to that: windows with single glazing and lousy thermal insulation. The bathroom is also cold.Correction: FREEZING! After a month goes by I'm seriously considering moving into my car, where my diesel heater will maintain the perfect temperature throughout the night, in daytime I can study in the University or in a teahouse, and every couple of days I could get a shower at a schoolmate’s place. The price of an apartment is disproportionately high here: 250 USD for two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Translated into local circumstances: two average monthly salaries of a state official. In the centre you spend a 100 USD for a measly little room with lighting that will add to your dioptres in a month. At least that was all that was available when I came puffing to Damascus as the last one, because of a five-day delay owing to the Turkish fuel.
The prices here are funny for our conditions and average for theirs: the city bus (a Mazda as big as a Hyundai H100 or a Kia Pregio with around 15 passengers) 7 cents of a Euro, WIN XP Pro with SP2 80 cents, Norton AV 2005 80 cents, a fair-sized sandwich that keeps you going half a day 35 cents (the ones costing 60 cents are a rip-off), an SMS sent from the local operator costs a disgusting 30 cents (inside the country it's 15 cents), and petrol is, from what I remember from last year, the triple cost of diesel, that still only costs 10 cents. Imported products like juices, corn flakes etc. are more expensive than in Slovenia. An hour of internet access is 80 cents.
It's also interesting to reflect on the value of life. In an absolute global aspect. A pedestrian in the city is a nobody. I thought about it just yesterday, when I rushed around a curve at night and two souls, frightened for their lives, ran across the road, so I didn't have to change the lane. There are no pedestrian crossings, in the centre there are only overpasses, which doesn't mean that there isn't people, swarming all over the roadway, though. Since nobody pays attention to the lanes in three or four lane roads that also makes it hard if not impossible to struggle from one line to the other. All that means driving through the centre is pretty tiresome around three in the afternoon. But it's interesting that traffic never stops in the morning, despite the fact that there are hardly any traffic lights. The roundabouts and the cutting-in make the traffic fluent in the end.
About the value of life: 15,000 USD is the insurance sum of the compulsory insurance policy I took out on both of the vehicles (the premium of 30 USD/30 days) upon entering the country. Compare these figures to the one on your policy and to the hypothetical annual premium of 365 USD. There is no health insurance, health care is free-of-charge in state institutions, there is also private hospitals, but I imagine that's where only primitive individuals go, like the one who drove in front of me the first evening all over the town in a black Mercedes. He idiotically repeated a number of manoeuvres like U-turning and sudden changes of direction, all until I stopped in front of the state security figures, which is when he vanished in thin air. Homosexuals are locked in jail here, because “the society feels obliged to help them and cure them of their illness”. If they're persistent and repeat the crime, they simply go back behind bars (apparently after 30 days). Their perception is completely different from ours. I discussed the subject with educated and intelligent people who told me, if they had any say in it, they would lock them away for good. They don't believe God might have created people who were born with the above-mentioned habits.
A few days ago I went for an HIV test. To get the residence permit (sort of a long term visa) you need to submit a negative test result. I got the extension, you should know. This way they try to keep the infected percentage low. The biggest problem this moment is the Iraqi women refugees. Apparently something like that happened in Bosnia: you send drug dealers and HIV infected and you've practically erased an entire generation in the country, there's only few capable people left and they're just marionettes. The situation in Iraq is similar; AIDS is spreading, with the women refugees to Syria as well, which completes the “higher” scheme perfectly. On the other side there's also “professionals” coming back from the artificially created state southwest from Syria, who are also infected. According to the public opinion here, that's all thanks to their state security service. (I'm deliberately avoiding to mention that country as well as M*****o, because last year I had them searching through my website after mentioning the name of the nation who they were chasing away – and they still are, so they still search through my site automatically once a day.)
After I saw a health care institution from inside and at the sight of collapsing Kia Pregio cars and similar junk, which are helplessly trying to break through the city traffic jam with a red crescent on the sides and red lights on the roof, a thought occurred to me not to even use the KTM here. Unless I wrote the name of the best hospital in Damascus on my helmet, that is. (Excuse me, CORIS).
The thought passed as it came, though. Tomorrow the “weekend” begins, since the weekdays here are Sunday to Thursday, so the Adventure is finally going to get a taste of the field (by the way, so far I've only been tucked inside my sleeping bags stuffing myself – maybe I should replace the IR heater with push-ups), if it doesn't snow. Which is in the forecast!!! Of course, the entire neighbourhood knew what was hiding behind the walls of my garden within about an hour of my moving in, so tomorrow I'll have to go for a couple of rides around the neighbourhood. About the value of life: of course nobody has a helmet, of course nobody has protectors, of course nobody knows me or my experience, but still they're more than happy to jump on the back seat. I hope it's cold and they ask me to stop. Before they start doing any monkey business above the back wheel while we’re passing their cousin or neighbour.
Of course there are a lot of things that disturb me, but I have to get used to a different way of life and perception of the surroundings and it'll be okay. There are a lot of good things also and they outweigh. I'm talking mostly about friendly people, the smiles on their faces and their willingness to help. Even if it means smearing their Sunday best while giving my trailer a push. And it's their plainness and their readiness to help that leaves me with a bitter taste. To know that I come from a country where we get everything served on a platter, without having to make much of an effort. And on the other side there are many people who make a considerable effort and still have no hope whatsoever of a better life. The motorbike like the ones from TV, which appeared live in the neighbourhood, which doesn't break down and has all the lights working and even an electro starter, one which they can hear and even sit on, has become one of the main subjects of conversation these days.
I got a little carried away... I promise my future writings will be more optimistic. Maybe I've been affected by the depressing weather.
While I'm waiting for an available LAN cable, I'm watching a taxi (I think it's a fancy Dacia), who's driving up and down the street, with “gangsta” dark-blue neon lights which illuminate the inside of the vehicle, and through four opened windows, over very hip elbows, there's Arabic rap spreading joy to people, while instead of headlights there's silver diodes flashing left and right alternately. How very cool!
Translation from Slovenian:
Maja Simeonov