Shireen studies English literature. She's in the second year and her English is more or less at grammar school level. But she's a very nice young girl, wearing – would you believe it? – white boots and a tight mini skirt that makes walking through a door behind her close to indecent. Me and Alexander sat down with her one day after the course in the cafeteria – we were invited to sit down by a friend of Alexander's, who's in his final year of English literature studies. Of course, the conversation led to the prohibition of accepting guests of the opposite sex in the apartment and the moment came when we had to clearly define and explain the difference between “girlfriend” and “female friend”.Of course the sweet Shireen didn't know the words “female” and “male”, so I briefly, without loosing much time, explained it to her that in the animal world “male” is everything that has something dangling between their legs most of the time, and “female” are the creatures that lack that same gadget. She didn't quite understand, so Alexander, who has been living in Damascus since August and is linguistically better versed than myself, said it straight out in Arabic. He used the word penis or dick, he's not quite sure what he said. So the girl blushed, stood up with a smile tinged with shock and started putting her things together. It was only with the help of my charm that I managed to convince her to sit back and understand that the Norwegian cripple doesn't know how to use her mother tongue. The whole table, consisting of all “males”, was embarrassed, but we continued discussing the subject a more discreetly. Looks like everybody's first thought here is sex. If I get a female visitor and she stays at my place, we're inevitably going to have sex. And if, say Alexander, crashed at my place, apparently we wouldn't do that. Weirdoes. I imagine it's constantly on their mind, because it isn't there in practice. At this point I return to the subject, even though I talked about it before, because you see it at every step – in timid giggling of girls, covered to their eyes and chins and in lustful smiles of their contemporaries.
Yet, we later asked a guy about it: “Hey, do you... you know...?” He looked around, lowered his voice and said: “Yes, I have a girl, who I have sex with. We arranged to have sex this afternoon (wide smile). But nobody knows about it, not even our friends, because they'd surely blabber it out and what if the word got out and my father, or – even worse – her father found out?! They'd immediately disown her. If it was up to me, we'd get married right away, but I'm a Sunni and she's a Shiite, so there's no way. We'll never be married.” He was about to get into details about positions, but we thanked him for his explanation and told him we weren't really interested in his gymnastic exploits.
I think I gave you enough material for your own reflection on the subject and comments aren't needed. In Syria you get alcohol without a problem, in shops as well as bars, where mostly foreigners go, the consumption is usually in a moderate level behind closed doors of private parties. If you want to drink, you bring a bottle with you and while others are sipping apple juice and tea from their bottles, and the ones who'd like something sharper have a coke, you can have your Johnny Walker. And if you leave any, you put it in your pocket and take it back home. I did, however, see a local in a western-like bar, who wanted to climb over the bar and was calling the personnel names after emptying half a large pint of beer so everybody gathered in front of him, lightning flashing from their eyes, while security guard tried to get him to sit back to his chair on the other side. It was a weekday and there were locals all around, all shocked. I was the only one who was relaxed and watched with interest, while crunching on my popcorn and pistachios that you get with your drink in the Spanish “tapas” style. It all seemed so familiar.
Translation from Slovenian:
Maja Simeonov