Holidays
16.12.2004 | Damascus, Syria
Today we finished the November-December course and I started putting my things together, because tomorrow or the day after I'm finally going to the coast to warm up my bones (today it was 2°C in the morning) and ride the KTM in the dust of the Wadi Rama sandbox.
Skiing in Lebanon
12.12.2004 | Faraya Mzaar ski resort, Lebabon
It's dark outside and we're climbing towards a ski centre at 2000 metres of altitude. The melody coming out from the throat of the Lebanese singer Majida Rumi is filling the inside of the car through cables that are sticking out of everywhere. The wipers are smearing the occasional snowfalls to the windscreen of an old Mercedes that jerks every time when shifting from second to third gear going uphill.
“It's going to be cloudy tomorrow,” says Ghanim, and takes a lady that was standing alongside the road inside my private cab.
“Women aren't supposed to stand alongside the road at night, that's why I took her in.” Of course she pays for the ride after a couple of kilometres, when she gets out.
This machine isn't meant for the city!
6.12.2004 | Damascus, Syria
One of the advantages of the kickstand of the bike is that you're able to sunbathe - I've even fallen asleep on it - or you can watch the stars in the clear, cloudless sky. There's darkness all around, I feel the horizon somewhere far in front of me, where two equally dark worlds meet - the dwellings of falcons and the desert mice. Silence. There's only a gentle breeze singing around my ears and foretelling the oncoming cold. And the distant noise of an aeroplane - third in the line of blinking lights - that is getting lost somewhere far on the left, under the rising Orion. Where is it headed? Where are all the crews on another routine journey flying to, where did they take off from, are they munching on their sandwiches and sipping their coffee yet? Syrian, Indian, Royal Jordanian... Emirates? The Casio points 115° from the true north. Baghdad? No, not that. Tehran? Madinatu Kuwait? It's getting chilly. There goes another silver bird above me.
Volunteers run
1.12.2004 | Damascus, Syria
Friday morning we're supposed to run a mini marathon (4 km) to promote voluntarism in Syria (I imagine they don't know what that means here). Friday with Muslims is equal to our (Lord's) Sunday, while Saturday in Syria is like ours. The very staunch Muslim countries like Libya and the United Arab Emirates, and probably Iran as well, have Thursday and Friday off in order to have enough time for preparations for Friday midday prayer, the most important one in the week. And Friday at eight in the morning we're supposed to run on the streets of Damascus. (Half an hour later the outside temperature is about 7°C.) And after, like two British girls from the English Department enthusiastically promoted, we're going directly to a party, all sweaty and out of breath, where we'll mingle with the locals (they’re searching for promotion victims among them as well). That's probably a good thing also because otherwise it's hard to find locals.
No girls
28.11.2004 | Damascus, Syria
Nothing new in Damascus today and yesterday, except for a horrifying traffic jam on the way home from the university. It's the first weekday so it took me more than an hour for the road that usually takes fifteen minutes.