What an Intersting Week I've Had

In the past seven days Chris and I have been all around the Syrian countryside, visited two castles, seen many ancient ruins, been offered the sales of antiquities, and viewed a Pro-Syrian government demonstration in the middle of town.

Because of our teacher's hollidays we had two days off during the middle of the week in which we decided to travel to Hama. It has been in the news at home sporadically, but Hama was home to a massacre some years ago. The only thing noticable from then was that Hama was the cleanest city in Syria, it's aquaducts had been rebuilt in places (blown up), and one of it's water wheels was reconstructed (also blown up). The city, in general, was very nice and made an excellent outpost to make journeys for the next two days.

On the first day we visited Assassin's Castle, and Night's Castle (Crac de Chevalier). Apparently the word assassin is the name of a Shiite clan that would roam the area finding and killing Sunni's. The castle was a nice fortress located high on a plain with nice defenses. The coolest things about castles here is they were continually deffended and attacked. Chris said that many of the coolest castles in England were never attacked so nobody knows how well they were designed or built. These things were attacked many times and even today they are still standing in really good condition.

Crac de chevalier was the most amazing castle I have ever seen. It was high on a hill, with a wall that was had only two entrances. The main entrance was followed by stables and defenses internally, while the secondary entrance was probably a service entrance that led into the main stores and kitchen areas. It was soo cool I just geeked out and took tons of pictures. Some pictures were of fossils and geodes in the actual foundation rocks. All around it was the coolest thing I have ever seen.

The second day we worked our way through Apomea (Sp?), and two of the many dead cities that are all over central Syria. Apomea would be Palmyra if it was never discovered. The ruins are just sitting in an open field with most of it's area not even dug up and studied. I guess it was a travel and trade center and it's columns stretch over a kilometer in length. There are many half dug ruins and many clay pipes laying about from what I would assume to be a massive water system. The area all around the main columns is farmed and plowed. Everywhere there is scattered clay pieces of destroyed history. Mounds that are grown over just waiting to be dug up and studied. It's sad to see such an amazing historical sight just getting wrecked with every pass of the plow. On the flip side, since nobody wants to come to Syria, most of the sights are amazingly in tact. There were locals there that dig through the plowed fields and ruins looking for things to sell foreigners. We were offered Greek, Roman, and Byzantium copper coins, silver coins, clay sculptures, and other antiquities that belonged in a museum and not some tourists pocket. I don't believe in taking things from ancient sights unless they are going to be preserved for the greater good. Maybe I will buy some things and donate them to a museum. The government doesn't put any money into tourism, if they did they would have a boom economy...just after they made some political reforms :)

The dead cities were also amazingly well kept with animals grazing in them and people living near, and sometimes in, the ancient ruins. Most were Roman or Byzantine cities that were abandoned after earthquakes or destroyed all together. They are an amazing example of period construction and planning. Again they should be cataloged and preserved not left to rot. In villages nearby random pieces of Roman columns have been used to build stone walls and other things. The rocks are scattered everywhere.

After being back at school for a day we were notified that Thursday was a half-day due to the government using buses and closing roads for people to come and demonstrate in a Pro-Syria rally downtown. We stayed and played basketball at school, and by the time we left to go home the roads had been blocked. We took a microbus the long way home getting off downtown right in the middle of the demonstration. An interesting mix of the different political groups and ages of support showed up for the demonstration. There were plenty of village kids in their early teens to early twenties. College men and women marching with flags of "God, Syria, Bashar, Baath" ...at least the order of importance isn't as scary as it could be. It was a very peaceful, well organized demonstration that had fluid movement of people coming and going. Chris and I figured today there were between five and ten thousand people in attendance, maybe more but not by much. The organized groups marched on the square, chanted and left. The villagers that had nothing better to do just hung around. In Syria they are the class equivelent of what the British call commoners and what Americans call hicks. To my observation the more educated younger people were in organized groups supporting an idea, and the villagers just showed up because it was something to do. After we got home and changed out of our sweaty clothes we went back and took a few pictures. Someone had hung a giant banner saying something like " we don't like Bosh, the American people are not the ruling administration." It was poorly worded and misspelled but you get the idea. I have a nice picture and will whip it out on anyone that wants to argue about Syrian people. We met some guys from one of the socialist groups and chatted with them for a while before we drew too much attention from the bored villagers and had our crowd broken up by the police. Actually it was amusing...in Arabic I aplogized to the police officer and Chris told him we were all friends. He looked at us like we were on crack and just backed away. After that we figured we should walk out, so we walked off through the park and went downtown for a while until the square could cool down. Everywhere you go you will find intelligent well spoken people with whom you can have a conversation with, and ignorant punks that have no respect or manners. Some of the villagers were tapping us on the shoulder while we were talking to the other guys and one jackass poked me in the ass (I guess 'cause my long hair). He did it again and I snatched his fingers up and nearly broke them in half. He cowarded down and hid as I stared down every person behind me with his twisted fingers held up and stared them down. Chris had a similar experience with some tapping and poking, and Ben was shuffled our of the circle within a few minutes. Chris and I decided that if we didn't stand up to those stupid fucks we wouldn't have been able to have the conversations we wanted with the people we wanted. All things considered we were in a square full of cops and army guys, but nonetheless I get pissed off anytime anyone shows an ignorant misjudgement in manners.

After drinking a few beers and deciding we were stupid, (Chris thought it was brilliant, but no one was poking him in the ass) we made our way home. That night, last night, I purchased my tickets to come home for nine days and it has been on my mind ever since. I fly home in almost a week and I am psyched to go there. I hope everyone fights mismannered punks in the same death defying dilligence that I have :) On that note I am going home to poke Chris in the ass!

Hoorah Teachers Day!

On Monday it is National Teacher's Day. There's a great idea; a day to celebrate teachers in society. Do we have one of those at home? I think it is called "Winter Break." Anyway, our school threw us a party at a really swank restaraunt last night that went until about three in the morning. Chris and I only lasted 'til about one-thirty since we arrived ON-TIME with the other westerners and the rest of the staff came between one and two hours late.

Yesterday we had a competition for the middle school that was called "Master Minds." There were three groups of four teams that competed in rounds to score the most points relating to educational and trivia questions. The top four teams competed for first place, and the first through third teams won trophies. It was all done really well except for the gramatical errors, and random indescrepancies in questions that only the westerners seemed to notice. We were in the back making bets with each other on the questions. All errors aside it went off really well and the kids LOVED the competition.

On Wednesday of this week the teachers played the middle school kids in a game of basketball. The westerners (like with all things)had fun and passed the ball around, while the Syrians were really serious and only thought about winning. One of the Syrians was running over the kids driving to the basket. None of the kids or teachers seems to know anything about teamwork when it comes to sports. We won but not by very much, and nobody really cared except the Syrians. The teachers are giong to start playing B-Ball every Wednesday after school. I hope we can keep it fun. As any of my friends and family know I can be super competitive but there is a time and place. Playing a bunch of kids is neither the time nor place. Hopefully we can rub off some teamwork on our co-workers the same way we try with our students.

I felt after the game for the first time that I belonged to a community here. We were all having fun and somewhat working together with the kids. Even at the party last night I felt the same thing, but after a short while I also felt more out of place than I had ever before. I know everyone, danced some, at the food, smoked a 'nargileh, but I really noticed how out of place I felt. The food is good but it isn't my food. The music sucks and it deffinitely isn't my music. The people are my co-workers, but very little effort has been made to make them my friends. I realized that no effort has been made to make us feel welcome as westerners, or has any effort been made to make this place more western. Everything stays the same. The curriculum at school has been modified to be more Syrian. No western food, music, ideas or classroom techniques are really tolerated. The only thing western here is the style of clothes, and the desire for modern social status via the purchase of a really expensive phone that really doesn't get used for anything. Last night made me realize that we are making all the changes to ourselves, our classrooms, and abilities to accomodate to the Syrian style. I left the party last night slightly annoyed becuase this has been the first time averything sank in at the same time. People ask why I don't want to come back next year and they don't understand why I start laughing. Well lets see: I can't teach the way I wan't because the school won't back me up as a teacher, I have no resources in or out of class for teaching, I have no way to learn more about teaching or anything else for that matter while I am here, I am not religious which removes me from both sides of the dating pool in Syria, I can't have many friends because not very many people speak English and, out of the ones that do, very few of them are educated to a level that I would enjoy speaking to them. I have nothing in common with ninety-nine percent of the people here, I don't care about wealth or money, I can't hang out with girls without their family or friends being involved. Basically this is the opposite of every place I have ever been and the only redeeming quality is the people here are probably the friendliest people in the Middle East. So with only one good quality in the pro's box people usually slink away hating their own country after we have that conversation. "You asked!"

Today Chris and I intend on kicking a football around and reading some, and later tonight we will shop and cook. Our lives are very regimented now with the missing link always being activity. Our school days are set with teaching football, playing football, now playing basketball, on Sundays staying home, and and Thursdays going somewhere for the weekend. During the day we plan, teach, grade papers, and now we have managed to get arabic lessons three times a week. We are in Kindergarten! Our kids think it is hilarious and we get ribbed every time we come from a class and the kids see what book we are using. Kids love to make fun of the teacher at any chance.

Politically it is the same as the first day I came. Nobody is worried about Lebannon. No one here believes Syria would bomb Hariri, but people are worried about the unemployment rate going up once the military is pulled out of Lebannon. The country gives a facade of jobs by having a large military. Even though these guys don't make shit and are forced into service, it keeps Syria looking like they have more jobs than they actually do. Honestly a non-partisan country needs to keep offering the olive branch to the president to help guide political and economic reform. It would never be accepted by Syrians if one of the western powers tried to intervene - we already have a bad rap for Iraq. If someone new and out of the picture came in and started talks about investment into the economy and political reforms I think the people would be more open. You have to understand that the average Syrian isn't that educated, believes what he reads in the party papers, and is very religious. Just like the lowest common denominator in every country. You need to appeal to them. That is why religious leaders are so popular. It's why Bush got re-elected. People don't want to think about stuff, they want someone to tell them God loves them, they are going to Heaven, and everything will be ok as long as that person is in control. This place is too secular for a religious leader, much like Lebannon, and needs to find a way of true group representation. People love the president but resent the party and the Alawi. For years the party and the head family have been skimming the top and keeping power at the cost of the common man. If you ask they will fight any forces that come into their country. They want to originate the change but they don't know how. Most would accept mediation from a third party with Arab people doing the lions share. This is something I discuss with so many people rich and poor. The common belief is the party is needed, but also needed to be reformed. The government is needed but needed to reform. They believe in their country and themselves, and are wanting reform. Then again many are worried about food at the bottom, and when they are going to be shown in the latest society magazine at the top. No matter what, I still believe people shouldn't be forced to change but should work for the change in their own way, and only helped when asked by a legitimate majority.

Hope all is well in the western world. Boys and girls intermingle for me :)