Monday, 25 August 2003 Arneh, Syria
80 degrees, SUNNY!

Wake up around 9:30, and hang out on the porch. Despite the fresh mountain air, I didn't sleep a wink last night. It was because of the utter quiet. Not a sound. Not a cricket, not a bird, nothing. No sirens, car crashes, 'el trains or belching buses. I missed the noise! Something smells delicious, though . . . .

Soon it's time to eat kishk, a delicious Druze breakfast soup. It's sort of milky potato soup with lamb in it - very lemony and tangy - with ripped up pieces of pita bread added. Middle Eastern food is not for the calorie conscious, this is in evidence by all the weight everyone has gained since last year - not a good thing at all. Hussein's wife, Malek, works non stop cleaning, cooking and mopping the place after she's cleared all the breakfast dishes. I try to help, but it seems I've got the double whammy of foreigner AND guest, and therefore don't need to do any work. Plus, Malek has everything under control.

Despite the swarm of bees that's buzzing all over the kitchen.

On to my next plan of napping and reading. Naeif is feeling healthy again today, and so everyone gets a chance to catch up with him. They're speaking in rapid fire Arabic anyway, between bouts of staring at me for what reason - I don't know. Naeif says it's because they want to talk to me, but can't speak English well enough. Needless to say, my Arabic is not up to par past a few basic words and phrases. This goes on for a few hours - reading and being stared at. Napping and being stared at.

Finally, it's time to "go into town", to the tiny village of Arneh, to get some vegetables and food. This town has grown even since I was here last year. Maybe it's because of Syria's extremely high birth rate - which the government has now stepped in and suggested a limit of three children. A new madrasa (school), many new stores and homes. This is almost exclusively a Druze community, so you hear no calls to prayer, and there are no mosques or churches.

We cruise around in Hussein's van and stop at a couple of Naeif's relative's house. His aunt and uncle, dressed in traditional Druze attire have a spectacular villa, with a terrace complete with overhanging grape arbor. Three birdcages hang from the arbor, and there are grapes everywhere, and flowers. It's really gorgeous - a house like this in Chicago would be worth millions. Well, there are no houses like this in Chicago. Naeif's aunt and uncle seem pretty pleased that I'm so openly adoring of their house, and his aunt gives me an armful of handmade Druze bread and invites me to enjoy her scented verbena plant growing on the terrace. Then, the Arabic coffee comes out and dishes of grapes. Ah, this is the life!

The fruit tastes about a thousand percent better than the wooden stuff we have in the US. We're picking it right off the trees here, you don't find that in Chicago. Grapes, nectarines, figs, apples, pears and cherries all grow on the trees here.

The Druze traditional dress is all black and white. For the men, a black shirt with a white keffiyah (big scarf) which is worn sort of like a turban when they are in the fields, working. Many of them, and almost all of the older Druze men have mustaches, with varying degrees of flamboyancy. Some men wear a small white skullcap with a small pompom on top. Their pants are voluminous Zouave pants, worn with black boots. The women wear black dresses, a blouse with a very full skirt. They have white rectangular scarves which they wear in all sorts of different configurations on their head or over their face. There is no need to veil their face and hair in the Muslim custom, but many women do when they are working - to keep out the dust, no doubt, driven by practicality more than religious fervor.

The Druze are a very secretive sect. Derived from the Ismalis, a Shi'ite sect, they are very clannish. It is impossibly to "marry" into the Druze faith, and you cannot convert. Druze marry other Druze - except for the men, who may marry whomever they wish. Women can marry who they wish too, even non-Druze, but that almost never happens in Syria. To read more about the Druze, you can start with the American Druze Society at www.ads.org.

From where I'm standing, the Druze are the greatest. An invitation in to their consistently spotless, elegant homes brings out the Arabic coffee, tea and fruit and lots of visiting. Naeif translates for me that I think the aunt and uncle's house is just great and they seem pretty pleased by that. I bet I could stay there and sit on that terrace for a week, eating grapes, and they'd both be pretty happy about it. As we leave, they give us a big bottle of homemade apple cider vinegar - I sample it, and can report it's delicious. But then, I love vinegar. The "handshake with relilgious man" (see August 22 entry) story comes out again several times here, and everyone gets a huge kick out of it.

After that, we visit another uncle and have some nectarines, just picked, and sit on another beautiful terrace. Then, it's time to head back to the house, but first we see - Nizar! Naeif's second oldest brother married a woman, Amale ("Hope"), from Arneh who he spotted at a wedding the family attended. Nizar is great - I get lots of laughs from this family by imitating his exuberant "Ai-WAH!" (sort of like "hooray!"). He follows us back to the house, and it's time to hang out on our own terrace before dinner.

Dinner is an immense plate of rice - Syrian couscous - with pieces of chicken, and a tomato - cucumber salad, with the homemade apple cider vinegar. So simple, so delicious. We attack the chicken and rice with our spoons and devour it. No worries about serving spoons, we all eat from the same giant plate. After dinner, the kids bring out a tabla, and start playing a debke tape - probably hoping I'll bust out with the dancing as I did last visit. However, my stomach is still recovering, and I remain uncharacteristically still.

What I do accomplish is "Erika's Cleanup Project." It seems, since my last visit, that a lot of waste paper, tissues, etc., has simply been thrown over the porch railing or shoved in a nearby bush - to what, disappear? I'm horrified by this - even the bathroom garbage is handled in this way - it's dirty. I seem to assume a supervisory role, while Naeif and all the boys attack the ground with various inappropriate tools - a shovel, a hoe, a pick - there is no rake. It seems to do the trick, though, and we collect enormous bags of litter and burn it all by pouring diesel over it. Hey, when in Syria . . . at least the bees beat feet out of there.

After that, the drive back to Damascus. We stop at a cute little park along a stream. Thermoses are filled from the stream for drinking water, but I decline the offer of a sip. I drank from this stream when I was here last February, but I think the water might have been running over a few more things, the snow on the water having melted all summer. I notice, to my dismay, trash everywhere, and many plastic bags clinging to the brush. Syrians need to be gently reminded to stop littering their gorgeous country.

Once home, it's time for a shower. Naeif and I head off to visit his friend Wessam, sit on his terrace and have a few beers. A few more people join us - Wessam's brothers and a new baby or two. Wessams sister joins us, she speaks some English, and Naeif later informs me that he was almost engaged to her. Ah, intrigue and drama in Jaramana and a peek at the crazy "arrajnabe" (foreigner) that Naeif married.

Around 1 AM we call it a night, and walk thru the streets of Jaramana - some shops are still open.