Homs, Syria
My experience in Homs is one that I will never, ever forget.
There are times when one lives in the Middle East where everything is frustrating, nothing works out as planned, and you just want to be anywhere else. At that moment, almost without fail, you'll have an experience that makes you want to be nowhere except in the Middle East. Homs was that experience for me.
We arrived with the intention of visiting Krek des Chevaliers, supposedly one of the greatest castles in the world, and which lies only about 15 minutes outside of the town of Homs, from where I would grab a bus back to Beirut for my flight the following evening, and Kate and Mikey would continue on their trip to Aleppo. However, as soon as we got to the bus station, it began to rain. Hard.
Wandering around aimlessly, we saw an oasis, and its name was "Break Time." As we entered the restaurant, a man approached us and said in English, "Hi, can I help you?"
"Yes, this is a restaurant, right? Is it open?" I said.
"Yes, we are open. I am Rabeah, this is my restaurant. You are from America?" He asked.
"Yes, we are Americans."
"I used to live in California. I graduated from UCLA in 1990." He said.
In one of those "gee, it's a small world" moments, Kate and Mikey both informed him that they, too, were from California, and also were students at UCLA.
He invited us into his restaurant, and took our orders, then disappeared to go and grab coffee.
He returned, and we all began chatting.
Rabeah is amazing. Saudi by origin, he went to the states to study Aviation to be a pilot. He told us a great story of his experience there.
He had met a girl, named Mary, and wanted more than anything to date her. He tried and tried, not knowing much English at this point in his life, and Mary said she would go out with him, but that they would go to Church together.
He didn't care, he just wanted to spend time with Mary, wherever that might be. He agreed. He sat through the service, obviously not understanding much on account of the language barrier and his own religion as a Muslim. He asked Mary out again, and again she proposed that they go to church together.
This continued on for some time, a couple of months, until one day he found himself in a very sticky situation.
Mary and he had gone to church, again, but this time, something was different. Rabeah was in the front of the church, seated; Mary was standing by his side, and there was a man standing to his other side, with a bowl of water in his hand, reciting something.
"I began to grow very nervous," Rabeah said, "and began reciting our creed in Islam, rapidly, over and over. 'There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet. There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet. There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet.' "
"The man poured the water over my head, and afterwards Mary told me, 'Congratulations, you are now a new-born Christian!' " Rabeah could not believe his ears.
Anyways, Rabeah enjoyed chatting with us so much that he introduced us to a couple of his friends, one of whom was the manager of the taxi stand/bus station place in Homs and also in charge of the secret police in Homs...
We joined them with our lunches, and they inquired about our remaining plans in Syria. I told Jihad, the taxi-stand cop, that I needed to return to Beirut the following day for a flight, and that Kate and Mikey would continue on to Aleppo. Not only then did Jihad offer to pay for our transportation to our next locations (since he is the manager of the taxis in town...), but also offered to let us stay in his extra apartment in town for the night!
This is the Middle East. This man had known us for a total of maaaybe an hour before offering us his home. As I sat there with Kate, Mikey, Rabeah, and Jihad, I thought how small our world is, how many different variables had to coincide and manifest exactly as they did in order for us to be in that situation. In America, can you imagine inviting someone to stay in your home after chatting with them over dinner at a restaurant for an hour? It's unheard of.
We accepted his invitation, and finished our meal talking about life in Syria, and what they thought about it. Of course, we did not pay for our meal.
Afterwards Rabeah introduced me to Mansour, an American and Syrian citizen, whose mother raised him in the States, but who had moved back to Syria with his mother once he graduated from school. When I asked him for his opinion on both places, he told me how he much preferred Syria.
"We are very lucky here," Mansour said, lighting a cigarette. "Life is good, I am surrounded by great people who are here for me. We make good money. Actually, you in America, you don't save. You are constantly working, working, working, and have no time to enjoy what you already have. There is pressure to constantly achieve more. Then your financial woes swallow you whole, and your life passes you by."
I have to say, I couldn't agree more.
He continued, "The Arabs don't make decisions based on rationality. They think with emotion. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. You in America, your decisions are largely based on rationality, but that cannot account for everything. It's the people in your lives that make all the difference, and if these relationships are rational only, then you are missing out on a huge part of life. At the same time, because we are such an emotional people, sometimes we
After meeting these folks, Rabeah decided to take us on a tour of the places he had started, which were all in the same general complex as the restaurant. It became very clear very quickly that we had, by total coincidence, run into the elite of the elite in Syria. Rabeah was obviously a multi-millionaire, both on account of his inheritance from his father, and his own individual entrepreneurial endeavors. And he had just introduced us to his friends, who were clearly in positions of power in this small town.
We had stopped at the restaurant to find out where we would stay, and how we would get to our next destinations. Both questions were answered, at Break Time. Not only that, but I had met the most fascinating people of my entire trip. Life was good.
I had read about Syrian hospitality in the guide book that I brought with me on this trip, and I sort of shrugged it off, thinking I knew what they meant having lived in Cairo. But this was truly unlike anything I had ever seen.
Our tour included a wedding recital hall, which was beautiful, a store of imported products which was obviously doing quite well, and the bus station which had buses to Saudi Arabia every morning. We met all of the managers in turn, awkwardly being introduced as his "friends from America." It was a great evening, but we were getting tired.
We were invited into Jihad's office for one last cup of coffee, and to decide the schedule for the following day. Jihad tried his best to convince us to go to the apartment now, sleep for a while, and then go out to a nice restaurant/night-club with him and Rabeah around 2 am. We had to politely decline. We had been up since 5 am to go and see Palmyra that morning, and really wanted to just lay low and go to sleep.
So, it was decided. We got in a car with Jihad, and he drove us to his "extra" apartment in Homs (he has one apartment for "him and madame", and then another apartment for him and his "habibi"...). We arrived around 9 o'clock in the evening, totally exhausted, to find that the hot water was not working.
We insisted, please, it's no problem, you've been so generous already...but there was no convincing Jihad. For the next two hours he, myself, and a repair man struggled to find the source of the problem with the hot water, and finally succeeded. We would have our first hot shower in probably about a week.
Meanwhile, Kate and Mikey, not speaking much Arabic, struggled for conversation with Jihad's driver in the living room. They had been watching TV, and Mikey would comment, "There are many channels!"
"Yes, there are..." the driver commented, probably thinking him a little slow. That had to have been a very long two hours for both parties.
After finally getting everything settled, Jihad handed me the key, and said that he would pick us up here again at 10 am the next morning, when we would part ways and I would head back home to Cairo, through Beirut.
The three of us sat in awe of what had just happened. What a wild experience. Then we quickly drifted off to sleep...
In the morning, sure enough, they greeted us at the door, made coffee at the apartment, and then we made our way back into town to Jihad's office from where we would get our taxis.
Rabeah greeted us there, and we all exchanged phone numbers, in the event that we made it back to Syria (which I most certainly intend on doing...), and also because he mentioned that he would be coming into Cairo in about two weeks, and intended to meet up with us there. We also had gotten the contact information for everyone else that we met that evening, email addresses and cell phone numbers, so that we could keep in touch.
And that was it, I got into my Mercedes taxi, and left Kate and Mikey behind to their plans in Aleppo. Rabeah, Jihad, and Mansour I consider to be good friends of mine. They are great people, and I certainly do hope that we keep in touch.
Now, the drive back into Lebanon was not nearly as smooth as expected. I was pretty much broke at this point, which was why it was soooo particularly fortuitous that I had been offered free lodging and transportation. We stopped to pick up an older Lebanese couple in Syria, before crossing the border.
They were a very interesting couple. Lebanese by origin, but had lived in Canada (during the war of 2006 in Lebanon), and had now settled in Syria. Following the normal agenda with meeting people of Middle Eastern descent, the conversation between us started with their amazement that a white American (of all things) could speak Arabic. Naturally, they were interested in my story and what I was doing in the Middle East.
I told them how I was to be doing research in Islamic Philosophy (Ibn Sina in particular), how I lived in Cairo, and had just finished an intensive semester of Arabic language studies at the American University in Cairo.
He asked the driver to stop for a coffee break along the way, and then told me that he had met a girl in Canada who wanted to study Arabic in the Middle East, and couldn't decide among Cairo, Damascus, and Beirut. He promised to look into which of these choices would be best, and wanted to pick my brain about my experiences.
I looked at the clock...a coffee break? My flight was leaving at 5:30 pm, and it was about 3:00 pm....but, it seemed as though they were determined to do this, so I played along.
Now, the taxi driver had paid for my exit fee from Syria just to speed up the process, and when we stopped for coffee, I asked him how much I owed him for that.
"Well, it was 5,000 Lira for the border fee, but then you have my taxi fare, too..." He told me.
"No, no, no, this is on Jihad's tab, he told you that at the station," I answered.
"No, he never said anything like that. You owe me money!"
Shit.
I had some Egyptian pounds that I was saving for my cab ride home in Cairo, but I handed them over (even though I KNEW that Jihad had arranged for my free travel). I was now almost ENTIRELY broke, having a couple of dollars, which would be enough for a public bus from the station in Beirut to the airport.
I continued to talk to the old Lebanese man in the cab, telling him about my goals of increasing understanding between the "West" and the "East" (whatever that might be defined to be...). But I was getting nervous. We were still not in Beirut, and it was almost 4 o'clock.
We finally arrived at the station in Beirut, and I was frantic. It was 4:30, and my plane was slated to leave in an hour. I knew a public bus would make many stops, and I would probably miss my flight. I was talking to a couple of drivers negotiating possible prices for a private taxi, when the old Lebanese man walked up to me, and handed me 10 American dollars.
"Here, you won't make it in time unless you take a private taxi", he said.
There was no time for me to argue with him. I thanked him profusely, grabbed my bags, and hopped in the nearest private taxi.
I didn't have time to get his contact information, regrettably. I had provided my own email address to him on a piece of paper earlier, in case that Canadian girl had any further questions she wanted to ask me. I hope she gets in contact with me, so that I might get in contact with this gentleman. If you're out there, thank you.
On account of the generosity of multiple people, this trip was possible, and I arrived home safe and sound, a little overwhelmed by the previous 24 hours.
What a different world it is over here.
اريد ان اشكر كل الناس الطيّبين الذين تعرّفت عليهم خلال هذه الرحلة
و خصوصا اصدقائي الذين ساعدوني
منصور،جهاد،ربيع
و الرجل اللبناني الذي كان يركب التاكسي معي
الف شكر لكم
اسكندر
