Don't Let School Hinder Education Pt. 5d: Syria
Trip Start
Jun 21, 2009
1
38
39
Trip End
Dec 22, 2009
Damascus, Syria
Friday, November 6, 2009
I got to the bus station and was immediately harassed by an annoying cloud of taxi drivers who all seemed to be going to Amman. One guy was more persistent then the others and didn’t back off when I told him I was set on taking the bus. The bus ticket for a ride all the way to Amman cost about 10 dollars. Finally, he agreed to match the bus price. Since the bus was not leaving for another hour and a half (Arab time…meaning more like 2 hours) and I would be filling the last seat in his “taxi,” I took him up on his offer. 10 bucks for a three-hour ride. Not too shabby.
I walked to his “taxi,” really just a nice car that no taxi driver would be able to afford, and I hopped in. Where was everyone else?
I soon realized that this was no taxi service; it was a company car. I couldn’t figure out what company. Along the way to the border, we picked one guy up in a busy town square, another on the side of the highway, and the third one under an overpass. In the middle of nowhere. This was getting worrisome for me. After making it safely out of Damascus, as I sat 30 minutes from the border, I felt like I may have finally gotten myself into some real trouble. The men, seemingly from random spots along the road, all knew each other. I asked one where he was from: “Anta min wein?” “Damashk,” he responded, the word in Arabic for Damascus. “And what is your work?” I asked, trying to feel the guy out. “Trade.” “What trade?” “All trade.” “Like?” “Anything.” I was getting nervous. Maybe he was a broker. Maybe he was an arms dealer. Worst-case scenarios began to swirl around my head. One of the men joked, “we are sweets traders. We trade sweet things among Arab countries.” Maybe he was a candy salesman. I think he was playing on a double meaning. In Arabic, the same word for a dessert, or sweet thing, is “helwa” (roughly). It also works in general speech in the same way “sweet” works among California surfers. There could be a “sweet wave” in California and “sweet weather” in Syria. Guns can also be sweet.
The guys really did all know each other too well. I listened intently to everything they said, trying to pick up any hint at what they do and if they were planning on doing any harm to me. They laughed and argued and yelled about everything under the sun. My heart pounded faster as I continued to run scenarios in my head.
I should have taken the bus. I should have taken the bus. I should have taken the bus. I told myself over and over and over that I had cut it too close this time and that the risk I had taken wasn’t worth it.
I tried to further break the ice by starting a conversation about music. Taking out my iPod, I asked the guy if he knew who Kanye West was. He didn’t. “Ma’ak prince? Migel Yacksin?” he asked. I, unfortunately, did not have Prince or Michael Jackson. Playing off the Arab affinity for techno, I put on some Lady Gaga after finding that he did not like Kanye West at all (don’t tell Kanye I said that). Gaga was a success. She should look into expanding into the Syrian marketplace (but please put on some more clothing first).
The man in the front seat, who identified himself as a professor, asked to see my passport. I showed him. “Where is your national ID?” he said. He didn’t understand that we don’t have national IDs in the U.S. I showed him my driver’s license as a substitute and he looked at it with intense interest. These guys were fascinated with anything American, including me. After the exchanges of IDs and passports and Lady Gaga, we sat quietly for the rest of the ride to the border.
We got to the border with Syria, a major milestone for me (in terms of safety). It meant they probably meant no harm to me (I kept my guard up). If they were going to try anything funny, they would have done it in Syria. Maybe they were just candy traders, after all. I had no problems leaving Syria (it was certainly much easier to get out than it was to get in) and it was actually easier and cheaper for me to get out than my Syrian buddies. I paid 11 dollars to get out of their country while they paid 12. Yes, Syria makes its own citizens pay a tax to leave the country.
After being certain that they were going to get out of Syria, the guys in the car went straight to the duty free store on the border and loaded up on Lucky Strike and Davidoff cigarettes. They began packing them into their socks, jackets, pants, and anywhere else they could think of. They were smuggling extra cigarettes into Jordan since the allowance is only two cartons per person. One of them men handed me two cartons; “These are yours if they ask,” he said. I luckily ran into no problems for helping these guys get the cigarettes in illegally, though one of the guys I was with was held up at the border and not allowed to enter Jordan. Great. The crew I was with wasn’t even allowed into Jordan.
As we waited for the two “traders” who had a lot of trouble convincing the guards to let them into the country, the “professor” and I chatted about American education. He was incredulous when I told him about the price of private American education. He began the conversation by telling me that he knew the cost of college in the US. He gave me a number in Syrian Pounds that translated to about 10,000 US dollars. I told him he was lucky to find a public university that he could attend for that amount (short of community colleges which, as an aside, I think are one of the best things about the education system in America). I told him a university like Georgetown (I was proud to learn that he’d heard of it along with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and the online University of Phoenix) would cost him 250,000 Syrian pounds a year–more than many Syrians might hope to make in a decade or even a lifetime. On top of that, he was astonished to learn that I had chosen my education path. In Syria, either your parents or the government tell you what to study if you are one of the lucky few to make it to college. What’s more, I told him, the media is allowed to attack the government without fear of physical retaliation or being shut down. All of this was foreign to him, a university professor.
Another question was really gnawing at him. It was almost painful for him to ask: “Why doesn’t America like us?” He believed that the United States has a vendetta against the Syrian people. “We are not terrorists.” “I know,” I responded. I tried to explain that the problems between the U.S. and Syria (we were now safer on Jordanian soil) stemmed from disagreements between governments and not people. I told him that just because our governments did not agree did not mean that he and I could not get along. It was a pretty profound moment. He had never before heard unfiltered analysis of the situation like I was giving him. In Syria, very few people talk about it and even fewer give a straightforward view of the situation. Because of the intense surveillance placed on opposition leaders, they pick their battles carefully. And to retain what little favor they may have among the Syrian masses, anti-government figures stay away from giving any legitimacy to the U.S. Though they know they have a lot to learn from the U.S., receiving back from America or giving any hint of support for America can sink a change agent in an Arab country.
As our conversation continued, I realized what we, as the United States, are up against in the Arab and Muslim worlds (which often intersect). This guy was well versed in mistruths about the United States. While the official governments may not propagate them, they certainly do not quell them either. Syria’s strong-handed, largely failed government would much rather let its citizens blame the U.S. for any problem in the country. It keeps them distracted and focuses their frustration on another power. The idea of revolution and coup is foreign to Americans. It is on the mind of many non-western leaders. Many of them got into power because of a coup or by using force and they know that they, just like the ones the replaced, can be kicked out if dissention grows to a boiling point.
After realizing he had failed to get into the country, one of the guys that had been in the car with me gave up and hopped a ride back to Damascus. The rest of us continued on into the Jordanian desert.
