Damascus - Amman - Damascus

26th February, in the ‘Service’(*) Damascus – Amman

(*) Service [serfees] is a shared taxi on a fixed route, either between two points within a town or between two towns.

“By God Almighty, I tell you, I lived in Germany for one year back in the sixties, I even speak German. One day we went to the mountains near Essen, which is near Frankfurt, and stayed overnight in a hotel. The next morning, when we wanted to pay, the owner didn’t want a single penny from us, because we were Arabs. Things were different at that time – the German loved the Arabs. Now we’re the source of all evil – crime, unemployment and terrorism.”

As olives groves whizzed past the car window on our way to the Jordanian border, my eyes followed the Bedouin sheep grazing between the olive trees and the ‘autostrada’. The bearded man, who filled more than just the front seat, was preaching the poor driver about the status of the Muslim world, going back to Saladdin and the crusaders, about how killing children, women and old people is un-islamic, about all the liars and hypocrites who call themselves Muslims and the shame they bring upon Islam, about the Jews having taken all Jordan’s water, about how many times a month he travels back & forth between Syria and Jordan, about all his friends who used to be ministers, but have now retired and about all the sheikhs from Hezbollah he knows and a dozen other things, leaving the driver speechless and with hardly any time to even express agreement.
The other passenger on the backseat, a Syrian toy merchant with a slightly asymmetric face, looked at me in silence and rolled up is eyes, before turning back to his mobile phone.
We approached a bridge under which a motorbike was parked with a young man waiting next to it. As he slowed down, our driver explained that he was going to swap with the man under the bridge.
“Sorry if I talked a lot” said the bearded man in the front.
“No no, your words are full of truth and wisdom, thank you for enlightening me!”

The new driver was a crook. Between the two borders, he stuffed every corner of the car with duty free cigarette packets – the glove box, the space under the seats, the doors’ side pockets, the compartment for the First Aid Kit in the boot etc.
“Is this legal?” I asked him.
“Legal? What is legal in this world?”
I looked around at all the other cars parked in front of the hideously chique, white duty free ‘palace’… sure enough every other driver was doing the same thing: tearing up the wholesale boxes and their plastic wrappers, tossing them on the ground or into the wind, before stowing away the individual Marlboro, Kent, Safir or Davidoff packets in the cars’ interiors.
Our driver was mighty nervous when we got to the Jordanian customs checkpoint. He was mumbling all sorts of oaths and religious phrases with a lot of mentions of Allah. It turned out the customs officer at the checkpoint was a friend of the self-important man in the front seat and we were just waved through. The driver was relieved – Allah had helped him to smuggle cigarettes into Jordan – a miracle!


27th February 2008, in the Service Amman – Damascus

I love public transport, especially ‘services’. Today I’m in the front seat, going back to Damascus. The Syrian driver is from the border town of Dera’a, of Bedu origin, like most people from that area. Behind me sits what they call a ‘Hajji’ – an old man. With a lean body, his scruffy grey beard grows randomly around and out of the deep crevices of his stern face. His voice is similarly scruffy and whenever he has something important to say, he nearly shouts. Next to him, in the middle of the backbench, sits his wife, or possibly cousin – he made a joke about this because of her much younger age, but I couldn’t tell which of the two he was joking about. She is about twice the width of her husband or relative and has a kinder face. They are both from around Damascus and have brown rims around their teeth.
Behind the driver, next to the Damascene lady, sits a pretty, young Bedouin woman. Like all Bedus, she pronounces every “k”-sound (like in planK or Cat) as a “ch” (like in CHeese), plus a few other anomalies, which takes some getting used to. Although she can’t read or write and appears quite naïve, she is unusually talkative, direct and almost provocatively bold …well, provocative for this region. She has big brown eyes and full cheeks. Her hejab is thin and constantly falling, often revealing her straight black hair tied back in a purple ribbon.
“I’m just going to Damascus for the day to buy a few things, everything’s much cheaper there”, she says.

During a short break the full-bodied lady sitting next to her tells me “We in Syria wouldn’t let a girl like that travel alone.” The look on her face said as much as “You know what I mean!”

The conversation in the car was lively, although besides the two Damascenes nobody new each other. Favourite topics: prices of rice, tomatoes and petrol and whether fair or dark skin colour was preferable on Jordanian and Syrian men. The Bedu woman tells us she’s engaged with a fair-skinned guy. Straight away the Damascene lady asks her if she wouldn’t prefer a foreigner… She shakes her head vehemently and talks about how nice her fiancée is – I’m not convinced.
Later on, we talk about restaurants and food in Damascus, I mention how much I like Kepse, an Arab dish I also managed to cook once before – both women in the back look at me astonishedly and ask: “You can cook?”
I sort of nod and look at the Bedu woman: “See, I’m sure you’d be better off with a German husband!”
Everybody laughs.

We arrive somewhere on the edge of Damascus, where the services always stop and the passengers get into taxis. As we unload our bags and say goodbye, the Bedu woman already drives off in a taxi and waves at me goodbye with a smile on her face. At that moment I notice two things: one, this gesture – so open and free – is very rare and unusual among the vast majority of people in this region. Strange, such a simple thing, such a common thing – here, it will lead to people putting her straight into a very simple category: “Bitch”.
Secondly, I notice I am worried about her – the way people look at her and might seek to restrict her free spirit or try to take advantage of it.