abu wilyam ~ أبو وليام

November, 2008

I first came to Syria in the late summer of 2005, an eager and optimistic student on a gap year between my sophomore and junior year of college. I spent almost nine months here, and I loved it. I made friends, I explored the fascinating and wonderful city of Damascus, and I learned how to speak Arabic. That last bit was the key really, the learning Arabic: that was the purpose that guided me throughout my months there. I returned for a shorter visit in 2007, but my time and attention was taken up by the research I was conducting on music and musicians. Only now that I’m comfortably fluent in Arabic do I fully realize just how much studying Arabic was central to my purpose here when I first came. Only now that I’m here again, for a lengthy stay and without many obligations, does the question face me plain and clear: what am I doing here in Syria? It’s the question that has been constantly at either the front or the back of my mind since my arrival just under two weeks ago. I won’t answer it here, and I expect it will remain on my mind for a long while yet.

Well, I can start to answer it with some basics: I am here funded by what’s called a “post-graduate traveling fellowship” from my college. Put simply, they’re funding me to travel and do something interesting during the year after I’ve graduated. What’s extraordinary about it is that the granting organization does not ask for more than a few-page report on what its grantees have been doing, and it does not require us to stick with the precise plan we laid out in our proposals. Changes due to on-the-ground circumstances and even grand shifts of vision are permitted.

I took advantage of that flexibility in my planning for this trip and I was careful not to over-plan, keeping my initial obligations limited so that I can scope out the scene. My struggling with this question is thus to a certain extent a predicament of my own making. And about time: after years of schooling and college that always led to “the next thing,” it is refreshing to be faced with the challenge of real flexibility and open-endedness. What I wrote about my Arabic-study above is saying in other words that my initial year in Syria, for all of its sense of newness and exploration, was actually a part of that year-in, year-out sense of moving forward, with speaking Arabic as the particular goal of that year. Thus, my question of “what am I doing here in Syria?” is really just one aspect of the much wider: “what am I doing with my life?” Hence the sense of dread this question sometimes inspires in me. But don’t worry, most of the time I’m content with the immediate challenge and not preoccupied with weighty questions of the future.

To start to answer the question, I should explain another reason that I purposefully under-planned. In the past few years, my sense of caution and even skepticism about any “humanitarian” plans undertaken by “Westerners” in “underdeveloped” or “third world” countries has steadily increased. I’ve read and experienced how all too often the best of intentions end up leaving locals with no tangible or lasting benefits, if not making the situation worse; money and activity come with the foreigners and leave with the foreigners. Yet here I am, and my proposal that won me the fellowship consists of projects that involve assisting (loosely conceived) the vast number of Iraqi refugees here in Syria. Since writing the proposal, I’m trying to take a step back and not leap too eagerly into any particular endeavor as I get my bearings here. My initial experiences here have confirmed that this caution is a good idea, for in conversations with other like-minded foreigners I sometimes hear bald paternalism expressed towards Iraqis and others: an insistence that “we” know what’s best for them. Hopefully my caution about any plans or projects will allow me the chance to form relationships with Iraqis and others based on communication and collaboration so that we can build something successful and mutually beneficial, breaking down the division of “helper” and “helped.” That is my hope, in any case. More writings on this issue should be forthcoming as I continue to talk with people and think about it.

Another part of my answer to the “what are you doing here?” question is that I hope to do things that I truly want to be doing. More than a few times during my first year here I found myself justifying my presence in situations I might otherwise not enjoy by saying, “Well, I’m getting the chance to practice my Arabic.” For me, that was usually enough to make me enjoy the situation, since I got such a visceral thrill from speaking Arabic with people! That thrill is still there for me, but I’ve made it a goal to not let it be the only reason I’m in a particular situation. One result of being less intense about speaking Arabic as often as possible is that I’ve been more open to hanging out with foreigners than I was before. Although I’ve had close American and European friends here since the beginning, never before this week did I attend an ajnabi (foreigner) party here in Syria, let alone two. By ajnabi party I basically mean a house party with alcohol, hosted and attended mostly by foreigners. For me, these parties are strange, wallah (by God) – their atmosphere is so different from the social life in Syria that I’m used to, not to mention the feeling that I associate with the streets of Damascus. I got the feeling from some of my conversations there that the community of foreigners – students, journalists, UN staff – who are all supposedly here with a purpose related to this place and/or the people in it, are managing to very easily live a life that is distinct from this place and its people.

My feeling of ghurba (what you feel when you’re in a foreign land) at these parties is not just because I’m in Syria and I expect that people conform to some notion of Arab or traditional culture – in fact, I’m all about acknowledging and celebrating the diversity and apparent contradictions of people’s behavior here, contradictions that may not seem so contradictory when viewed from a local perspective. (Picture a women wearing hijab shopping for skimpy lingerie – Westerners love to take pictures of these things and comment on how “contradictory” they are, but I would wager that most Arabs do not think twice about such a scene.) The fact is, I feel that same feeling of ghurba at similar parties in the States; I’d rather be sitting around, talking with old or new friends, sipping a warm drink, maybe playing cards … oh, wait a second … that’s a fairly standard Arab social gathering: no wonder I often feel so comfortable here.

Which brings me to my Arab friends – I’ve been seeing and catching up with many them these two weeks. I’m blessed to have a number of them, and from all different walks of life: doctors, students, computer programmers, soldiers, workers, and shop owners; people from Damascus, from other Syrian cities, from Iraq, plus Palestinians born and raised here. They are mostly – but not all – male, since cross-gender friendship is strange and rare here. Part of the reason for that is because the nature of friendship – even the word itself, sadaaqa – is understood differently here than it is in the states, with differences that are often hard for me to navigate successfully. Here, sadaaqa is serious business: being someone’s friend implies a high level of commitment and dedication. You call your friend often to check up on him, you see each other as often as possible; you can ask demanding favors from your friend and he from you.

Of course we have friends like that in the States as well, but those relationships are usually built over months or years rather than days or weeks, and we have other, less intense kinds of friendships. The “default” state of friendship in the States does not carry with it a sense of obligation as sadaaqa does here. You can imagine that in a society that looks down on close premarital boy-girl relationships it would be hard to maintain such a duty-bound relationship with someone of the opposite gender. It’s hard to be just “casual” friends with someone (of either gender) when “casual” isn’t really a part of “friend.” That applies to both a Syrian interested in just getting to know someone of the opposite gender and to me, a foreigner. One thing I like about this aspect of friendship is that it’s not taboo to be openly affectionate with my male friends: habibi (sweetheart) is our standard term for one another, and walking arm in arm or hand in hand is not strange. The hard part is that I’m eager to stay in touch with the many people I’ve met and bonded with here, but to hang out with them and call them as much as seems to be expected of me would be a full-time job. I don’t want to offend, yet I also have to take care of myself and my peace of mind – this is where it is tricky to navigate.

Two days ago I called up my dear friend D, a young man who works in a shop as the sole provider for his mother and brother and in his spare time sings in a rap group. We met last summer when I was here doing research about music. From the first time we met, D has emphasized that we are friends, in the serious sense. Two days ago, we spoke, and D greeted me with ”ishta’tillak” (I missed you). It’s fair to say that this is a standard way to begin a conversation with a friend you haven’t seen in a while. (Remember, “a while” here could be defined as four days). Because I have missed D too, I replied, “ishta’tillak ana bil-aktar” (I missed you even more), adding a rhetorical flourish that I’ve picked up. “Mustahiil” (impossible), he replied, followed by a pause. Then he asked, “shayif al-bahr shi?” (Have you seen the ocean?) Not sure what to think, I said yes. “shayif addesh kbiir?” (you’ve seen how big it is?) After I said yes again he continued, “ishta’tillak aktar min had ana” (I missed you even more than that.) Knowing I could not win this game, I responded and ended it with an enthusiastic, “habibi ente!” (you are my sweetheart! – or perhaps put more idiomatically, you’re my man!) This gives a sense of the easy affection between friends, and of my feeling sometimes that no matter how much I like a friend and his company, I will always fail to be as dedicated or as loving as he is to me.

That is not to say that all my friendships here are the same – in fact, each is as different as the person involved. Those whom I consider my closest are those friends who talk to me honestly about their lives, about Arab culture, and about Syria, and those with whom I can talk honestly about myself, about Syria, about the US – I can easily feel myself around such friends, rather than feeling that I’m playing the role of the good Arab friend. One of my great pleasures here is enjoying the conversations that emerge from such friendships: serious, respectful, and challenging discussions about cultures and the challenges that face those of us who explore outside our comfortable places of origin. Another possible project or plan here is making something of interesting out of such conversations. More information forthcoming, perhaps.

And don’t worry: for all my talk of no longer having Arabic as my focus, I’m still learning, writing down in my little notebook the new words and phrases I learn or hear. I may well also decide to work with a teacher on my writing skills in formal Arabic. With all respect to D and how much he missed me, I can assert that it is the wonderful Arabic language that is truly bigger than the ocean.

So that gives an idea of what I’m doing here, and what is on my mind. No single, all-encompassing purpose guides me, but in the meantime I’ve got plenty to work on and think about. There will be more writings to come, God willing, in both Arabic and English. Keep in touch, and if you feel like it, come visit us in beautiful Syria!