New Home!

A big development in my life is that, finally, finally, I got a new apartment! It’s located in Baramke, which is a very central part of the city—providing me the pleasure of ease of movement I’d forgotten existed, after being holed away in the old city for so long, which, despite its charm, I see as sort of a black hole easy to get lost in and impossible to get out of.

The old city is beautiful, and it is what lots of foreigners feel compelled to label “authentic”: centuries worn buildings whose top stories lean out and touch above cramped alleys, vendors balancing a precarious pile of bread on their head as they zip by on bicycles, the daily street symphony I heard from my bedroom window of fruit vendors’ jingles mingling with the local mosque’s call to prayer. You not only feel as if you are “somewhere else”, it’s the kind of “somewhere else” you imagine yourself being in when you think of being far away.

But of course Damascus and Syria and all of its authenticity isn’t contained in the old city walls. Living in the “new city”, I’m experiencing the city as most Damascenes not tucked away in the old city see it.
Even so, my neighborhood has some unique qualities to it. For one thing, I’m in a place that is the closest you can get to the idea of “college town”—I’m nestled between the engineering, fine arts, and general sciences campuses. Now when I walk home, I no longer have to ask a friend on the phone to wait as the screaming onion vendor narrowly avoids running me over. Here, the streets are wide, tree lined, and relatively quiet. I pass cliques of young Syrians—some sleek and trendy, others in conservative religious garb, chattering on cell phones and slipping into the cute little cafes clustered at every street corner. Instead of rows of souvenir shops and falafel stands, I seem to be located in the school and office supplies part of the neighborhood—store after store of bookstores and copy/fax shops. It’s sort of strange, but If anyone needs some stationary, I’m your girl!

While I sometimes miss the rush of curiosity and excitement I got from the sounds and sights of being “somewhere else”, I think this new “somewhere else” is just as authentic, though different… if when you say authentic, you mean genuine, and not just “really really old and foreign looking.” For one thing, there are no tourists here. I’m the only foreigner in the neighborhood, a huge change from the old city. There, the only thing more plentiful than Italians and Americans are the cockroaches and alley cats . It’s not the typical residential place, but it gives a really interesting glimpse of the up and coming generation of young Syrians... Perhaps a “somewhere else” that belongs to the modernizing face of Syria.