SUMMERTIME

SUMMERTIME


Along with the heat blowing in from the desert, summertime also brings a different desert  crop, a large number of visitors from the Gulf, mostly Saudis and Kuwaitis and a few stragglers from Abu Dhabi and other places.  The hotel lobbies are crawling with families with numerous, mostly overweight children attended by their Philippino nannies and maids.  The men sit about a lot drinking coffee and the women hang about a lot waiting for their husbands.  Most of the women cannot even drink a cup of coffee because they are wearing black abayas and veils which cover their faces completely leaving only a slit for the eyes, so eating and drinking anywhere other than in their own hotel rooms is an utter impossibility.  Some of the men wear the traditional white thobe but mostly they are decked out in modern designer sports gear.

One day as we sat drinking coffee, two young girls, one veiled and the other not, wandered into the coffee shop.  They placed their orders and when the waiter appeared bearing a tray with two glasses of orange juice and two massive wedges of chocolate gateau, our curiosity was aroused as to how the girl covered from head to toe was going to manage the feat of eating this spectacular cake in public without revealing her face.  At every forkful she lifted the black veil with her left hand and popped each mouthful dexterously into her mouth with the right!

The other place where many visitors from the Gulf are to be found is up in the hill stations of Bloudan and Zabadani. There the roads are full of GMCs large enough to accommodate their large families, and the hotel terraces are peopled with men drinking coffee and chatting to one another.  Presumably the women are at home.  I ask myself what is the point of coming on holiday if all you can do is stay at home and maybe go out shopping.  Undoubtedly the type of of Saudi and Kuwaiti who comes here is quite different from the people who holiday in Marbella.  They are not poorer however, because, in fact, apartments in Bloudan are as expensive than they would be in Marbella.  When value for money and the quality of construction are taken into account, they are more expensive without the slightest shadow of a doubt.

The other spate of events ushered in with the arrival of summer is weddings. Summertime is the wedding season and every weekend the Sheraton is booked out with wedding parties, each one vying with the previous weddings to put on a more splendiferous show.  A couple of weeks ago a wedding was held where the cost of the banquet was US$250,000.  Immensely expensive serving platters were flown in specially from Austria for the occasion and donated to the Sheraton after the banquet. The bridegroom, who is extremely rich, lives in Switzerland and has businesses all over Europe, and a large number of rooms was reserved at the hotel for guests invited from outside Syria.  From all accounts it was totally impossible to move around the swimming-pool area due to the masses of flower arrangements sent in by friends and well-wishers, each trying to outdo the other by sending a larger arrangement than the previous one.  Two musical groups were engaged, one from Lebanon and another Syrian one and the cost for each forty-five minute performance was US$30,000.  However, this was already outdone by the wedding party booked for the next week which brought in an entertainer from the US.  In this case the fee for a forty-five minute performance was US$80,000.

Of course, not everyone can afford such extravaganzas to mark the marriage of their offspring.  Once or twice a week wedding parties are to be heard taking place in the houses all around the neighbourhood with the typical trilling of the women’s tongues carrying out over the warm night air. Groups of young men often spill out on to the streets beating a large drum much to the chagrin of Simon who hates the sound of beating drums.

Summer madness does seem to have taken hold.  Winter, we are told, is the divorce season!  I doubt whether that will be as costly – for the men at least!
July 30th 1998