WALKING THE STREETS

WALKING THE STREETS OF DAMASCUS

The first thing you notice when you walk the streets of Damascus, or at least Mezze the area where we live, is that you literally have to do just that, because the pavements have been taken over by cars as a car park.  Some drivers, considerate enough to remember that pedestrians do have to get around, park their vehicles longwise leaving space on either one side or another to pass, but most park nose first forcing pedestrians out on to the street.  And once out there, the next thing you notice is that most of the drivers are stark staring bonkers, driving like maniacs and weaving all over the place with not a thought for who or what might just step out in their path. The cars in themselves are worth a second glance in some cases because, alongside the usual utilitarian models, there are luxury cars of every kind and other vehicles which anywhere else (apart perhaps from Cuba) would be in a transport museum, models of both European and American cars from the fifties and some even earlier!

The rear window of most cars, lorries and buses carries a triumvirate sticker of President Assad, his son Bassel who was killed in a car accident and the younger son who is now heir apparent.  So widespread is this practice that there is a joke about it.  A child was chosen to be groomed for the secret service and to eventually infiltrate the Israeli Mossad.  He was reared as a Jew, spoke Hebrew like a native and, finally, the day dawned when he was deemed to be ready to start his life’s work.  However, a short time after he had been dropped in Israel, he was arrested by the Israeli authorities.  Once he was returned to Syria, he was interrogated to find out why his mission had been so short-lived after such painstaking preparation.  What did you do?  Why did they arrest you.  I don’t know, the would-be spy replied, I bought a car and they arrested me.  How come?  Tell us what you did once you bought the car!  Well, I got stickers of Nathanyahu and his wife and family and stuck them on the back window, that’s all!  When they arrested me, I asked them how they knew I was not an Israeli, and they said the stickers on the car were a dead giveaway and they knew straight away I could only be a Syrian.

The next thing you notice is the dirt and rubbish strewn everywhere - pavements, streets and gardens alike.  There are plenty of rubbish bins dotted around on most corners but  some people prefer not to use them, depositing their household rubbish in plastic bags at some other point more convenient or to their liking.  Others arrive with their scraps in a bucket and simply tip them into the gutter.  Another more hazardous eventuality is when the lady on the third floor decides to toss her rubbish down to the bin from her terrace. Usually, of course, she misses, so you have to be pretty smartish about getting out of the way in case one such missile might just end up on your head! Late at night she may also decide to toss the slops left over from supper over the terrace railing and down on to the street below.  Jeromimooooo! When people go out for picnics, which they are very fond of doing, they simply leave behind all their discarded waste which they may very well return the following week to sit among as though visiting some mysterious shrine.  

It isn’t that there is no rubbish collection.  There is.  And, apart from the official rubbish truck, armies of boys and men make the rounds on their bicycles or with carts selecting the rubbish they specialize in - tins, bottles, cardboard - which they cart off to some place I have never seen to serve their own purposes.  One evening, as I was s tanding on the corner waiting for Robert to come across from the fruit stall, a small cart groaned by with bags of recycleable rubbish piled in the back and at least seven little boys clinging on to very available place, their bicycles crowning the heap. There are also official street sweepers armed with inadequate palm brooms without a long handle, which forces them to bend double as they sweep.  They pick up the rubbish with offcuts of cardboard boxes and sometimes with their bare hands.  Their labours are sometimes haphazardly carried out, but they are done just the same. However, they are fighting a losing battle  with the hordes of people, adults and children alike, whose mission in life seems to be to strew the streets and every surface they cross with rubbish of every kind.


After that, the most striking thing are the kalashnikovs slung over the shoulders of so many armed guards who, in our particular district, are to be found every ten steps or so because of the number of diplomatic residences in the area.  Outside every diplomatic residence and official building are little huts where the army guards spend their lives.  And I mean spend their lives.  Many of them have a narrow bunk where the incumbent guard sleeps and a chair where he spends most of his time.  Most have a transistor radio which they listen to incessantly, and some have brought along a wooden box and a television set which they watch in the evenings.  Not infrequently a little glass with a bunch of flowers picked from a nearby garden provides a decorative touch to what is in effect their home. Frequently the guard’s friends come along and they play cards to while away the time.  On Fridays, or holidays, some of the guards change out of their uniforms and stroll around in “civvies”, but the kalashnikov is their inseparable companion!  It can be an incongruous sight to see the kalashnikov slung over the right shoulder and the fingers of the right hand gliding silently over the beads of an Islamic rosary.

Children are the major plague, particularly little boys who immediately rush out the second they see me with the dog and start barking or trying to touch him or, worse, trying to hurt him.  Having lost my patience with them now, I simply brook no nonsense and utter an unmistakable prohibition in my best Arabic whichs sends them rushing off.  I have come to see that Granny was right when she said, “If you see a cub, give him a crack, for if he hasn’t done harm he’s just about to do it!”.

July 1998