I signed up with my language institute to go on an overnight road trip to three towns south of here. I wanted a chance to broaden my horizons physically and spiritually. It was well worth the time and money.
I started to enjoy local color on the outskirts of the city—little ducans by the side of the road, animals wandering by, men lazily chewing q--. Beyond the ring of mountains surrounding the city, the landscape resembled the J*d**n wilderness, brown and craggy. I was thinking, "Wow, the landscape is really beautiful. I like the hills, etc., etc." Then about an hour or two into the trip, we rounded a bend and the ground in front of us dropped away. Think Grand Canyon, Smokey Mountains, and Norwegian fjords rolled together (minus any water). After we retraced our steps today, I concluded that you haven't lived until you've driven this route. It was magnificent. Spectacular.
I had been promised a rugged drive, and there were switchbacks and serious ascents and descents. However, the roads were good and wide and the drivers not too crazy. They passed each other on the two-lane road and kept up a good clip, but I never felt unsafe after getting used to not having any seat belt in my back seat perch. I think I was more scared riding on Cape Breton Island or maybe in parts of Norway or Glacier National Park. We stopped at several points to take pictures, though no camera could do justice to the beauty.
The scenery was rich—potato and grain harvesting; donkeys, camels, dogs; a car with almost its own height in luggage piled on top . . .
We passed through numerous checkpoints. At each, our driver handed out a copy of our travel permission papers granted by the government (a prerequisite for foreigners traveling outside my city). "Do you ever run out of those?" J asked A, the driver. "I have a hundred," A joked. Maybe he did. I think he gave out around ten. It seemed like he knew half of the checkpoint officers, too. He exchanged cell phone numbers with one as we passed through. "I can understand the benefit to you to have their numbers," J commented, "but what's in it for them?" "They think I'm important," A replied.
Apparently they decided that J and I were important, too, because at the checkpoint two hours or so from our destination, they assigned a military escort to us. "You get the truck with the big gun," A told us. We weren't quite sure what he meant until we swiveled around and spied a truck with a—sure enough—big gun mounted on it pulling up behind us, with six or seven uniformed officers in it. A explained that there's a sporting event coming up in a few weeks, so the government has extra incentive to prove that the country is safe in the face of criticism to the contrary. Once they saw that our travel papers were for tourists (I'm not, but they lumped me in with the other two students, who are) and that two of us were Am*ric*ns, we were doomed to the escort. "I'm sorry," J said to M, who is Br*t*sh and mighn't have had to deal with the extra hassle if it weren't for us. So we weren't in danger of getting k-napped. We could have been shot, but not k-napped. Our escort went with us through the old city of our destination, then up to the top of the mountain where we were to have tea overlooking the city. They seemed to disappear for a while at the restaurant, but A informed us that they were outside checking all of the people who came in the restaurant. I'm still not sure whether he was joking.
We were actually quite conspicuous with Kalashnikov-toting military men walking with us through the souk. It was embarrassing because it made us appear like dignitaries, but A encouraged us to enjoy it. "When I am president, I will know all of the officers!" he pointed out. The second day they were with us, I was actually more worried about being accidentally shot by the officer who looked like he was 16 years old. "He's a child," J whispered to me. Should he know how to use a gun that large? Later, I noted that he was the one manning the big gun on the truck, while older officers sat and looked on, and I pointed out the irony to J.
Someone in our car asked why we didn't have this kind of escort or protection in our city. A shared that he thinks there are undercover security people watching places that foreigners frequent all the time. Who knows?
We had lunch in a restaurant along the way. Great food—chicken, rice, vegetables, warm bread, sauces, and sodas. $2.50 each (and no tipping). And you wonder why I think I can save food money if I don't cook at home!? It's so much more expensive to buy western ingredients to cook dishes I know.
We arrived at our destination mid-afternoon and set off for a fortress on a mountain. We meandered up and up and up as far as we could go, along with locals who were there also enjoying the view. We took pictures and talked about life, local politics, whatever. The views of the city sprawling out before us were amazing. I could easily picture the devil tempting J*s*s with all of the kingdoms of the world from a spot like that. I thought through the first couple of lines of "This World for K J," too (um, not KJM).
We descended as the sun set, then walked around the bustling souk. M was looking for the scarf that men wear, and A looked some at thobes for his two-year-old son. I used my language skills to price and bargain for a scarf. The guy came down quickly and I discovered later that this might have been because the scarf had some flaws in it. Oh, well. I paid all of $2.50 for it.
Next we drove up and up the mountain, above the level of the fort, to a fancy hotel with an outdoor cafe overlooking the city. Beautiful. We had milk tea, which I love, and talked more. We finished up the evening with juice in a little cafeteria and bread and hummus in another little cafeteria. I headed to my basically-clean-but-not-posh hotel room and turned in for the night.
We met again at 8:00 AM and walked around the non-souk part of the old city and took more pictures. It was quiet but was waking up by 9:00 or 9:30. A bought some of what J calls a different kind of corn but what I think may be sorghum, and I sampled it. Not bad. I would want to buy it freshly roasted (like, roasted in front of my face) for my health's sake, but I did enjoy it.
We hit the road and headed for another city on our way home, where A had a friend who was going to show us around. Still in the city, we spied some camels, which seemed odd. A explained that their owners were selling their milk, so we stopped and A bargained for a bottle. I never did drink it before the end of the day for a couple of reasons, but J was going to take it back to the language school, and I may try some tomorrow.
A's friend did a great job of pointing out two old m*sques, one of which used to be a syn*g*gue. He told us that one m*sque was 1,000 years old. We actually got to walk through that one, which was my first time being inside one. (Most of them here you are not allowed into if you are not M*sl*m, but apparently a few make exceptions for tourists.)
After that, we walked through the souk, which had the charm of a smaller city. It also helped that our guide kept encouraging us to take pictures of things and people I might otherwise have been too timid to photograph, so I came away with more people pictures than I sometimes do! I sampled kebab (after watching the guy fry it), which was delicious, and shop-made helwah (not the packaged kind you buy in the store or the kind the Adamses make for the family convention), which was also nice. After eating the kebab, I glanced halfheartedly in my cavernous bag for a tissue to wipe my hand with, and determining that it was too far in the depths, I furtively ran my hand across the bag itself, promising myself to wash it soon. A moment later, one of our young soldier escorts walking behind me handed me two tissues. Yikes! I didn't realize I was being watched that closely, but I was touched by the gesture.
I had hoped to stop in another city on our way home that is the home of most of the immigrants from here to my country, for whatever reason. I was hoping that if Dr. Pepper were to be found anywhere in the country, it would be there. Alas, we passed through in the 1:00-4:00 window where many shops close, and the "supermarket" was closed. (The big supermarkets in my city don't close between 1:00 and 4:00.) I also had heard that a number of that city's residents speak English with a New York accent, since they have lived there, and that some even display vestiges of African Am*ric*n mannerisms, but I we didn't stop, so I couldn't scope those things out.
We stopped and had lunch at another restaurant along the way home. This time the total was about $1.50 for rice, steaming hot bread, and sauces, drinks included. Unfortunately, I was in the ladies' room when M asked for "basmati rice" and the waiter, puzzled, asked him, "Your smile?" Apparently "basmati" is almost identical to the word for "my smile," so that gave us a good laugh later.
We got to enjoy the same scenery all over again in reverse and, again, it was magnifique. What hath God wrought! We played our second word game and talked more and listened to more local music (which we also did the first day—it's most fitting for traveling here; other music wouldn't fit). A told us a joke which I thought rather awful, but I'll share it with you anyway because I thought that A telling it was almost as ironic as the joke itself:
The [former] leaders of two western nations were in an airplane with the president of S*ria. All three started talking and decided to bet on whose bodyguards were the most compliant. All three thought theirs would win the bet. So GWB threw his watch out the plane window into the ocean below, then summoned his bodyguard. "Get the watch," he told him. "Sir, I can't do that," the bodyguard replied. "I have a wife and children. I have to take care of them."
The other leaders crowed over GWB that he had lost the bet. Next TB called his bodyguard and told him to go get the watch that GWB had thrown. "I'm sorry, sir," his bodyguard told him. "I can't do that. I have a wife and children that I am responsible for."
The president of S*ria crowed over TB that he had lost the bet. Then he called his bodyguard and told him to retrieve the watch from the ocean. "Yes, sir." the bodyguard replied.
"But you can't do that!" GWB and TB told him. "You'll die!"
"But I have a wife and children," the S*rian bodyguard objected to GWB and TB's pleas. "I have to protect them."
Sorry, but it took me a minute to get the punchline . . .
We stopped at a honey store for J and M to sample good honeys (the honey here is supposed to be the best in the world, due to the pollen from trees in parts of the country that don't grow anywhere else). I sampled them, too, and they are good. Expensive, too. There are honey shops on almost every corner, and apparently they do well enough to stay in business. The people in this country do have a sweet tooth.
Two other students and I departed promptly at 8:30 on Thursday morning (the weekend is Thursday and Friday) and headed south. Our driver, a language school employee (the wizard of getting good visas, too), informed us early on that we were going to learn on this trip as well as have fun. So we played a word game on the way down and another on the return trip on Friday. Both were simple. The first was to go through the alphabet and come up with a word for every letter. All four of us did a word for alef, all four for ba, etc. It's not as easy as it sounds, because there are letters whose sounds are close but different, so the way you think the word should be spelled is not how it is spelled. It's a good exercise in differentiating the letters, for sure! The second game was to say a word, then the next person had to say a word starting with the ending letter of the previous word. Both games were great ways of recalling words we have learned, pronouncing and spelling them correctly, and getting introduced to new vocab. I can't say that I memorized any new vocab besides "obsessed with consciousness." The reason for that was that brilliant J, who has studied the language off and on for years, kept coming up with nuanced words like "subordination" and "settlers" and "consciousness" and "obsessed." (Even though J is a whiz and a Columbia grad and Fulbright scholar and a self-described liberal, he is wicked down to earth and was so much fun to talk and listen to and learn from.) If I hadn't been in danger of carsickness, I would have taken notes and gained quite the political vocabulary. As it was, I learned "obsessed" because it's fun and "consciousness" because our driver used it repeatedly in numerous contexts and it's simple to say!
I started to enjoy local color on the outskirts of the city—little ducans by the side of the road, animals wandering by, men lazily chewing q--. Beyond the ring of mountains surrounding the city, the landscape resembled the J*d**n wilderness, brown and craggy. I was thinking, "Wow, the landscape is really beautiful. I like the hills, etc., etc." Then about an hour or two into the trip, we rounded a bend and the ground in front of us dropped away. Think Grand Canyon, Smokey Mountains, and Norwegian fjords rolled together (minus any water). After we retraced our steps today, I concluded that you haven't lived until you've driven this route. It was magnificent. Spectacular.
I had been promised a rugged drive, and there were switchbacks and serious ascents and descents. However, the roads were good and wide and the drivers not too crazy. They passed each other on the two-lane road and kept up a good clip, but I never felt unsafe after getting used to not having any seat belt in my back seat perch. I think I was more scared riding on Cape Breton Island or maybe in parts of Norway or Glacier National Park. We stopped at several points to take pictures, though no camera could do justice to the beauty.
The scenery was rich—potato and grain harvesting; donkeys, camels, dogs; a car with almost its own height in luggage piled on top . . .
We passed through numerous checkpoints. At each, our driver handed out a copy of our travel permission papers granted by the government (a prerequisite for foreigners traveling outside my city). "Do you ever run out of those?" J asked A, the driver. "I have a hundred," A joked. Maybe he did. I think he gave out around ten. It seemed like he knew half of the checkpoint officers, too. He exchanged cell phone numbers with one as we passed through. "I can understand the benefit to you to have their numbers," J commented, "but what's in it for them?" "They think I'm important," A replied.
Apparently they decided that J and I were important, too, because at the checkpoint two hours or so from our destination, they assigned a military escort to us. "You get the truck with the big gun," A told us. We weren't quite sure what he meant until we swiveled around and spied a truck with a—sure enough—big gun mounted on it pulling up behind us, with six or seven uniformed officers in it. A explained that there's a sporting event coming up in a few weeks, so the government has extra incentive to prove that the country is safe in the face of criticism to the contrary. Once they saw that our travel papers were for tourists (I'm not, but they lumped me in with the other two students, who are) and that two of us were Am*ric*ns, we were doomed to the escort. "I'm sorry," J said to M, who is Br*t*sh and mighn't have had to deal with the extra hassle if it weren't for us. So we weren't in danger of getting k-napped. We could have been shot, but not k-napped. Our escort went with us through the old city of our destination, then up to the top of the mountain where we were to have tea overlooking the city. They seemed to disappear for a while at the restaurant, but A informed us that they were outside checking all of the people who came in the restaurant. I'm still not sure whether he was joking.
We were actually quite conspicuous with Kalashnikov-toting military men walking with us through the souk. It was embarrassing because it made us appear like dignitaries, but A encouraged us to enjoy it. "When I am president, I will know all of the officers!" he pointed out. The second day they were with us, I was actually more worried about being accidentally shot by the officer who looked like he was 16 years old. "He's a child," J whispered to me. Should he know how to use a gun that large? Later, I noted that he was the one manning the big gun on the truck, while older officers sat and looked on, and I pointed out the irony to J.
Our escort added a lot of color to the weekend. We checked regularly to see if they were behind us. Most of the time they drove behind. That way, A said, they could see if anything happened to us; whereas if they drove ahead, someone could come between them and us. They were very respectful and kind, and never made us feel like they were inconvenienced. I was feeling bad for them at one point, and someone said, "Well, they could be sitting around at their checkpoint, but instead they get to enjoy the view with us." Okay, sure. It probably was the most excitement they had had all day. I could picture them going home and telling their families about guarding the Am*ric*ns, who were important, for all they knew. Sigh. If they only knew. If only I looked more like Michelle Ob*m* . . .
Someone in our car asked why we didn't have this kind of escort or protection in our city. A shared that he thinks there are undercover security people watching places that foreigners frequent all the time. Who knows?
We had lunch in a restaurant along the way. Great food—chicken, rice, vegetables, warm bread, sauces, and sodas. $2.50 each (and no tipping). And you wonder why I think I can save food money if I don't cook at home!? It's so much more expensive to buy western ingredients to cook dishes I know.
We arrived at our destination mid-afternoon and set off for a fortress on a mountain. We meandered up and up and up as far as we could go, along with locals who were there also enjoying the view. We took pictures and talked about life, local politics, whatever. The views of the city sprawling out before us were amazing. I could easily picture the devil tempting J*s*s with all of the kingdoms of the world from a spot like that. I thought through the first couple of lines of "This World for K J," too (um, not KJM).
We descended as the sun set, then walked around the bustling souk. M was looking for the scarf that men wear, and A looked some at thobes for his two-year-old son. I used my language skills to price and bargain for a scarf. The guy came down quickly and I discovered later that this might have been because the scarf had some flaws in it. Oh, well. I paid all of $2.50 for it.
Next we drove up and up the mountain, above the level of the fort, to a fancy hotel with an outdoor cafe overlooking the city. Beautiful. We had milk tea, which I love, and talked more. We finished up the evening with juice in a little cafeteria and bread and hummus in another little cafeteria. I headed to my basically-clean-but-not-posh hotel room and turned in for the night.
We met again at 8:00 AM and walked around the non-souk part of the old city and took more pictures. It was quiet but was waking up by 9:00 or 9:30. A bought some of what J calls a different kind of corn but what I think may be sorghum, and I sampled it. Not bad. I would want to buy it freshly roasted (like, roasted in front of my face) for my health's sake, but I did enjoy it.
We hit the road and headed for another city on our way home, where A had a friend who was going to show us around. Still in the city, we spied some camels, which seemed odd. A explained that their owners were selling their milk, so we stopped and A bargained for a bottle. I never did drink it before the end of the day for a couple of reasons, but J was going to take it back to the language school, and I may try some tomorrow.
A's friend did a great job of pointing out two old m*sques, one of which used to be a syn*g*gue. He told us that one m*sque was 1,000 years old. We actually got to walk through that one, which was my first time being inside one. (Most of them here you are not allowed into if you are not M*sl*m, but apparently a few make exceptions for tourists.)
After that, we walked through the souk, which had the charm of a smaller city. It also helped that our guide kept encouraging us to take pictures of things and people I might otherwise have been too timid to photograph, so I came away with more people pictures than I sometimes do! I sampled kebab (after watching the guy fry it), which was delicious, and shop-made helwah (not the packaged kind you buy in the store or the kind the Adamses make for the family convention), which was also nice. After eating the kebab, I glanced halfheartedly in my cavernous bag for a tissue to wipe my hand with, and determining that it was too far in the depths, I furtively ran my hand across the bag itself, promising myself to wash it soon. A moment later, one of our young soldier escorts walking behind me handed me two tissues. Yikes! I didn't realize I was being watched that closely, but I was touched by the gesture.
I had hoped to stop in another city on our way home that is the home of most of the immigrants from here to my country, for whatever reason. I was hoping that if Dr. Pepper were to be found anywhere in the country, it would be there. Alas, we passed through in the 1:00-4:00 window where many shops close, and the "supermarket" was closed. (The big supermarkets in my city don't close between 1:00 and 4:00.) I also had heard that a number of that city's residents speak English with a New York accent, since they have lived there, and that some even display vestiges of African Am*ric*n mannerisms, but I we didn't stop, so I couldn't scope those things out.
We stopped and had lunch at another restaurant along the way home. This time the total was about $1.50 for rice, steaming hot bread, and sauces, drinks included. Unfortunately, I was in the ladies' room when M asked for "basmati rice" and the waiter, puzzled, asked him, "Your smile?" Apparently "basmati" is almost identical to the word for "my smile," so that gave us a good laugh later.
We got to enjoy the same scenery all over again in reverse and, again, it was magnifique. What hath God wrought! We played our second word game and talked more and listened to more local music (which we also did the first day—it's most fitting for traveling here; other music wouldn't fit). A told us a joke which I thought rather awful, but I'll share it with you anyway because I thought that A telling it was almost as ironic as the joke itself:
The [former] leaders of two western nations were in an airplane with the president of S*ria. All three started talking and decided to bet on whose bodyguards were the most compliant. All three thought theirs would win the bet. So GWB threw his watch out the plane window into the ocean below, then summoned his bodyguard. "Get the watch," he told him. "Sir, I can't do that," the bodyguard replied. "I have a wife and children. I have to take care of them."
The other leaders crowed over GWB that he had lost the bet. Next TB called his bodyguard and told him to go get the watch that GWB had thrown. "I'm sorry, sir," his bodyguard told him. "I can't do that. I have a wife and children that I am responsible for."
The president of S*ria crowed over TB that he had lost the bet. Then he called his bodyguard and told him to retrieve the watch from the ocean. "Yes, sir." the bodyguard replied.
"But you can't do that!" GWB and TB told him. "You'll die!"
"But I have a wife and children," the S*rian bodyguard objected to GWB and TB's pleas. "I have to protect them."
Sorry, but it took me a minute to get the punchline . . .
We stopped at a honey store for J and M to sample good honeys (the honey here is supposed to be the best in the world, due to the pollen from trees in parts of the country that don't grow anywhere else). I sampled them, too, and they are good. Expensive, too. There are honey shops on almost every corner, and apparently they do well enough to stay in business. The people in this country do have a sweet tooth.
Lucky for me, the honey shop was very close to my house, so A dropped me off within walking distance of my house, and I bid all three gentlemen adieu.
Thus endeth my road trip saga, but I'll post pictures in batches next. I'm so, so thankful that I went, even though it was way outside of my comfort zone to go with complete strangers, all male. In addition to seeing the gorgeous sights, I had some good chances to talk to Father for these people and to ask him what it will look like for worship to be going up to him from these mountains and valleys. I don't know what it will look like myself, but I'm eager for that day.
Thus endeth my road trip saga, but I'll post pictures in batches next. I'm so, so thankful that I went, even though it was way outside of my comfort zone to go with complete strangers, all male. In addition to seeing the gorgeous sights, I had some good chances to talk to Father for these people and to ask him what it will look like for worship to be going up to him from these mountains and valleys. I don't know what it will look like myself, but I'm eager for that day.
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2 comments:
Thanks for the story, jokes and all. :) What an amazing place . . . I think if I'd be single, I'd be there traipsing around with you. But instead I'm *here* enjoying things from your perspective. I love how you are speaking to the Father as you go and trying to imagine what it will look like when all peoples there are worshiping the ONE as they were created to do!
And while we're on the subject of "Pr*ying as we go", I have been more conscious of doing that lately again, so yesterday on the way to the store, I was speaking outloud to HIM about my husband, children, thanking Him for good things, etc. Several times my voice must have drifted off to kind of a murmur or stopped completely, and from the back seat I hear [in dutch, of course], "Mom, say it again." It gave me warm shivers to realize how closely I'm being monitored by my children . . . and here's my little boy loving to hear his name mentioned to the one above.
Have a lovely day. Love you!
Great story! Um, sorry but I'm still working on the punchline...think I'm almost there... : )
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