Day 1 & 2 - Syria (Travel) & Damascus

The flight was to Damascus was long. But the surprising thing was that I sat next to a Syrian Presbyterian family on the flight from Paris to Damascus! It was an opportunity to begin breaking down any stereotypes I have of Syrians. And they said they were from a church with 300 families! We spent a lot of the flight with him tutoring me in Arabic. It was a good flight.We had some trouble getting into Syria. The manifest and visa was a little mixed up. But we finally got in after about an hour or so of waiting. We met our guide and went to the hotel. I went to bed almost immediately. I stayed up during the flight from Atlanta to Paris so that I would be exhausted by the time we finally got to Syria. I think it worked. I'm about on time with Syrian time.

My roomate's name is Kip (picture at right in the Cham Palace lobby). He is a retired trial lawyer. He's been working on starting a legal outsourcing buiness in India.

So today we went to all sorts of places. We first walked through the Suq. The Suq is their covered street bazzar. All sorts of clothing and other items to buy. I didn't buy anything thought I was tempted at the spice market section of the Sug (picture at right).

Next we went to the palace of Al Azam, a former governor. It was beautiful. It was separated into two courtyards. One for the women and one for the men. The women's courtyard was more beautiful than the men's (it is pictured at right.

We also visited the Umayyad Mosque. It was originally the church of St. John the Baptist, but when the Muslims recaptured the area at some point (I think it was during the Crusades...all the details of history are mixing in my brain right now), they turned it into a mosque. But the shrine of John's head is still in the mosque (picture at right). It is a beautiful building and the call to prayer took place while we were there. An interesting moment came when the women had to put on coverings to enter the mosque. They all ended up looking like monks (or characters from Robinhood). They seemed to enjoy it even though it was a bit of an inconvenience (see picture at right).

We also visited Ananias' house. It is a little church now in the Christian quarter of the city. It is underground at this point; not because it was built underground but because over the centuries each generation kept building on top of the next (see picture at right).

Apparently about 15% of the population is Christian (and Presybterians are 25% of that). We also saw the monument to Paul and his escape out the window in the wall of Damascus.After all this and a little more we came back to the hotel and had a conversation with a Syrian family. They asked us some frank questions about Syrian/American relations. I think I was somewhat misunderstood when I asked whether there was any tension between their faith and their culture (they are both Christians). They answered that they were Arab first and Christian second. I did not fully understand this response. But they gave me one clue to this answer: the culture of this area is so old that it predates Christianity while American culture is so new and individuals were Christians before they came to America. I'm not sure I'm satisfied with this answer, but it has given me something to think about.
The Syrians are very hospitable people. They have been very welcoming. And everyone who has talked to us about it has guessed that we were either German, French, Canadian, or Australian. They aren't expecting Americans to be traveling in the country. I am enjoying the time here greatly and it is expanding my view of the world and Syria. Thanks be to God.

P.S. The internet connection at this cafe is very slow so I don't think I can get pictures up right now. I will work on it later if I have a better connection.

P.S.S. From Hama - I was able to upload pictures on this computer. Not because the connection was faster but this computer had software to shrink my photos!