Attitudes

One of the first things Syrians here in Damascus ask us here is, understandably, where we’re from.  After all, it’s reasonably clear we aren’t from here. When we tell them America and New York, we’re almost inevitably met with, “Ahlan wa Sahlan. Welcome! Very welcome!”

Last Thursday morning I got into a taxi to school. The driver, who was behind the wheel of a particularly down-on-its-heels Lada, didn’t seem particularly friendly and began, real serious-like, to extol the virtues of his Russian-made Lada, pointing to Hyundais and Fiats on the street and saying (roughly) they suck. Only then, after I had become a little worried by his enthusiasm for Soviet engineering, did ask me the inevitable question about where I’m from.

“Ah, America. Nu-York!!!”  he exclaimed, perhaps just a bit too excitedly. Seconds later we were at my stop and as I began to take out my wallet, he stopped me. “No, no, please, free. Ahlan wa Sahlan. Welcome!”

I have had one, shall we say, non-welcoming incident. At least that’s what I think it was.

Sara and I and friends were on the swank train to Aleppo later that same Thursday. We were enjoying the views, the A/C, and one insanely long Egyptian variety show on flat screen monitors. Then the gentleman sitting in front of me had trouble putting his seat back.

Frustrated, he turned around and started talking to me. I looked at him and smiled with my hands out, a gesture meant to convey, “I have no idea what you’re saying. I’m just a dumb foreigner. Also, I didn’t break your seat.”

After a few more minutes futzing with his chair, he again turned and began to speak to me. He didn’t have a friendly face, a perception perhaps enhanced by the near rotting of his teeth. Then he began with the usual inquiry, asking me where I was from.

“New York,” I said.

“Ah, New York,” he respond, without any smile that I read.  “September 11,”

“Ummm… Yes.”

“But you still alive.”

“Yes, I am.”

And with that, he turned around and got off at the next stop.