Jazz, Mystics, Postcards and Curry

Friday 21st April

Still feeling a bit ill so I took it easy. In the evening we managed to wrangle free tickets to the album launch concert of a Syrian singer called Lena Chamamyan. A couple of hundred invited guests - Damascene movers and shakers, probably, though they meant nothing to us - crowded into the courtyard of the house of the artist Mustafa Ali, often checking each other out as much as they were checking out the songs. The music was a little polite at times but her voice was beautiful and the overall effect was often highly evocative. I made a resolution to check out more Syrian music whilst I’m here.

Sat 22nd April

Picked up a CD-Rom of old photographs and postcards of Damascus collected by a guy who works in an Internet Café in Saroujah. Some wonderful images of Damascus in the nineteenth century, including many examples of 'Eastern exoticism' undoubtedly aimed at Europeans.

The depth of the history of this place never fails to move me. Its really getting under my skin, especially given the fact that so much remains relatively unexamined...

Sun 23rd April

Walked up to Sahiliya on the lower slopes of Jebel Qasyun, north of the city centre. This area, once a predominatly Kurdish village north of Damascus but long since overtaken by the city's sprawl, is littered with many shrines and madrassas. Tragically they are now mainly neglected, abandoned and boarded up, though if you look through cracks in the doorways some spectacular coloured glass windows and interiors can still be seen.

The main attraction in the area is the tomb of the famed mystic Mohi ad-Din Ibn al-Arabi, one of the great figures in Islamic philosophy, which is located in a pretty but modest mosque in a souq area (below). Its strange that such a big figure in Islam has such a modest resting place. As always, we were welcomed into the chamber containing the tomb, given sweets and a short talk (in Arabic!) about the tomb. Its a shame neither C-lo nor I understood much! In the evening we met some friends and had dinner at the top of the hill, where we admired the lights of the city stretching out to the horizon.


Tuesday 25th April

Gave into the urge - went out for a curry in one of the few Indian restaurants in town. Boy, was it good to tuck into a naan and a peshwarma kebab! This was by far the most expensive meal I've had since I been in Syria, perhaps because it was located near the capital of bling - the brand spanking new and Saudi financed Four Seasons hotel (five stars, sweetie).

So, for that unmissable taste of home, we forked out 2500 Syrian lira - that's about 25 UK pounds - for a meal for three, including three beers! What a life... :-)