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Damascus to Aleppo

Syria 1972

By Barbara Jo Shipka

February 22^nd, 2015

We were headed for Aleppo. Three of us. By communal taxi. All to go shopping! My travel companions and I all worked at The American Community School in Beirut. One was my stunningly beautiful, chain-smoking Palestinian friend who taught Arabic. Dark hair, olive skin, and lots of political opinions. But also full of laughter and deeply thoughtful. She gave most of her paycheck to her family. The other was the assistant principal of the elementary school. She was British, married to a Lebanese. At school she was usually stern, unsmiling. The way she wore her hair pulled back in a bun reinforced that image. As we got into our service in Beirut, all of that severe demeanor melted away. A smile and a lightness that I had not seen before emerged. She even giggled in excitement.

Lebanon was cosmopolitan, international. This place, Syria, was so foreign. We bought food to share during our overnight ride from Damascus to Aleppo. The driver played cassettes of Oum Kulthoum, a diva of the Arabic world. All night. Loud and so unfamiliar to my ear. The music in this place was so foreign. I ate my first pomegranate during that ride. I wondered what all of the hoo-ha was about pomegranates. It tasted rather dull and dry to me. When we stopped at a village along the way one of the others looked at it and laughed. “No wonder you didn‘t like it. It‘s rotten.” The food in this place was so foreign. Morning came and I marveled at the landscape and architecture. This place, Syria, was so foreign. Once in Aleppo we immersed ourselves in one of the largest and oldest indoor marketplaces in the world. In the Middle East they call it a ‘suq.’ In the US we call it a ‘mall.’ It didn‘t feel foreign at all. I knew how to shop. I felt right at home!

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