A House in Damascus - Before the Fall

by Brian Stoddart

  The oud has some stupendous players, like Marcel Khalife to whose music I was introduced by my new friends. That became another new album purchased, and now travels on my Ipod. Outlets for the oud were to be found all over the city, including a Hamidiyeh specialist music shop which had a thoroughly modern one, done in black and sporting an internal pickup to plug into an amplifier. A couple of these were in evidence a few weeks later, at a Saturday night gig in a park along Straight Street. A more traditional style was on show in a tiny little shop close to the Umayyad Mosque, near one of the best sweet shops in the Old City. On most days, the owner would test out his new instruments, creating a calm atmosphere so close to such a busy place, and welcoming curious strangers who wanted to listen for a while.

  Not long before I left, some friends bundled me into a taxi and we set off for—somewhere. It was away from Bab Touma and across from Sarouja. That was about as close as I could pinpoint where we went, eventually pulling up in a busy street across from a row of extremely narrow shop fronts. In one I spied some ouds. We had come to an instrument maker. The door opened into a tiny reception area with room for about three people, who all had to duck to avoid hitting ouds suspended from racks by their headstocks. They were craft works. Elsewhere in the shop were the shells of instruments under construction and, even deeper into the back, a bandsaw was surrounded by dust from woods being shaped to make even more instruments.

  While ouds are relatively simple to make, they require the maker's magic to induce tone and timbre. A seriously good gypsy jazz guitar, or any other variation on the instrument, will these days cost thousands of dollars. A top shelf oud might cost just a few hundred. In local terms that is a lot of money, but even the professional players suggest that their instruments are relatively inexpensive. Mind you, souvenir sellers along the main arteries will suggest that the instruments they have are priceless. So will the Orientals sellers along Straight Street. One had an especially garish one, covered in green stones, and that he reckoned dated from the fifties. He required a small fortune for that, which he did not get.

  He most certainly would not get that asking price from anyone else who had seen the ouds at which I was now looking. They were magnificent. Despite their lightness, they were strong—the first step was to bond the desired woods together with epoxy and shape the gourd-like body. The fret board was then added in, along with the sound board facing. This last was highly decorated, and these days made mainly from templates although the really serious artists still work freehand. There was another maker in the Tekkiye Sulemaniyye crafts complex near the museum. There, up close, you could watch him make and finish the instrument, etching patterns and colours into the lemon wood, then drawing that distinctive Arabic sound out of what was essentially some wood and nylon strings.

  Like the poetry and writing, the music has a long history, strolling players being mentioned down through the ages. These makers were simply the latest in a long line of distinguished contributors to the musical life of the Old City, and to its impact on the movements of social change.

  Water

  ~

  The house "bathroom" was both rather more and rather less than that, in the Western sense. It sat on its own, up the stairs in one corner of the top landing. Its rooftop provided an excellent view of the Umayyad Mosque, if through a forest of antennae, tanks, pipes and wires and, occasionally, junk dumped on the top of other roofs.

  Physically it was a large, tiled space measuring five metres by three. The floor tiles were a dull orange, those on the wall off-white with the odd flower pattern. In the corner furthest from the battered door, three strips of masking tape were stuck across a small window, creating privacy against possible interest through the latticed block fence separating the house from the neighbouring upstairs patio. Even further protection was provided by the rag stuffed into the hole in the window's bottom right hand corner.

  Immediately in front of that window was the water heater, straight out of Heath Robinson. It was once a coke/coal or even wood burner, the old door still there under the cylindrical water tank, the whole thing standing on the tiles thanks to four squat metal legs. An electrical switch had been grafted onto the wall in the corner, from where wires disappeared off in mysterious directions. The switch was counter-intuitive with up meaning "on", down meaning "off". It was connected to the tank by a dodgy-looking set of wires running into a connector that obviously fed electricity straight into the tank. Any occupational health and safety provisions applying elsewhere had no jurisdiction here.

  The tank fed water to a shower that looked like a refugee from a military barracks, an Australian outback facility, or a building site temporary fixture. Pressure was related directly to the water temperature. In the warmer weather, just half an hour of switch "up" created hot water service at good pressure, but by late November and early December, wintery conditions made that more like two hours. By then, the one advantage of being awoken by early prayers call at 4.45 a.m. was the chance to brave the cool air to "up" the switch before disappearing back to the warmth.

  The floor sloped down and away from the top corner containing the heater and the shower, and in the bottom corner a wash basin had no drainage pipe. Water just poured straight onto the tiled floor and into the hole that gathered all water from shower and basin, channelling it downstairs into the waste system. A hazy mirror over the basin, a few hooks on the wall, and some plastic tubs strewn around the walls completed the arrangements. Based on the idea of a hammam, the bath houses whose huge heyday was when very few private homes had their own bathing facilities, this bathroom was a reminder also of detached facilities on relatives' farms back in New Zealand which, admittedly, lacked this run-down exotic appeal.

  The hammam remains a fixture in modern life. Around the middle of the eighteenth century, Andrew Archibald Paton gave his English readers a vivid account of a visit to one of these bath houses that have long been so important in Damascene life. He described it as an ordeal, a theme repeated by visiting travellers and writers before and since.68

  It was, Paton argued, an experience to be had no more than once a week because the nervous system could not tolerate more than that. He visited the hammam Nur Ad Din in the sweet souk, which still plies its trade to this day. Paton described the entrance and the waiting room where the manager (to whom monies must be paid) awaited, then recounted the sequence of events. The victim, (as Paton described himself) was laid on the marble floor clad only in a brief towel, then soaped and lathered all over. The soaping down and rinsing off was repeated in rooms of different temperature, in some cases with a difference of thirty to forty degrees Fahrenheit. The victim, he said simply, was "parboiled and flayed alive". In some cases ropes were used to massage the customers, but at the very least they were subjected to vigorous arm and leg stretching accompanied by a severe beating of the back. At the end, a sherbert and a nargileh were supplied as the victims recovered from their ordeal. Paton considered the bath house a "levelling republic".

  There are Roman baths in the ruins at Bosra down near the border with Jordan, and Roman remains elsewhere in Syria also contain many large bath facilities that show just how important the practice was. In 1175 Ibn Asaker recorded fifty seven baths in the Old city, with another seventeen already outside the walls. By 1217 Ibn Jubayar reckoned the total had climbed to one hundred. In 1285 Ibn Shaddad counted at least eighty five inside the walls alone, and by 1503 Ibn Abdul Hadi counted one hundred and ninety seven in total. Baths were a way of life in Damascus. Richard Boggs has written an extraordinary book on this, Hammaming In The Sham: a Journey Through the Turkish Baths of Damascus, Aleppo and Beyond. As he writes, the hammam "survives as the greatest monument of town life; bathing was civilization".69

  In her memoir of growing up in Souk Sarouja, Siham Tergeman likened her family's weekly hammam visit to going on a picnic.70 Every Thursday afternoon she, her mother and sisters would head to a ladies session at their favourite Qaramani area bath house, anticipating sliding ac
ross a soap-sudded floor, luxuriating in water and experiencing the familiar ritual. They had all the famous ingredients: soap and a bath mitt from Aleppo, a loofah sponge, pumice stone, powders and combs—and fresh clothes. They also took food, hence the picnic. She recounts territorial disputes, rows over young boys being brought in, different bathing approaches for women about to be married, and for those having given birth. For her, this was a joyous centre of life. Some modern travellers do not see it that way, nodding more toward the Paton view of a bath being an assault on all the senses. That said, European Union heritage agencies, prior to the troubles, were funding a project to resurrect the hammam as an essential institution in re-building Damascene community life.

  The bathroom in the house was not as grand as some of those old hammam, but it came in the context of a long history of Damascene bathing. Its only real problem was that it had too much appeal. The space was luxurious, if cool in winter, the Aleppo soap lathered up magnificently, the Heath Robinson affair actually worked, the hot water provided as much therapy as in the hammam, there were clean clothes awaiting, as well as olives and flat bread. The natural result was that I frequently spent too much time luxuriating under the shower, and worrying about how much water I was wasting.

  Water is a global issue now, but obviously far more so in a country like Syria and a city like Damascus. In 1901, when the city's water supply was normally said to be "lavish", at least compared to somewhere like Jerusalem, a very dry summer caused all water to dry up in the Barada a few miles out from the city. Some of the traditional pools were so low that "huge quantities" of fish were collected from them and sold at very low prices in the markets.71 Early in 2010, international news agencies reported that as many as eight hundred thousand people had been displaced in Syria's northeast because of water failures. This was in the Tigris-Euphrates basin that flows down into Iraq, historically one of the most productive food growing regions in the world. During 2008 and 2009, rainfall was as much as sixty five percent lower than normal. That caused additional drawing on river waters to supply the flood irrigation needed for crops. In turn, that drained the rivers, while wells drew heavily on underground aquifers. Unfortunately, all that water raiding did not solve the problems and Syria, normally a wheat exporter, was now an importer.

  There was a knock-on effect for Damascus primarily, although Aleppo and other cities also incurred problems. Perhaps three hundred thousand of those eight hundred thousand drought refugees relocated to the cities, living in temporary accommodation on the outskirts with little humanitarian assistance available. On the road to Homs, not that far out of Damascus, a large tented village off in the distance housed some of these people cut adrift by water failure. In the meantime, Damascus developed its own specific problems that an even bigger population increase would only aggravate.

  Some reports from as early as 2004 suggested that if Damascus then needed two hundred and seventy four million cubic metres of water a year, it was getting only one hundred and sixteen million, about forty two percent of requirements. The daily shortfall in the summer of 2004 was four hundred and thirty three thousand cubic metres. The city's main water source, the Al Fijeh Spring, like its source the legendary Barada River, was drying up. Whereas in 1985 groundwater was being tapped at just fifteen metres below ground level, ten years later the depth was down at almost two hundred metres metres. And in the Gouta, the orchard area that has forever marked Damascus out as special, there was now a limited lifespan for the water supplies that gave it life.

  Climate change, population growth, unreformed irrigation practice and policy complications have combined to give Damascus and Syria a problem. As always, too, there is a political dimension. Among the many reasons Syria desires to reclaim the Golan Heights are the water sources that area provides. Israel is just as concerned, because those sources feed the Sea of Galilee, its main water supply. Up in the now-beleaguered northeast, the rivers are shared with Turkey and Iraq, raising further complexity.

  Nowhere is this better seen than in the present state of the Barada River that allegedly "flows" through Damascus. The grumpy Mark Twain, visiting in the 1860s, remarked that water was now the key if Damascus was to survive as a paradise because, in his opinion, the city was already the "very sink of pollution."72

  In October 1918 an Australian soldier, among advance forces moving on Turkish lines as part of the push that put T.E. Lawrence and his Arab army into the city, reported his first glimpse of Damascus:

  The Barada river wound like a silver thread through the town and the surrounding country, with numerous small water channels passing through the beautiful orchards and vineyards which enclosed the city on all sides.73

  That a soldier in the thick of battle could see this simply underlines how impressive the Barada was less than a century ago, and just how much change has now occurred with serious impact upon the city and its surroundings. It also suggests that Twin might have been exaggerating, underscoring his dislike for Damascus.

  Given the scale of the problem, its direct impact now is surprisingly light, at least on the one person who was living in the house. The city system supplied water until midday so people made sure their tanks were filled. From then until midnight or so, the water tank provided for all needs until the town supply returned. The tanks depend on rain water in the "off" period and if that rain does not appear, as is now the Damascene norm, then surviving until the town supply reappears will become more of a challenge for large families, and for businesses or others for whom water is a priority.

  For that reason, the luxurious pleasure of the shower, and the Aleppo soap, was marred by the knowledge that this water could well be used for more productive purposes, and that knowledge usually meant taking a quicker shower than desired.

  We need another tank!

  A Problem of Perception

  ~

  At some point of an extended stay in the Islamic and/or Arabic world, even the most sympathetic observer will be challenged, perhaps even affronted by something that, well into a post-Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem world, seems anathematic to all but the most convinced misogynists.

  It is possible to meet a man who has an open approach to strangers and displays, if anything, more than the normal Arabic warmth in hosting those strangers. In his daily life he displays strong interest in the goings-on of the world, keeps up to date with international affairs, has a not-too-intransigent view of the world from a regional and national perspective, makes no great secret but no great moment either out of being a practising if not zealous Muslim, and shows compassion for those people who come to his world bereft of insight. He might be bothered by the monolithic view of "Islam" and "Arabs" such people bring with them, but be no "fundamentalist" as the more ignorant of those strangers might leap to conclude. He will be warm, concerned and anxious to help, generous, and open.

  Then he invites you to his house for a meal. The food is excellent and plentiful. The home is made yours as a "member of the family". The conversation is rich and long, there are agreements and points of difference. It is relaxed. Coffee and sweets follow the fruit that was preceded by a delicious selection of starter dishes. You finally say your goodbyes, and this excellent host accompanies you to find a bus or a taxi. Then you travel back to the house, walking the final stages through the Old City where some lanes are quiet, but others bustling with the young of both sexes mixing readily in the thoroughfares.

  You reflect that throughout this pleasant evening, you had not seen let alone met your friend's wife. You sensed her, heard her, appreciated and admired her efforts, but had no opportunity to thank her for them directly. Your friend had proudly announced his wife was renowned as an excellent cook, which she was, clearly, but there was no opportunity to praise her for that. She and you had been in distinctly different places.

  And you might even have seen some of the socialising origins of this. Say the man has a son and a daughter. It is entirely possible that the daughter, no matter how charming and acc
omplished, will be clearly in second place behind the son. It is entirely possible that your friend might even look sad for you when you tell him you have no son, but are blessed with marvellous daughters.

  In all the debates on the "Other" of the Islamic and the Arabic worlds it is, arguably, the role of women that generates most heat in the West. Early in 2010, a BBC report from Damascus suggested that although the city was "relaxing" its social boundaries, most women in Syria and even in Damascus were restricted by religion, tradition and family. The report concerned a young woman school teacher whose marriage was arranged by her family, so that the wedding day would be the first time she saw her husband-to-be. The reporter professed shock at discovering that what she had thought to be relaxed unveiled dancing in the hall before the groom arrived was, in fact, really just a "meat market" at which prospective mothers-in-law might survey the field. The further suggestion was that most women in Damascus were harassed almost every day by men, especially the "frustrated teenagers" among them. To put it plainly, the reporter was dismayed by what appeared to be a social system within which women were suppressed, controlled, and intimidated.