Aside from the protests brewing all over Syria, I got some insight on the personal relationships of a young Damascene while visiting Damascus. I hung out with Mohamad, a man in his 20's, the son of a store owner where I bought some garments. He accompanied me to my hotel where I left my money to pay for my purchase, and for the next couple of days he showed me around mosques, coffee shops and souqs. He was interested in company and in practicing his English and I was interested in hearing about life for a young man like him in Syria.
Raised in a middle class family, his father owns two upscale stores in Damascus, one in Saudi Arabia, and one in Dubai where he usually lives and manages the store. He told me that his family does not support his own choice of future wife. If he wants to get the family approval and support, he needs to accept his mother's choice. She would present him with a few eligible brides to choose from. Therefore, ultimately, it is the matriarch who dictates who marries her son. This young man happens to love someone he knows, but the family does not approve of it on the basis that if the woman met him without first being picked by the mother, she is automatically excluded as a candidate. I am sure relationships and marriage arrangement in Syria may differ from Mohamad's family, but his story gave a little insight on how a conservative middle class family operates.
If he wants to marry the woman of his choice, he has to wait to save enough of his own money. This could take him a minimum of two years as he needs to buy the bride's jewelry, pay for the wedding, secure housing and have means to support her. He seemed to be unhappy and alone with the Syrian ways in this respect, but firm in his decision to go forward with his own choice of future wife. He is not allowed to even hold hands or touch this woman in any manner before marriage because this could put her reputation in jeopardy.
I have a feeling that the youth in Syria is not only unhappy about their lack of choice in the political realm, but also in their personal relationships. This young man looked conflicted about his situation. Matters are even worse for women who usually depend entirely on her family and her husband for any big decision in her life.
For Bedouins, it is a bit different as marriage often happens to be with family members, usually a cousin, sometimes creating different challenges like children being born death, with speech or other health problems from excessive inbreeding. Less affluent families also tend to marry within the family, possibly to keep the family business and wealth from diluting.
The separation of the sexes in most of the Middle East give men in general only one option of socialization with women outside family members – foreigners! This situation make many men almost too naïve, often with the wrong ideas towards foreign women, with the worst pick up line I have ever heard. Many of them see too many porn movies or any foreign movie for that matter, and try to mimic actions and lines from something they have heard but use them out of context. For example, a perfect stranger in Egypt told me “You break my heart” after I asked him for directions to my hotel and a newspaper seller wanted to marry me as he gave me my change. A man in Aleppo came up with: “I cannot resist temptation” after a 20-minute walk around the souq. These are just few of the countless weird, but often innocent exclamations of “love at first sight.”
The only exception to this naivety, is probably the Bedouin guys, suntanned, ebony shiny black hair on pony tail and pearl white teeth on top of a camel or Arabian horse in Petra. These guys are usually very good looking and seemed very seasoned in the art of luring foreign women into their caves in the outskirts of Petra on the excuse of Bedouin hospitality, music, tea, or dinner. Tamara and I were approached by several of them who immediately disappeared when Hunter, Tamara's husband joined us.
In my personal experience as a traveler, although the men in Syria are not as forward as in Egypt or the Bedouin guys in Petra towards foreigners, and most of them genuinely want to help a traveler in any way they can, I had a couple of weird encounters with men who at first said they wanted to help but were obviously after something else. These encounters were very different from other places I have traveled in the Middle East. The first was a young handsome store owner in his 20's who invited me for tea and kept telling me how good he was at doing massage after I inquired about local hammams. He insisted in giving me a sample massage on my back and neck with the store door closed, which got me running out of there very fast after only one sip of tea.
The second weird encounter was on Damascus streets near Souq al-Hamidiyya. A civil servant in his 60's, wearing a suit and probably going home after work (it was around 3pm, and they end the day at 2pm) offered to show me something interesting in the souq. After I told him I was heading to the mobile phone store away from the souq to fix my SIM card that stopped working, he accompanied me on the excuse that he could translate for me. We had a long wait at the store and I told him to go home since I had other places to go afterward. He said “no problem” he would wait. After that he wanted me to go the Souq again and I told him I was heading to the train station and then I was going to visit some mosques on the opposite side. He again took upon himself to follow me. He works for the Agriculture Ministry and on the way I asked him some questions about food production in Syria. He answered, but was obviously not too interested in a lengthy serious discussion about food security or politics.
After visiting the train station, I noticed that he was not going towards the mosque. After I asked him about it, he said he wanted to take me out for a cup of coffee before going to mosque. I thought that was fine until I got to the place he wanted to go. A coffee shop inside closed doors and down a basement that looked very dark to me from the top of the stairs. I told him I was not going there and he seemed upset about that saying that was a good place with lots of young people. After I said no to coffee and if he liked the place so much he could go there alone, we said good bye and went into different directions. I am not sure what would have happened I had gone with him to that basement, but my guess is that it was not going to be a very relaxing, pleasant time.
But in general, everyone seem genuinely interested in helping and are usually very generous. I met people who accompanied me to my destination several times and even paid for a bus fare, coffee and lunch expecting nothing in return.
Damascus seems to have been revitalized within the last ten years, with bustling souqs, boutiques, coffee shops and new hotels being built and others restored. The recent newcomer Four Season is an imposing site in the middle of downtown. Not that the Four Seasons Hotel fits my budget, but thankfully there are plenty of budget choices and house rentals is also a possibility for longer stays. This is good news for me. Although my weirdest encounters with Middle Eastern men happened in Syria, this is a country I would like to visit again.
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