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A photo of me in Luxor, Egypt in July 2009 during the CLS Program.

No One Gets There Alone

 Mohammad Ali Mosque, Cairo, Egypt

To My Nearest and Dearest,

Many of you may have heard that I have been accepted to the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (CASA) program to study Arabic in Cairo, Egypt starting in June. I have been lucky enough to also receive a fellowship to help defer the cost of the program. However, there are additional expenses that are not covered by this scholarship. As part of this new chapter of my life, I will be revamping and renaming this blog to reflect my time in Egypt.

I have been blessed to have the support of my friends and family throughout my academic progress without which I would not be in a PhD program or heading to Egypt this summer. I am asking my community and maybe even a few generous strangers for a little more help.  I am trying to raise $500 in the next two weeks to help pay for additional expenses that are not covered by the fellowship including required medical insurance and costs for travel preparations (visa, passport renewal, medical exam, etc). No donation is too small. You will gain my eternal gratitude. In addition, I promise to pay forward all the money that I raise to another person in need when I am able. For whose that want to donate, you can do so through PayPal using the link on the right side of my blog or through FundRazr.

Please let me if you have any questions. Thanks you in advance.

Kind Regards,
Katrina

Siwa, Egypt. July 2009.

PS
If you would rather purchase an item that I need for the trip rather than donate money, I have set up a wishlist on Amazon with a few things that I need. You can access it here.

Items can be mailed directly through Amazon or to the following address:
Katrina Yeaw
Department of History,
Georgetown University
ICC 600
Washington, DC 20057-1035

Kabob Bil Karaz - Cherry Kabobs - from Aleppo

When living in Syria, my favorite dish was Kabob Bil Karaz or Cherry Kabobs, which are a specialty dish from the city of Aleppo. Here is the closest recipe that I have been able to find since returning from Syria. When I made it, I used fresh sour cherries - the kind used in cooking. However, these can be difficult to find in stores so you could try substituting dried cherries, canned sour cherries or sweet cherries.

Kabob Bil Karaz Recipe
(Serves 4)

1 pound ground lamb
1 pound sour cherries
1½ teaspoons of Bharat (See below for recipe)
1/4 cup of pine nuts, toasted
3 tablespoons sugar
Juice from half a lemon
1 teaspoon pomegranate molasses
2 rounds of flat Arabic bread
1 tablespoon flat leaf parsley
Salt and pepper

Wash the cherries and soak them overnight with enough water to cover. The following day, pit the cherries and put them in a large pot with their liquid. Add the lemon juice, sugar and pomegranate molasses. Taste the sauce, adding sugar or lemon juice as required to get the right balance of sweet and sour. Bring to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes or until the liquid has reduced and thickened a little.

Mix the meat with the spices, season with salt and pepper then roll into marble-sized balls. In a shallow pan, saute in butter over medium heat until evenly browned.

Add the meatballs to the cherry mixture and cook over low heat for 15 minutes until they take on the cherry color.

To assemble, cover serving dish with Arabic bread with light side up. Spoon the kabob onto the center of the bread and cover with the thickened sauce. Add a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts and decorate with parsley leaves.

Traditionally, the dish would be eaten with the hands using the bread on the plate to soak up the sauce and pick up the meat. Serve with a few Syrian dips and a salad. For ideas, see Syrian Cooking.


Bharat (Mixed Spices)
This spice may also be purchased in some Middle Eastern specialty shops.

Ingredients:
1 T freshly ground black peppercorns
1/2 T ground coriander
1/2 T ground cassia bark
1/2 T ground cloves
1 T ground cumin
1/4 t. ground cardamom
1/2 T ground nutmeg
1 T ground paprika

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container

The Strangers Among Us

Wandering the narrow, vine-laden streets of the Damascus’s Old City one is likely to run into ones share of ajaanib (foreigners). You can pick them out from 50 yards (Hint: the shorts are a dead give away) shopping in the souq or frequenting one of the many restaurants located in historic Arab houses. We poke fun at them from time to time but they are generally nice and somewhat adventurous people enjoying a pleasant holiday away from home. However, there is the other kind: the annoying, trite and obnoxious kind that most of us avoid like a bible salesman with a flesh-eating virus. Every place attracts its own variety of ajaanib depending on its location and Damascus is no difference. Below I have included a list of the most common (and annoying forms) of these species to roam the streets of the Old City. For the sake of clarity, this list is mostly confided to those varieties that are found among foreigner under the age of 30.

1. The Tourist
The most common variety of foreigner in any city in the Middle East the Tourist is easily identified by their ridiculous choice of dress. In spite of the fact that they are in a major city, they seem to always be convinced that they are actually on safari through the Australian outback and therefore in need of 20 pounds of gear. They never leave their hotels without a backpack or fanny pack, three lenses for their camera, a floppy hat of the fisherman variety and water bottle. The look is incomplete if at least 50 percent of what they are wearing is not khaki in color. While the older variety tends to travel in packs that are always 10 feet behind a tour guide, the younger ones often travel on a shoe string budget in groups of 2 or 3 with a guide book always in hand. They stay for a few days and are then off to some new location.

2. The Free Spirit
The Free Spirit is probably the most common form of foreigner living in the Old City. They tend to be rather disheveled in their overall appearance, with the men sporting T-shirts and shorts (those shorts again) and the women preferring long flowing shirts and tank tops. Common accessories include: kaffiyahs (Arab scarves), various kinds of bracelets and Middle-Eastern rebel chic items (Hezbullah instead of the more common Che. ) They tend to live in dilapidated apartments in the Old City for a few months with others of their kind for which they dish out a few hundred dollars while living on the staples of shawarma, saj, falafel and beer.* If they ask them about the reason for being in Syria, they give vague answers about learning Arabic. You can at times find them attending classes at the University of Damascus but they never study much or stick around long. Before you know it they are gone, probably off to some new location to continue their Arabic “studies.” Some of them keep up this routine for years until their money runs out –or their parents’ patience.

3. The Nativist
The Nativist and The Free Spirit often have a great deal in common in terms of habits and dress but with some very important difference. The Nativist prides him or herself on his or her knowledge of the Middle East, which tends to be the kind of understanding gained froma year or two of Arabic and a freshman introduction course on Middle Eastern culture taken two years ago. Committed to being “sensitive” to Arab culture they tend to adopt an image of Middle Eastern as stagnant, reactionary, and extremely religious and therefore act accordingly. At the same time, they are always trying to adapt and fit into a culture that they fundamentally do not understand, and are always in search of some authentic Middle Eastern experience that does not really exist. They can often be heard making wide and often unintentionally negative (usually wrong) pronouncements about Middle Eastern society. Women that have fall into this category are often seen wearing the hijab (headscarf) around Damascus, a habit that greatly confuses the majority of Syrians. For example, I once heard a woman describing how shocked she was to see prostitutes hocking their wares out in the open in Bab Touma (The Christian neighborhood). Someone else had to explain to her that women she was describing were not in fact prostitutes but simply Syrian women out for the night.

4. The Opportunist
Unlike the previous categories, the Opportunist cannot be identified by any particular way of dress or behavior but more by his or her attitude. The Opportunist views the Arab language and an understanding of the Middle East as future marketable skill to land a job. They tend to be more serious Arabic students that their free spirited collogues and some are actually rather good. However, there knowledge of the region tends to be heavily biased by their intractable worldview. Beyond Arabic studies, they can also occasionally be found padding their resumes with internships at the many embassies. Overall, they tend to dislike the Middle East and consider their time as a necessary evil that will help their future advancement. This negative attitude makes them some of the least pleasant people to spend time around with and colors their view of everything in Syria. They often subject you to their own analysis of Middle Eastern politics at social events, which usually included an overly loud defense of US foreign policy or Israel. The Opportunist has no greater dream than to one day land a lucrative government job - preferably for the CIA.

5. The Future Academic
Like the Opportunist, the Future Academic is also identified by their overall attitude. Serious students of Middle Eastern politics, culture and language, they hope to one day land a comfortable university position based on their research. Often the most knowledgeable, they are frequently able to look at Middle Eastern society critically and avoid the idealized view of the Free Spirits or the overly negative view of the Opportunists. The younger ones are committed to their Arabic studies and are always planning on starting advanced degrees in the near future, or at least that is what they claim. The older ones sometimes live in Syria for year and are always working on some great research project that they are happy to talk about endlessly with anyone that will listen. However, avoid asking them about their actual progress unless you want to see a look of absolute panic. At their best, they are interesting, engaging and well-thought people that can talk endlessly about a variety of topics. At their worst, they are over caffeinated, socially awkward know-it-alls that are incapable of holding on a conversation that does not include their own obscure area of research that they and three other people actually understand.


* Saj is flat bread similar to a crepe, which is cooked on a flat stone and then filled with sweet or savory ingredients such as cheese, meat, Middle Eastern spreads or chocolate and honey.

No Borders from Now On*

                                      

Last week, a few of the students from my scholarship watched the Syrian comedy el-Hudood (الحدود), a satire of nationalist Arab regimes and ridiculous nature of borders. Written by the famous Syrian actor Duraid Lahham and the late Syrian poet Muhammad al-Maghut, the film concentrates on the mishaps of the unlucky Adbul Wudood. While crossing between the imaginary Arab countries of Sharqstan (East) and Gharbstan (West), he loses his passport in the “no man’s land” between the two borders. Unable to cross either border, Adbul Wudood ends up constructing a rest house out of his car and even gets married to Sudfeh, a smuggler, but remains unable to escape his state of limbo. The press eventually publicizes his situation and a nationalist politician seems to come to his aid, declaring: "لا حدود بعد اليوم"– “No border from now on”. However, he then proceeds to jump in his Mercedes and drive away. As the film ends, Adbul Wudood continues to wait indefintely between Sharqstan and Gharbstan. Although extremely amusing, the film drives home the message of the emptiness of slogans of Arab nationalism as long as borders keep the Arab people divided.

Our own recent experience with the border has made me sympathize with the plight of poor Adbul Wudood. Our visa requires us to cross over the Syrian border every 28 days in order to gain another 28 day extension.** This sounds like a rather simple, if somewhat annoying, undertaking considering the Damascus is only about 50km (30 miles) from the Syrian border and 127 km (around 75 miles) from Beirut through the beautiful Lebanese mountains. However, a trip from Damascus to Beirut takes on average between three and four hours. In order to cross the border out of Syria, one must first get in line to pay an exit fee of 550 Syrian pounds (around $12) then pass through passport control followed by customs. Once you have crossed the Syrian border, you must then drive through the rather bleak “no man’s land” until you reach the Lebanese border where you have to buy a 15-day tourist visa for 25,000 Lebanese pounds (about $17). Since they only accept Lebanese currency at passport control and there is no ATM at the border, you must convert money with a man in the middle of the street with a giant wad of cash in his hand… definitely not the best exchange rate. Three hours later and around $30 dollars poorer (not to mention the cost of the taxi), we finally reached Beirut…. Not a small sum for a cash-strapped college student and an exorbitant amount for most people that actually live in the region. In spite of this hassle, we were some of the lucky ones, since we were not held at the border where waits of over 8 hours are not unusual occurrences and being barred entry is always an option. Not to mention the possibility of ending up passport-less and in limbo like the hapless Adbul Wudood.

The hassle it takes to cross between Syria and Lebanon is even more frustrating due to the fact that the border, like most borders, is completely artificial. Up until WWI, Syria and Lebanon were a single unified region as well as one economic and political entity. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the exiling of the nationalist government of King Faisal, the French were awarded Lebanon and Syria as a mandate (colony). They devised a divide and rule strategy, splitting the mandate into Lebanon with a Christian majority and Syria. Now over a hundred years later, the simple act of getting from Beirut to Damascus is now a long, expensive and at times grueling test of one’s patience.

Although one might be tempted to see the plight of Abdul Wudood and those stuck in the “no man’s land” between the real Sharqstan and Gharbstan as a result of the Middle East’s own political and diplomatic issues, this nightmare is not isolated to the states of the Arab World. Anyone who has passed from Mexico into California and seen the long lines of people trying to get across the border is forced to acknowledge the artificial nature of that line in the sand maintained by walls, tanks and guns, which has fueled so many debates about immigration in the United States

For all those divided from livelihood and loved ones by borders, I hope for the day when we can truly say “No border from now on.”

* This blog represents my own views and in no way represents the view of the US Department of State or any of its affiliates.

**We were unable to gain anything besides a temporary tourist visa due to the continued tension between the U.S. and Syrian government. Also, if one has ever seen the way in which those attempting to gain visas to the U.S. are treated, one might think we got off fairly easy. 

قهوة

Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love ~ Turkish Proverb