Odd and slightly annoying things so far about Syria:
1. Sketchy, tight-pants wearing shabaab that like to utter things like "Welcome to Sooriya" or maybe what sounds like a subtly sexual thing in French. Maybe that has more to do with the fact that French sounds subtly sexual anyway...
2. Hole in the wall "toilets" (which are all we have in the dorms). 'Nuff said.
3. The fact that apparently glasses are not considered attractive. Ok, granted this is just an early supposition but it's definitely something I've picked up on many occasions, such as when a preteen girl at the Muslim wedding I recently attended literally yanked me into the ladies' room to pull them off my head. Seriously, people, aren't four eyes better than two?
4. Stoplights? Street signs? Speed limits? Ma fee.
5. Ok this one isn't so much about Syria, and maybe this is particularly whiny, but why oh why do I have to be a native speaker of a hegemonic language? Seriously, can't I speak something like Italian or maybe Romanian even? I guess this is a really privileged American thing to say, but it makes "getting in touch with your roots" by learning your family's native language hard as shit.
Ok that's all for now. More positive things to come later. I've left out a lot but I write when I can!
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I agree about the whole "being a native speaker of a hegemonic language". I'm lucky because i'm also a native speaker of other languages, so I would just tell people i'm "iranian". Didn't find many people who spoke Farsi, so they HAD TO SPEAK TO ME IN ARABIC :) i'm snnnneaky, but you can try it too! Say you're Romanian or something, it'll work, unless you run into a Syrian that speaks Romanian for some strange reason... then you're stuck...
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