Trying To Beat The Heat (Or, Beaten By The Heat)

Hello friends! How is everybody? Good? Good. I am also well. I have just finished my second week of Arabic classes (half-way done!), and have decided to write about the weather. Enjoy!

Afternoon heat in Damascus is by far the hardest part of day-to-day life here. Everyone struggles. Of all the highly motivated, intelligent, and creative people that I have met here, none have devised a suitable strategy to beat the heat. Ideally, I would to spend a few hours at home studying, reading, and writing until things cool down, but my unshaded second floor room is not an ideal hide out. All morning, the sun bakes my room, and the outdoor common spaces offer similarly little refuge from the mid-day heat. Phrasing it more positively, I can say that the sweltering sun allows me to really get the genuine Damascus experience, by encouraging me to complain about the heat constantly (a favorite local pastime), and causing me to sweat through any clothes that I put on (another thing that Damascenes truly relish). The common wisdom amongst locals is that there is simply no way to function during summer afternoons so, between the hours of one and five or six, most Syrians aim to limit movement as much as possible, and find shade wherever it may occur. My desire for constant activity made this difficult at first, but I am learning quickly.

My roommates Christopherus and Amanda have truly mastered the art of doing nothing during the day. They usually wake up in the late morning, and emerge from their room only to get food or water until at least 5 o’clock. When I get back from class around two and see them sitting in the partly shaded living room, my typical greeting is, “good morning!” This description, by the way, should in no way be taken as mocking; I was well on my way to this sort of schedule myself, before classes started and forced me to rise early and face the weather.

My new roommate Rob, who moved in just after Charles moved out on Saturday, seems to be generally productive (or at least more productive than I) during the mid-day heat. Since he is not in school, and therefore wakes up later than I do, it is not so difficult for him to muster the energy to be productive during the afternoon. From what I can tell, he is usually out and about while I am in my room hiding from the sun, but a few times I have seen him lying comatose on his mattress in the middle of the day with a fan pointing directly at him.

My landlady, Hanin, seems to have the best approach of all. Because her room is in the shadiest corner of the ground floor, it is usually quite comfortable during the day, so when it is light out she leaves the house only when errands or mandated court appearances make it absolutely necessary. If I ever live in Damascus long-term, I will buy some exercise equipment, find a room like hers, and get friends to deliver all my essentials. Well, perhaps it’s not that bad, but I certainly do miss being able to duck into some air-conditioning in New York, and Boulder’s pleasant breezes.

Despite my misgivings about the afternoon weather, I find that any time spent outside at night is quite fantastic. Because there is little moisture in the air and very few clouds in the sky (I think), the heat escapes from the city rather quickly once the sun goes down. My house’s outdoor living room is usually very pleasant after 8 PM or so, and almost every restaurant in the Old City is built with a movable fabric shade covering an open roof, so that patrons can enjoy the pleasant evening temperatures as they munch on fatat and tabouleh. The pleasant weather is easily the clearest explanation for why Damascenes stay out so late. Or maybe it’s because their rooms are as hot as mine.

Even though outdoor spaces cool down quickly in the evenings, for whatever reason, my room remains a sauna until at least 3 AM. The walls must be a marvel of insulation engineering, because no matter how long I leave my door and window open, the temperature in my bedroom does not drop. As my parents can attest, I have always loathed sleeping in hot temperatures, so to fall asleep at night I have adopted the old “water and fan” technique.

Every night before bed, I fill a 1.5 liter bottle with tap water and point my floor fan directly at my head and chest. Whenever I start to feel uncomfortable, I grope for the bottle on the floor next to my bed and pour some of its contents onto my head, arms, chest, and lower legs. At first, my technique was timid because I was worried about damp sheets, but in the weeks that have passed I have learned that water evaporates quickly in my room’s hot and dry climate, so now I don’t even bother to open my eyes as I liberally soak my bed and body. The trick is to fall asleep quickly, before the water dries, and before another cabdriver parks his car in the alley adjacent to my house and starts blasting Middle Eastern pop music. I have gotten quite good at this, and I no longer view these rituals as a pain in the ass, as I did when I first moved in.

The only thing that still disturbs my sleep is catfights. No, I don’t mean two Syrian women pulling at each other’s hair through their hijabs, I mean actual fights between stray cats. There is nothing more disconcerting than the high pitched squealing of two kittens fighting over food scraps. It’s like nails being dragged across a chalkboard, but with the added image of Feifel clawing at Garfield’s bloodied neck. Because my Panamanian roommate, Carlos, once tried to feed these cats with a bowl of milk, my house is now a popular hangout for dozens of strays, and battles over territory are a nightly occurrence. Many times I have woken with a start to this dreadful noise and seen a scraggly feline fleeing to a neighboring roof. Up to this point it may seem that I have just spent an entire blog post complaining, but please allow me to elaborate on some benefits that I have received from all this temperature turmoil.

In dealing with the daily challenges of life in Syria, heat being just one of them, I have learned to deal with my physical and mental discomforts without allowing myself to become distraught. For my first two weeks here, I often found myself getting really worked up about the lack of sleep or the difficulty of filling the afternoons. I would start to think about home, and all of the people and activities that made my life great, and I would lament being stuck in the Middle East for over two months. This was neither productive nor pleasant – the good times were still great, but as soon as something started to bug me, I would find myself unable to move on and feel at peace. It was only after much practice and thought that I came to understand temporary moments of discomfort as exactly what they are: temporary. Now, when I feel frustrated or sad, I simply tell myself to wait half an hour and, almost always, I have forgotten my concerns altogether before ten minutes have elapsed.

So what if I don’t sleep well here and there? So what if my afternoons don’t go perfectly? These things are hardly worth getting upset about, and realizing this made a world of difference. Learning to be patient when dealing with challenges is by far the most helpful and enlightening thing I have learned so far this summer.

I hope everyone had a good Fourth of July holiday. I am heading to a monastery in the mountains north of Damascus for the weekend, which is supposed very beautiful and peaceful, and I am really looking forward to some quality journaling time. I am going with Bret, who is leaving directly form the monastery to travel around the Middle East for six weeks, so this will be our last hurrah in Syria and I am looking forward to some raunchy conversation with him, as well.

Ma’sallama

Eric