For Those About to Study Abroad (or really, go anywhere new)

Maybe you have heard me complain before about the sheer inadequacy of my preparation for studying in Syria.  A great deal of this lack of helpful preparation is due to the fact that my program was new; no one had sent undergraduates to Syria as part of an organized program before.  Still and all, there are a couple things I'd like to have been told.  Here's a brief listing.

Disclaimer: these are drawn from my own experience, which as you can read in earlier postings involved a lot of challenging times, places, and people.  I know other students who absolutely loved every minute of their time abroad and so would have very different things to say about the experience.

(Upon reflection, I'd say these are actually pertinent for people going into any kind of new situation, even going from Houston to Baltimore or one job or school to another.  I am too much a pseudo-philosopher.  Nonetheless, hopefully this is helpful.)

1. It really is important to know why you want to go where you are going.  When you reach (one of) the low point(s) of your time abroad and only want to go home, it helps to be able to remind yourself of unquestionably logical and firm reasons why you are in this place.  For me, this was the fact that I want to improve my Arabic and can do so best in an Arabic-speaking country.  In addition, I wanted to learn about Middle Eastern Christians and Syria is the place for it.  Even when I was lying on my bed hating everything, these were reasons I couldn't argue with.  Having them settled even before my arrival in Aleppo made this a lot easier.  (Maybe this is an advantage to studying in a place that you have to justify to everyone you mention it to.)

2. In my orientation, we were told that it was fine to talk to our parents while freaking out, but to make sure we called back as soon as we were feeling better so that said parents would not get an inaccurately negative picture of our lives abroad.  This is good as far as it goes, but I think it's also important to have people back home you can be completely honest with.  Depending on who you are, this could be parents, friends, partners, clergy...whatever.  In practice, this means that if you have a massive freak-out session because you just can't do this one more day, you can talk to these people and then not worry about reassuring them, because they will love you even if you don't call back in a couple hours in a normal state and they will have confidence in your ability to take care of yourself.  This doesn't mean they don't worry-- it means they trust you and you know it.  Living abroad can be stressful enough without having to hide your stress.  (Note-- I know sometimes you can't be completely honest online anyway, thanks to your host government.  We knew from the very beginning that our internet use would be monitored.  But the principle still holds.  Have someone(s) with whom you'll be as honest as circumstances permit.)

3. Be as fine as you can with your own style of cultural acclimation, and use it.  People are very different, and these differences become very obvious when you are studying abroad and in stressful situations.  Some people are happy to jump right into things and make twenty local friends the first week and can be seen soon after smoking with them next to "No Smoking" signs.  Some people are me and think this sounds terrifying.  They might have a couple local friends by the end of the second week and only really socialize with them in the dorms.  This is okay.  The only way this is not okay is if you don't socialize at all and never push yourself.  Measuring yourself against other students in the program in terms of vocab retained, friends made, local coffee shops visited, or "adoptions" by local families is kind of counterproductive and just makes you sad.  Or happy, but in a vindictive way.  Likewise, people deal with stress in different ways-- soccer, yoga, playing solitaire, watching movies, hanging out with other people.  Just roll with it and do your own kind of best, which sounds cheesy and perhaps is, but also keeps you sane.  I was so frustrated with myself for being shy and not bonding instantly with any of the Syrians or Americans, but I was the one the Syrian girls came to when they had troubles with the Americans.  Go figure.

4. Things I most glad I brought with me include: breakfast bars, a garland of paper stars, and some Peppermint Patties.  There are weird things you miss when you leave home, and little things can make a lot of difference with this.  Little things also make very good bartering items...I'd forgotten deodorant when I showed up and traded some breakfast bars for a stick of it with a girl down the hall.  When I popped out the first Peppermint Patty (with full knowledge of how alliterative it was), not only was it delicious, but I got the attention of all the other Americans who were around.  Little things make a difference even if they're not from home.  By the time things started getting crazy in our program and the country at large, several of the students had picked up the habit of buying bunches of candy bars whenever they went to the supermarket.  If somebody (including you) was having a bad day or being nice or getting frustrated or hungry or scared, giving them a candy bar meant a lot.  It helped that the exchange rate was great for us and these nice German chocolates cost maybe $1 or so.

5. Finally, because I'm getting long-winded and also 5 is a nice number to end on with a base-10 system, pay attention to cultural mores-- but not too much.  You may be shocked to hear this, coming from me, the super International Studies Major who loves to harp on Context and such.  And I agree that it's important to have some idea going in of how not to offend everyone you meet, and equally importantly, not to be terrified by everyone you meet.  For instance, going to Syria, you should know as a woman not to force a handshake on a man or to sit up front in a taxi.  You should also know that cross-gender friendships are okay; the nice guy who asks you where you're from is (usually) curious and actually nice, not creepy.  But if you spend all your time trying to keep to specific rules and guess at the other ones, you have no time to have fun.  People will generally forgive your mistakes if you are sincere about trying to avoid them.  Make sure to reserve some brain space for interacting with people, because in the end, that's what they are.  They're people, not just sociological structures of language, culture, and society.  They just might like you.

A Couple of Days in the Life Squashed Into One

So I've had a couple of people ask me about my life here, what a normal day is like.  I've also been promising people pictures.  Hopefully, I can fulfill both of these requests now, Internet gods willing.

I live in student housing at the University of Aleppo.  Specifically, my dorm is called "Dar al-Diyafeh", or Hospitality House, and houses most of the international students.  I've met a couple of Americans not in my program, as well as some Turkish, Japanese and Iranian students.  (We're having a pizza party with the Iranians on Thursday, which is exciting.)  I live on the third floor, which is entirely populated by kids on my program and our Syrian hallmates, who live here to make us use our Arabic and help us get further into Syrian culture.  As you get to the third floor, you see the common room, complete with couches, TV, used tea and coffee cups, and forbidden-but-lit cigarettes.  To the left is the girls' wing, beyond a set of swinging double doors, and to the right, the boys' wing.  Officially, we're not supposed to mix, but for cooking and movie-watching purposes, the American girls invaded the boys' domain long ago.  Today, the gas on the guys' side is out, so they came over to our kitchen to cook.  That made for a fun dash to my room after showering.

Dar al-Diyafeh (Hospitality House)

I have a better view from my window than you do from yours.

So I wake up on school days (Sunday-Thursday) around 8 am, grump angrily to the bathroom to brush my teeth (yes, for those of you who know her, Morning Elise came to Syria, too), and then turn out to go to class with everyone else around 8:45.  The past few days, the gate of the university closest to our academic building has been locked, so I and whoever else doesn't want to scale the gate grump around to another gate and are late to class.  I'm in classical Arabic class from 9 to 12ish, with two breaks during that time.  My teacher is this wonderful lady who dresses in black and-- weirdly-- thinks we're funny.  Today, we acted out movies in class, and I ended up explaining "Pride and Prejudice" in Arabic.  Cross-cultural communication, anyone?

As of next week, we'll have a shorter classical Arabic class and an additional colloquial Arabic class in addition.  This is an important distinction...the Arabic language is characterized by what linguists call "diglossia", where one language type is used for certain contexts and another for others.  In the case of Arabic, classical Arabic is the language of the Qur'an and the basis for what I actually learn, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the language of politics, speeches, business, religion, and other formal settings.  Colloquial Arabic varies from place to place.  You can draw a parallel to accents or regional dialects, but the case of diglossia is more extreme.  Grammar is different, some words are completely different, but it's necessary to keep straight which is which.  In university Arabic classes, you usually only learn MSA, although some schools offer upper-level courses in various colloquials for students who already know MSA.  I'm learning Levantine (specifically Syrian) Colloquial Arabic now, just from interacting with people around me.

This picture has nothing to do with diglossia, but I'm proud of it.  So it goes here.

After MSA class, we have about an hour for lunch and then I go to an English content course, either Literature as a Cultural Lens or Middle Eastern Issues.  These are both a bit fluffy.  Afterward, I go home and...do something.  Homework, studying, napping, adventuring in the city...this last is especially easy because a taxi trip within the city costs approximately 40-50 Syrian lira (about $1).  Recently, I've been to the Aleppo Citadel, one of Aleppo's ancient souqs, Al-Jdeideh (the Christian Quarter), and a Greek Orthodox church.  If you want more information about any of these, just let me know.  And then what...and then I come back to Dar al-Diyafeh if I ever left it, and provide moral support and/or ingredients for a bit of communal dinner-cooking.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 or 12 pm, I go blissfully to sleep.

The less-claustrophobic view of the souq that tall people might have.

The Greek Orthodox church I visited for approximately twenty minutes, thanks to

some easily-bored fellow visitors.  The building's about 25 years old.

Living in Exciting Times, They Say

Public Service Announcement to concerned friends and relatives:  things are fine here at the university.  My biggest adventure of the day has been going to Carrefour, a sort of French Wal-Mart located near Aleppo.  (I figured staying out of downtown wasn't a bad idea, just in case.)  Here's a short glom of thoughts on life and living it in Halab (Aleppo):

My Contemporary Middle East professor is very cute in an old man kind of way and studied at American University, my school, for several years.  He therefore knows one of my professors, who's been there a while, and I officially have an "in" with him...anything for said professor at AU, he says.  He was talking to us about cultural differences between here and the US, and the best line of the speech was this: "Am I sexist?  Yes, I think I am.  I am sexist."  This was less of a reproachable statement than you might think, though, as it was in conjunction with talking about how he worries more about his daughter than his sons.  I know plenty of American dads who do the same.

Speaking of the sexes...I've been thinking a lot about Syrian men.  And not in an admiring way.  They drive me pretty crazy, since they seem to think American women are all...well...not all that modest, and open to all kinds of things.  As the girls walk to class, we often hear out the window, "Hello!  How are you?  I love you!" in English.  The thing is, American guys can be obnoxious too.  I keep reminding myself of that.  The difference is, I know how to handle American guys.  I know when they're acting interested, I know when they're pushing the boundaries of politesse, I know how to warn them off.  So, upon reflection, the Syrian guys are probably not as horrible as I tend to think...I just don't know how to play "battle of the sexes" here.  And so life is hard and involves lots of trial and error...hopefully not so much error.

But now about girls!  I had a Syrian make-over the other day!  Some of the girls on the hall decided they were in the mood for fingernail-painting.  After they ran out of their own fingers, they offered to do mine.  It's a pretty color-- sort of dark red-- and apparently special because it's from Turkey.  (I'll admit I think it's also the first time since prom that I've had nail polish on.)  Then we went to one the girls' room and sat around eating lunch and talking...admittedly, they talked more than I did, and I asked them to repeat everything at least once, but it was fun.  It was the first time I'd had extended interaction with Syrian girls, as they tend to be less outgoing with strangers than the guys.

(But, as in the US, there are marked differences...some of the girls on the floor are very extroverted indeed, and one in particular loves to dance in the lounge.  And she is GOOD at it.  While we're on the topic: clothing varies among women, too.  Many women wear the hijab, but not everyone.  Christians don't, and some Muslims.  On the street, some women are completely covered, eyes, hands, and all.  At the other end of the hijab spectrum, there are women like some of the girls on our hall, who wear pretty, flashy scarves over their hair only, and manage to rock a long shirt, leggings, and high heels.  These latter girls are happy to sing, dance, or hang out around men, while some of the more conservative girls will dance only around other women.)

The other night in the floor lounge, some of said singing-and-dancing was going on, and I asked my nail-polish buddy if sometime she would teach me an Arabic song.  She was more than happy, as was everyone else in the room-- immediately!!  They wrote out the lyrics to the first half of a Fairouz song (Fairouz being an intensely beloved Lebanese singer) and played it for me four or five times.  Now, almost every time I see one of the people who was there, they quiz me.

Important things: the Internet here is not always strong.  The dorm I live in was formatted for us especially, I think, and has lots of new things, among them hot water, wireless Internet, and co-ed floors (girls on one wing, boys on the other).  That means some of these things act up a lot.  So if I agreed to Skype with you or something and I don't show up, or if you don't hear from me for a couple days, that's probably why.