Some things that are exactly what you'd expect of syria:
1. women fully covered. There are are a significant number of women here who wear long black head-t0-toe robes. Many of them wear black gloves and socks. Some have only slits for the eyes, but many of them wear an additional piece of black cloth that goes over their faces, so there is literally zero skin that is visible. it is basically a burka, except always black and more than one piece.
2. the government is watching. i think i'll write a whole post about this later, but yeah, they basically know everything we're doing. and you can't even say the country, um, 'occupied Palestine' (what they call it) out loud. this we know from our syrian friends, who would lean over and whisper very very quietly whenever they had to say it, which they avoided at all costs.
3. there are big pictures of the president EVERYWHERE. huge billboards, posters in almost every store, car decorations. i guess maybe this is to reinforce the idea that the government is watching. there are more pictures of him than of any other leader of any other country I've been in.
Some things you might not expect in Syria:
1. people really like americans. i think they're not too keen on our president, but everyone is always asking 'what country' and when you say 'amrika' they all say 'welcome in syria' and some version of smile/thumbs up/'good.'
2. aleppo, the most conservative of Syria's big cities, has a pimp. they call him the yellow man of aleppo. He dresses in bright yellow, head to toe (inc. hat and shoes) and stands on a certain street corner all night, cell in hand. we did not stop to chat.
3. just as there are women covered head to toe, there are a significant portion of young women (mainly christians) wear tank tops, tight jeans and tons of make up. even a lot of young mulsim women wear a headscarf, tight clothes (but long sleeves) and tons of makeup.
4. they already have die hard 4 in theaters.
2. the government is watching. i think i'll write a whole post about this later, but yeah, they basically know everything we're doing. and you can't even say the country, um, 'occupied Palestine' (what they call it) out loud. this we know from our syrian friends, who would lean over and whisper very very quietly whenever they had to say it, which they avoided at all costs.
3. there are big pictures of the president EVERYWHERE. huge billboards, posters in almost every store, car decorations. i guess maybe this is to reinforce the idea that the government is watching. there are more pictures of him than of any other leader of any other country I've been in.
Some things you might not expect in Syria:
1. people really like americans. i think they're not too keen on our president, but everyone is always asking 'what country' and when you say 'amrika' they all say 'welcome in syria' and some version of smile/thumbs up/'good.'
2. aleppo, the most conservative of Syria's big cities, has a pimp. they call him the yellow man of aleppo. He dresses in bright yellow, head to toe (inc. hat and shoes) and stands on a certain street corner all night, cell in hand. we did not stop to chat.
3. just as there are women covered head to toe, there are a significant portion of young women (mainly christians) wear tank tops, tight jeans and tons of make up. even a lot of young mulsim women wear a headscarf, tight clothes (but long sleeves) and tons of makeup.
4. they already have die hard 4 in theaters.
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