Searching Vainly For The Holiday

I thought I'd better make a quick update in commemoration of time flown, as it's Sunday and the holiday is nearly over. Well, is over, for all intents and purposes. Goodbye, holiday. It was nice while it lasted.

I'm feeling a little lethargic, though, so this won't be very long. What have I been up to? A whole group of us went to Beirut again last weekend for someone's birthday, and did the going-out thing instead of the sightseeing-thing (although we did a bit of that, as well). We climbed down to the outermost point of the shore near the Pigeon Rocks in the dark (while some random individual of the male persuasion ferociously urged us to 'Zur! Zur!') and ate Will's Hezbollah birthday cake (courtesy of one of the cake shops in Bab Touma) in a shorefront cafe, before going back to our one room (for nine people), falling asleep, then waking up, playing drinking games for a while, and going out. Half of us came home the following day; the other half stayed (up) an extra night, nearly went down the side of a mountain when their taxi lost a wheel while driving back in the early morning; and allegedly hitchhiked back across the border in an NBC news van, pretending to be journalists. So yes, it was all fun and games on this side of the world last weekend.

Apart from that, I haven't really done anything. We still haven't managed to get up the mountain, despite numerous suggestions and attempts to formulate a plan for doing so (and the idea having been in the works since we got here). Last Sunday I went to church with Firas and Charlie and American Matt and a friend of Firas', which was interesting. It's the church whose grounds we use for playing football: Orthodox, quite grand, and not particularly old (I don't think - at least, it looks new) with big stone pillars and lit by chandeliers. At the back of the church were a row of little alcoves with red curtains hung across the front and there are icons and paintings everywhere you look. Almost all the prayer was sung, and the singing was very distinctive - I don't quite know how to describe it. I liked it. It was very evocative - insistent and powerful and self-perpetuating, in a melodic way. Sometimes it soared, lifting you with it. And even though the service was entirely in Arabic, when the congregation spoke prayers in unison, it was possible to recognise some of them from their rhythms and the repetition of words, which for some reason gave - gives - me a thrill. On Monday, we played a football game to the accompaniment of sporadic flashes of lightning lighting up the darkening sky and the build-up of a thunderstorm. I was knackered by about halfway through, but it was a lot of fun. I scored a goal - I'm still not quite sure how that happened.

I can't for the life of me remember what else I've done this week. I don't know where the holiday's gone - I certainly don't seem to have done anything with it. It's freezing in Damascus these days, sometimes seasoned with a sizeable side-helping of rain and occasionally a bit of thunder. There have been jumper- and blanket-buying expeditions. I've somehow managed to do some work but I haven't really been putting any belly into it. It's time to rediscover that motivation.

Anyway, I'd better finish there - conversation exchange in an hour. Life goes on here - I'm happy to be here. In general and on the whole, if sometimes there are hiccups. (but that's life) Hope life is treating you all well, too.