Jul 3, 2008
In Damascus of course we visited the great Mosque, and saw the ornately grilled structure within it that is supposed to contain the remains of John the Baptist. Since he was said to have been beheaded at the whim of Salome I’m not sure whether the corpse is complete, and I couldn’t make out anything recognisable when I looked through the grill, so I still don’t know.
We also visited the wall where St Paul is said to have been lowered down to escape from someone, and we also visited the House of Ananais, now a little shrine, where Paul is said to have recovered his sight after he was struck blind by a great light on the road to Damascus. (“Saul,Saul! Why persecutest thou me?”) When we came out we were accosted by a strange fellow carrying a large bundle of watercress. You could see where he’d been by the trail of stems he had let fall along the way. He graciously opened a gate in a nearby wall, and invited us into a pleasant courtyard. In there was a family having coffee. It was obviously a family gathering in the yard of someone’s house, - not a street café. We must have looked mystified for they signed to us they our guide was not right in the head, but they invited us to coffee nevertheless. Arab hospitality towards strangers! Meanwhile, the watercress man had wandered off and when we came back on the street we could still trace his path like a paper chase.
We had in fact been entertained at a barbecue in a similar family courtyard in Aleppo. One of the Agriculture staff, Magda Kayme, invited us to her home when we were visiting there. Three generations of the family lived around the courtyard in two storied units, and the ladies gathered each morning outside the grandmother’s house while she served coffee. In the evening the men, returned from work, prepared the barbecue and everyone joined in. How pleasant and how civilised.