Restored Faith

At 7.20pm, three times a week, Abu Mansur turns up outside the dojo gates, his small 7-year old son, dressed in an equally miniature judogi, running excitedly around him at waist height. He wears a blank expression, his round face weary from the day's labours, as he looks absently down the dark road which runs past the club and into infinity. When the gates are opened and the others swarm across the tarmac towards the dojo door, he follows slowly, pensively, behind them, with short, measured strides. As the session begins, he takes up his usual spot on the wooden bench along the back wall of the dojo and as the figures, bathed in yellow lamp-light, flash and flicker upon the red mats, exuding warmth and energy, his eyes begin to close and he drifts asleep, as though in a chair in front of a log fire.

But today Abu Mansur's eyes remain fixedly open.

For some unknown reason 7.30 comes and goes, and Ya Ustaaz does not arrive. Ya Cap-i-tan, waiting in the darkness outside with the rest of us, takes out his keys and begins cycling through, looking for one to let us through the padlocked gates. "Al ustaaz mariid al yawm?", 'is he ill?', I ask my friend Muhammed standing next to me. "Wa-allah ma ba'arif", 'I've got no idea', he replies, shrugging his shoulders.

I follow Ya Cap-i-tan inside, as normal, but am only followed by little Mansur i adition to a black belt friend of Ya Cap-i-tan, a new black belt called Hassan (who more than makes up for his size and age by being incredibly aggressive) and my sparring partner of late, Jarawiish. The general cries from outside suggest that we may well be the only ones training tonight, as a football flies past the window and is intercepted in the free-for-all match which had erupted on the floodlit tarmac.

(Above: picture of the dojo from across the tarmac on my phone as I left.)

We spent ten minutes running around as a nominal warm-up and then began 40 minutes of randori, free fighting, with Jarawiish and I coached by the three black belts present and for perhaps the first time since starting judo in Syria, I felt I was learning something, as they made us do uchi komi, repeating again and again various moves in a combat situation.

After what seemed like no time at all, my eyes glanced at the clock on the wall and I realised that it was time for me to go. As I left I was overcome by a wave of regret that I had had to leave what could perhaps be the best session I ever have with these people, and frustration, as seems to characterise many of my accounts, at the thought that I will probably forget everything that I have just learned over the course of my Easter holiday in England.

But at least, like Abu Mansur as he sits there, invigorated by by the energy of his son's progress, my faith in the value of these sessions has been restored. For now, anyway.

The Dojo Trinity

The general sense of apathy which fills me every time I take a holiday and face the prospect of returning to the Dojo; the fact that I'm not actually being taught anything, and even if I was, that the language barrier means that I'm not necessarily aware of it; combined with the fact that I'm treated like a retarded 8 year old just because I speak like one, all means that, 6 months in, my progress in judo has not been quite as rapid as hoped. Instead my general sense of bitterness at the prospect of returning to England, where everyone I trained with before coming to Syria will probably be 5th Dan Black belts by now, has been well and truly cemented.

But as I sat, last night, trying to listen to one of the coach's monologues, I realised that I hadn't actually said anything about the coach, or the people that filled his shoes after his recent injury-related absence, and so my mind drifted as I set about planing what I would say.

1. "Ya Ustaaz"

This is the man who I have thus far referred to as the coach, a rather portly gentleman, with a generous third dimension protruding from his midsection, probably in his 40s, with dark skin (for a Syrian) with a crew cut and a carefully trimmed, slightly greying beard.

Although he has been absent ever since I came back from my Christmas holiday (thanks to a back-related weight-lifting accident), this is the man who introduced me to the world of Syrian judo and made my acceptance into the club so quick and relatively painless (emotionally speaking , that is. I can assure you, the initiation fights - after a 4 month summer holiday - were anything but painless).

As much respect I have for him, however, he's actually - how do I put this delicately - rubbish.

Especially when teaching a retarded 8 year-old.

His natural disposition to soliloquise can only really be compared to that of Hamlet, with large portions of the sometimes 3 hour sessions being swallowed whole by his epic lectures, which have often made me seriously consider the merits of 'being' over 'not being'.

When he does go off on his tangent, I'm particularly aware of how little use his spiel actually is. Although his arabic is perhaps the hardest of the 'Dojo Trinity' to understand, what I do get is still of little or no benefit at all. He spends most of his time pondering out-loud the philosophies of judo, with the name Jigori Kano, the Japanese founder of Judo, popping up nearly as frequently as the abstract phrases "funn al-judo" (the art of Judo) and 'quwa' (power).

When he does decide that a demonstration is in order he tends to favour the 'show-them-everything-you-know-about-x-group-of-moves-in-30-seconds' school of teaching, leaving me completely stunned, having dropped the ball of Japanese and Arabic words thrown at me whilst trying to concentrate on the rapid succession of movements, the flashes of white as judo-gis fly though the air, accompanied by loud bangs, as his victim hits the floor again and again.

2. "Ya Cap-i-tan"

This man appeared out of nowhere at the end of last term and has been largely in charge of lessons during Ya Ustaaz's absence. In much the same way as the coach, I have no idea about his real name, but have adopted the title which people call him when they greet him or want to catch his attention: "Ya Cap-i-tan".

Although perhaps lacking the gravitas and experience of Ya Ustaaz, being a 5th year Engineering student at Damascus University, he more than makes up for it by being a good bloke and quite a decent teacher. For the last two months (about half of which I've missed for traveling), the long speeches; the monotonous routine of killer 1h30 warm up followed by single fight, watched by the entire group; and the ridiculous demonstrations; have all been on standby, replaced by a more concise warm up followed by a mix of ground work and standing with the occasional bit of coaching as he walks around the dojo - a lot better than the complete absence of variation or coaching of the former regime.

But that ended last night with the return of Ya Ustaaz to active duty. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

3. Untitled

The third member of the trinity did not come pre-packaged with a title as the other two did, and so I'm still weighing up the possibilities:

Grim Reaper

Last term, when Ya Ustaaz took a week off to take care of his ill sister and before Ya Cap-i-tan took up his place as prince regent of the club, I remember waiting in the dark outside the dojo gates when a figure swathed in black glided along the deserted street. As he descended upon us, a chill ran down my spine that I can only assume was a premonition of death.

Now, I'm sure that there are a series of logical explanations for all of the above. One, it was mid December, with a freezing wind, so it's not surprising I was cold. Two, he was wearing a dark tracksuit and a beanie: a shape concealing outfit which obviously looked black at 7pm given that there's no street lighting. Three, he was riding a bike.

Since that moment, I've not been able to escape this association with the grim reaper, despite the fact that he bares absolutely no physical resemblance to said reaper, being of healthy build and in his mid 20s, yet every time he enters the Dojo I can't help but feel suffocated under the shroud of terror which cloaks him even when he has changed into his gi, casting everyone in its frightful shadow.

General Pain

The first session with this stranger turned out to be very bit as bad as the atmosphere of dread had led me to anticipate.

We all knew Ya Ustaaz was away, so we just continued as we had done in every prior session, to conduct a mildly taxing and excessively long warm up. Twenty minutes later our new instructor took to the mat and ordered us to start from the beginning. But to do it harder. And
longer.

What followed I can only describe as the most grueling work out I have ever experienced, accompanied by shouts, not of encouragement, but threats of what would happen if you looked like you were easing up. More than one person ended up having to leave the dojo because the injuries inflicted upon them prevented them from continuing, the youngest of whom was about 10, holding his wrist as he ran off the mat, his head low to hide the shame and the tears.

For two hours we were drilled by 'the General', in true despotic fashion, until we could move no more and the physical abuse finally subsided. In this instance being an obvious foreigner was perhaps, for the fist time, a positive attribute as I was never dealt the hefty blows faced by the others, only the fear that I might do any minute...

Even after Ya Cap-i-tan had assumed command, 'General Pain' continued to patrol the perimeter, executing corporal punishment where needed.

So perhaps I'll amalgamate the two and call him:

General Grim, the scythe-wielding megalomanic.

Or just 'G.G.' for short.

Candlelit Judo

After a three week holiday, nursing my body back to health in England, I decided that I couldn't really postpone my judo attendance any further. I had already concluded that I couldn't go on Monday as I was still recovering from my flight the previous evening, and Wednesday probably wasn't a good idea as I would need to re-establish a routine after my absence. So, out of excuses, I wound my way my way along the icy back streets of the Old City and headed out to the club in the industrial wasteland just beyond Bab Mousalla.

I had left myself half an hour to get there, as I usually did, and as usual I arrived outside the gate ten minutes before anyone else, time which I utilised by trying to invent new ways of tying my kefia scarf in order to retain some the heat that was trying to flee the boarders of my overcoat and escape into the darkness.

People started to turn up. First a young boy, about nine years old, whose silhouette could have easily been mistaken for a small snowman. A gloved hand was thrust at me and the usual greetings were exchanged. I spoke with him a little about the weather, exploring the limits of my vocabulary (and quickly finding them) as more and more people gradually turned up, calling out jovially 'Mr Jems' as they too stretched out their hands to greet me, which they then either raised to their lips to kiss or placed over their chest in a gesture that would have looked very strange had the guidebook not told me that it was a sign of respect.

After 45 minutes of waiting someone decided to call the teacher. Apparently he wasn't coming because his sister was ill. So I was off the hook… for the time being.

When Monday came round I concluded, once again, that I definitely needed to go to judo. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't enjoy it - after all, without it I would be doing pretty much no
heart-pumping exercise at all, Damascus not being one of those cities with a small army of joggers patrolling the streets - but the distance, the strange environment and the language barrier all contributed to my slight reluctance to get stuck back in.

Straight after class I grabbed a taxi and headed towards the club. I chatted merrily with the taxi driver, but I feigned misunderstanding when he started asking if I have a wife and then produced a series of synonyms and actions to accompany the question of how many times I sleep with her a week, occasionally breaking his mime act to glance at the road ahead. When we stopped, he demanded 100SP (1GBP) which I refused to give him, so I got out of the car, chucked a 50SP note onto the seat behind me, and ran down the road, looking over my shoulder
every 10 paces to make sure he hadn't chased after me for more money.

As I walked along the street up to the club at about 19h15, grabbing a coke from a small shop on the way to try and boost my energy levels, I could see ahead that there was already a small congregation forming outside the gate, confirming that I didn't really need to get there
with quite so much time to spare as I had been doing. By 19h35, after the usual meeting and greeting, it looked like the coach wasn't going to show, filling me with a mix of disappointment after having got myself worked up mentally ready, and elation at having postponed the inevitable yet again. But I had though too soon.

The coach, a 'generously' built man probably in his forties, pulled up next to us on his bicycle and everyone followed as he unpadlocked the metal gates and headed over to the dojo. We quickly filed in, desperate to get out of the freezing cold, but we were greeted by the chill and gloom of a power cut.

In England, winter Judo was only different to summer Judo for the first five minutes of each session. We would enter the dojo, turn on the heaters, hop around a bit whilst complaining about the cold, do a proper warm up and then think nothing more of it. Syrian winter Judo is quite different.

Now, not only do you have to concern yourself with the guy you are fighting against, but the room is littered with precariously positioned candles, making any activity on the mat almost impossible to see. In addition there is the muscle petrification that creeps through your body if you stand still for more than 15 seconds. Oh, and cold feet.

Only when after we had started the vigorous hour and a half warm up did I realise that the reason there were so few people on the mat was not because they were taking a long time to change, but because the coach had let them go home as it was too cold. I knew that this was
going to be an 'experience' which I would just have to endure in the hope that a better person would come out at the other end… hopefully one without pneumonia.

By the end of the warm up I couldn't work out what all the fuss had been about. The candles were atmospheric, casting shadow-puppet shapes onto the walls; I was warm and sweating from the exertion; and my feet weren't that numb. But as soon I stopped moving to wait my turn to do randori, the cold enveloped me and pervaded my very being.

After changing out of my gi at the end of the session the coach came up to me and suggested I get a taxi home instead of my usual walk back. 'No,no, I'll be fine!' I assured him as I headed back out onto the street. I couldn't feel my toes.

I made it as far as the corner across from the club and decided to hail a taxi.

Iqarma quest and the jawizaat

When I received my shiny new six month visa through the post before I left I assumed, immigration wise, that would be the end of the matter. How wrong I was.

As I slumped in the back seat of the taxi after a 6 hour flight on my first visit to Syria, trying not to think too hard about where it was actually taking me, I flicked through my passport to examine my new entry stamp, upon which was printed the following:

WHEN HE WANTS TO STAY MORE THAN 15 DAYS HE MUST REFER TO THE BRANCH OF IMMIGRATION

At this point I was too tired to contemplate the consequences of this statement and promptly drifted back to sleep.

Fourteen days later I overheard some friends discussing what they were going to do about residency. I had read somewhere that there was a residents’ permit available which meant that you wouldn’t have to renew your visa in London after the six months was up, but I had decided that after six months I would probably be in need of a holiday. It was only after I expressed these sentiments to my friends that the huge error in my logic was revealed to me.

In Syria, so it seems, bureaucracy is so substantial for two reasons:
1- That the officials enjoy the power-rush when they instil foreigners with a sense of hopelessness.
2- There is no interdepartmental cooperation.

So I came to learn, the department for immigration, which let me into the country and issued my six month visa, has absolutely nothing to do with the department for residency, which lets you stay in the country for anything longer than a quick holiday. So, according to the stamp in my passport, in just over a day's time I would be an illegal immigrant.

Seeing my look of panic, my friends came to the rescue. Apparently, even though the stamp says ‘go to the immigration department in 15 days or else’ they’ll turn you back if it has been anything less than a month since your arrival.

Finally, an additional two weeks later I decided that it was time for me to pay a visit to the Department for Immigration (a.k.a. jawizaat). Four of us (two guys and two girls) were in need of a visa extension and we were fortunate enough to have some vague instructions as to what needed doing. At 9am our taxi came to a halt in a pretty nondescript area of town, and were it not for the swarms of people jostling outside one particular grey tower block we would have been at even more of a loss as to what we actually needed to do.

So we paid for the taxi and marched with an air of false confidence to the entrance, pushed past some people and went in.

Then we quickly came out again. After less than a minute inside the building we were thoroughly flustered and, standing in the cool morning breeze, decided to call someone on the phone for help. “Go upstairs and over to the window in the corner” were the instructions we clung to on our second attempt, as we pushed through the masses of people waiving green Iraqi passports about their heads. We eventually made it to the window, putting years of school rubgy tactics to good use, and conveyed that we wanted a visa extension. After parting with 25SL each we were presented with a form and headed back outside to surface for air. To cut a very long story short, the next hour and half went something like this (although not accounting for all the people hindering every stage of the quest)

Fill in form. Apply postage stamps to it. Take to window. Get another form. Get four copies of different form made. Fill in each one (it was made explicitly clear that you couldn’t just photocopy a form which was already filled in). Staple one passport photo to the top of each. Get multiple copies of passport and visa. Take all forms and copies to top floor to be signed by the General of Administration. Take forms to office on third floor to get a number. Return to window. Hand in forms and passport. Take a deep breath. Leave.

(I apologise if the order is not quite rightm it was a very stressful day - but I hope you get the gist!)

Having achieved nothing except the loss of my passport (with no receipt to claim it back) I went home and got back into bed.

Fortunately I did get my passport back the following day, only after returning to the window and enduring some sort of identity parade where they looked through all the passports for one with a picture that matched, pointing and laughing all the while.

I’m not going to even bother to explain what residency permit entails. Maybe when I’ve recovered from the memory...

Syria + freedom of speech = :-(

When I left for Damascus in October I had this blog all set up and ready to host my witty anecdotes and tales from my adventures. What I didn't bank on was government censorship.

Thanks for that, Bashar.

So for the last three months not only has this meant that I have been unable to update my carefully and lovingly crafted blog (blogger.com being the target of a blanket ban) but, perhaps more disturbing, this meant that Facebook was gone too. I guess the unregulated nature of Facebook and the reports in the western media of how users have been able to influence decision-makers was just too much of a scary thought.

Although looking back on my arrival in October, back in the days when accessing Facebook was still a legal activity, it was obvious that it was too good to be true. I met some Syrians towards the end of Ramadan who invited me and some friends out to an iftar party with them (the evening meal at sundown to break the fast) and when I made my way to an internet cafe the following morning I had a plethora of 'friend requests' waiting for me. Within 24 hours I had been invited to join at least 10 different groups as well as having a stack of messages piled in my inbox.

When every other channel of communication is so closely guarded, having the country's youth conversing under the radar was asking for trouble.

So, as I sit at my desk in England during my 2 week Christmas vacation, I'm going to take the opportunity to post and back-date all the posts which I couldn't publish at the time but was determined to write none the less!

Change Firefox to look (and act) like Safari

I’ve just installed Leopard on my macbook but I’ve been struggling with Safari when trying to get it to load Gmail. As there are only a few days left of broadband before I head back to Damascus I decided I would work around this problem by using Firefox (which I keep for emergencies anyway) as my main browser, at least until the compatibility problems are fixed. The only problem is that I don't really like the way Firefox looks on a mac, so I've modded the hell out of it to make it more Safari-ish.

Although this isn’t exactly Syria related I thought I’d post it all the same:

1. Change the theme

The first thing was to change the skin to make it look a bit more Safari-ish. This is really easy as Firefox has a huge selection of themes to chose from but I would recommend iSafari Leopard as this has been tested with some of the other add-ons which we’ll come to.

2. Combine the Stop/Refresh button

On Safari the stop and refresh functions are combined on the same button, unlike firefox. I found an add-on called UI Tweaker and this allowed me to combine the two very effectively.

Once installed you need to go to ‘Tools > UI Tweaker’ to change the settings.

3. Hide the status bar at the bottom

Firefox, unlike Safari, includes a status bar at the bottom which fulifills a number of useful functions such as displaying the loading bar and showing the address when you hover over links. This is however notably absent from Safari and wanting to be true to my aim of making Firefox as similar as possible it had to go.

This was achieved with autoHideStatusbar. When this is installed you need to go to ‘preferences’ on the ‘add-on’ menu and select ‘always hide’.


UPDATE 03.01.08
After looking around I have found that a much easier solution is to click on 'View > Status Bar' so that it is un-ticked. That should do the same thing, but it's infinitely easier!

4. Progress bar in the address bar

The Safari progress bar is located in the address bar at the top of the window. This is one of the most aesthetically pleasing aspects of Safari in my opinion. For this you need Fission which does exactly that. This has been tested with iSafari Leopard and I can confirm that it works!


5. Private browsing

Firefox has an equivalent so I thought I’d add it. It’s called Stealther and appears under the ‘Tools’ menu.

6. Bookmarks

In Safari there’s a little icon of an open book on the ‘bookmarks bar’ which open all your bookmarks in a different window. By going to ‘View > Toolbars > Customize’ you can add this too by dragging the ‘Bookmark’ icon to the beginning of the ‘Bookmarks bar’. Although it may look wrong initially, when you close the customise box it looks as you’d expect it to.

There are a few other bits which can be added such as SnapBack and Resizable form fields (I’m sure many more - please let me know!) but I’ve left it at that.

Much better.

Update 21.03.08

One particularly useful feature of Safari which is not found in firefox is the fact that it taxes its proxy settings from the Mac system proxy settings found in the 'Location' tab. That means that whenever I wanted to change networks I would have to change the system location for using Mail.app and Safari as well as change the Firefox settings through "Preferences".

But having installed a very useful add-on from http://blog.curthread.org/projects/systemproxy this is now no longer an issue as Firefox, like Safari, now takes its proxy settings from the system settings.

كل عام و انتم بخير

Happy New Year!