MESOPOTAMIA
2000: Ramadan at the beginning of a new millennium
(by Emanuela)

Music and coffee

Al Raqqa, pronounced: arràkka. A village in the middle of Mesopotamia. What used to be the center of the world, you could say. Still, the driver who's bringing us here from Palmyra doesn't seem convinced. Do we just want to stop here or do we really want him to leave us here? He's still unconvinced. We'll catch a bus tomorrow, don't you worry. "Autobùs". We understand each other. So, that's what we really want, therefore we can get down from his car. He helps us out with the luggage, while we walk up the stairs of this small concrete building. A mix of Arab architecture of the sixties and a non-finished work. Anyway, at the first floor we do find the inn we're looking for. I couldn't define it in any other way. As you could expect, around the central room, with its tv always on, armchairs and a desk for the owner, seven or eight rooms are lined up all. And the bathroom, of course. Our driver exchanges a fast Arab dialogue with the inn owner. They look at us, clearly speaking about us, where we're heading, what we've done before, where we are from. The driver leaves us here, we put our luggage in the chilly rooms. The owner, with extreme kindness, brings more blankets and towels for us. The softener has not arrived here, but what can we ask for? He offers us a jet-black spicy coffee, sweetened with a ton of sugar, while Carlo assists him in the transcription of our names in the hotel book. Carlo can't read Arab and the man can't read our alphabet. Verbal communication simply based on sounds. I tighten my scarf around my neck while hot coffee goes down my throat.

I take a short nap on the generous cushions of this small sofa, which I will later understand is the owner's bed, while the Arab soap opera seems to be reaching the top of pathos. Carlo and the inn owner have gone together to the bus station, to buy tomorrow's tickets. That man's kindness is incredible. It's surely not just because of the few dollars that we're leaving him for this overnight stay.

A full afternoon in front of us. Al Raqqa. An overlook from the bridge on the Euphrates, a tour around the clock tower, and the big question comes: left or right? The main road is just one, we decide to go the way up.

Shops mostly look like large garages with a steel door. Groceries, home goods, tapestry, colourful material for women dresses to be further hidden below layers of black material. And then, a real shop, with windows and everything you'd expect from a shop. It's a music shop, its windows are full of cassettes and Arab singers' pictures. We get in, our curiosity wins. The shop owner is a thin and tall guy, eagle-like nose and black overcoat. If this was a movie, this would be even too much realistic, but it ain't no movie, so it almost seems fake. Salam alaykum. Wa alaykum assalam. End of our Arab dialogue. At least we're in peace: he's got such a penetrating look.
We ask him for compact discs, obviously he doesn't deal any. But he knows what they are, he's clearly saying that on this side of the country nobody has a cd player yet. Too expensive. Clearly, here all cassettes are not original ones. But in all shops of this village it's quite easy to buy laundry tongs and any plastic object in general, but we don't need any. We take a look at these cassettes, he plays some music for us although it's clear we're not interested in cassettes. Kindly, he hands us his small stool, and from the back of the shops he makes more appear. He remains standing and starts to work on the coffee pot, coffee powder, sugar.

A small stove appears, and the smell of aniseed-spiced coffee starts to irradiate in the shop. Tonight, again, my sleep is at risk because of excess of caffeine. Of course saying no to such a hot aroma which smells like friendship is impossible. Our dialogue, however incredible it may seem, goes on. Rain has started to pour again, chilly and incessant. Staying here inside is somehow like being in your own kitchen on a Winter night. Out there, now, darkness is dominating and we're feeling well, here. I make acrobatic efforts to get a sense of our friend's sentences, while furiously looking up things in my tiny vocabulary, that Carlo has given me for Christmas, a few days ago. I understand names and a couple of words, I have a vague idea of the alphabet and still, a little at the time I start to believe this guy in front of me is saying comprehensible things. Sometimes.
We talk about our families, his family, what we do for a leaving, how much you earn in Italy. Ah, Italy. Rum. Yes, Rome is our capital. I feel I'm a genius when I understand that u and o are quite the same for an Arab-speaking person, and that Rum is no Jamaican liquor, this time. Rome. I've been there about a month ago. And this man here makes quite clear signs: people of Roma, here, in Al Raqqa. And he crosses his wrists in the air, the international sign to indicate cuffing. Silence, actually: the cassette goes on squawking its Arab, inviting, crescendo. We look at each other. We try to put together all these pieces of information. I break out in a laugh. He's speaking about ancient Romans!

Halab, Ramadan 1420

"Allah Akhbar! Allah Akhbar!". At the bottom of my conscious me I pick up a woman's voice, loud in the middle of a crowd of other loud voices. I finally open up my eyes, totally dizzy. Oh, yes, we're on the bus. We stopped, all of a sudden, wheels making a lot of friction on an unpaved surface, all the passengers are crying out loud in Arab.
I'm sitting by the window, so I can take a look at what's going on. The big cloud of dust settles down. Now I can see where we are. On my side: the abyss. The men get down to take a look. Everything's fine, it seems, we haven't even a flat tyre. Maybe a nap problem of the driver? We'll never know. It's been a matter of seconds and a few meters. Allah is big. Theirs, mine. Which, after all, is the same. We're all still here and I'm probably more sleepy than before. The lady behind me is still standing, she's raising her arms to the sky, she cries out, repeating the same words. It's no hysterical scene. It's a prayer. Thank you.

The next time I wake up it's in a less violent way. Sounds of horns all around us, rain against the windows, mud flying around the wheels: we're in Halab suburbs. Almost there. Traffic, traffic, people walking, people pulling carts, nobody worrying about these icy raindrops falling over everything. Veils are pulled tightly on the heads, caps pulled down, cigarettes obstinately continue burning, hanging from mouth corners.
We get down just in time to avoid our luggage to be thrown in the mud, running in the bus station area. And get on the first cab we see, after quite minimal contracting, that probably does not even see us losing much. So we dive into the chaos of cars, small trucks and human crowds. Our friend hits the car horn about every time he breaths out, talking to us as though we're understanding him. Talking about traffic is almost universal, and even more understandable by Italians like us. When we'll be back in Milan piazza Repubblica will sound and look like some Swiss paradise for a while.

Before making us finally die of cold, humidity and car gasses because of his open car window, our friend pulls out. Baron Hotel. The one where Lawrence d'Arabia and Freya Stark slept, the obvious passage point for a century ago noblesse. Our Lonely Planet ensures that its intact, inclusive of original bed flies. Who cares, it's December.
The hall is exactly the way it should be. Dim light, carpets everywhere, bar lounge on the left side, large living room on the right. In front of us, the reception and a large stairway covered with visibly worn down carpets. The receptionist, a short older guy with moustache, clearly just gotten out of an Agatha Christie story, hands us heavy port keys asking in a barely audible whisper: "Change dollàr?"
The rooms are exactly the way they should be too. The high bed, mattress over mattress, squeaks and bends a bit under my weight, but it's comfortable. I sink between mattresses and pillow, feeling like a ninth-hundred century diva for a moment. The old plumbing howl for some instants. The furniture creaks. And from the window twenty-first century's Halab noises fall in, while traffic wars are fought out there.

Lambada tunes sound often, in Halab, more often than muezzin voices. Don't worry, it's just the call of the rear gear, a must for all trucks in town - those with a hand-written Suzuki sign on the about white back. Close to the suk you can here them echoing continuously, through the loudspeakers' howling, merchants' and carriers' screams, and small donkeys rebelling against the chaos of women and veils. The city is all in here, the suk is the concentrated essence of it. The area of carpet sellers, the corridor of silverware, tunnels full of clothing and laundry tongs are just a few of the possible entry areas.
Losing yourself in there is almost immediate, letting yourself go chasing corridors, galleries and lanes is for the non claustrophobes. Real tough ones won't be scared of the infinite butchers' area. Bulls' quarters, sheep halves, big pieces piled up and ready for machetes take turns with expositions of hardly recognizable guts of any colour and, above all, odour. Close to a pile of goat heads you'll find a nice show for the weakest: a small mountain of quite appreciated goat eye balls and a hill of brains. One after the other, sellers are rightly proud of their goods. A five-year old child shows us his chicken, and he merrily brandishes their dead bodies (and maybe he's the killer), raising them over his head like a trophy. A woman gets close to start heavy contracting with him.

It's Ramadan, until three in the afternoon there's no way to eat. You know, travelling inside the suk, along its infinite variants of merry-go-round, deviations towards desert alleys or interesting market branches contributes to build an appetite. Many merchants continuously invite us to visit their expositions, entering their shops. As if we could be interested in buying a dozen coffee cups with a golden hem, a few kilos of laundry washing powder, bags of tea, or knives of any shape and dimension. But they won't give up, they call us, invites us. Literally, we're forced to drink one coffee after the other, a tea after the other. And, after the Ramadan curfew, they try, one after the other, to have us join their banquets based on superb roast chicken, pieces of spicy lamb, peppers and cucumber to be eaten with your fingers. Something delicious that we cannot help trying, starting surreal Arab conversations about our and their lives.
Would we like to wash our hands? Today's host, a carpet dealer who's sent somebody to buy chicken and peppers for everybody, insists that we should leave our cameras and backpacks on his carpets and follow him inside the caravan saray.
After an old wooden door we really enter an old, enormous bath room, with stone basins which have been there for centuries. The light filters from above. On the walls of the large grey vault is reflected the sound of falling drops. We really wash our hands, our friends has even brought some sort of towel. His kindness is somewhat worrying. We go back together to his shop and, as it was bound to be, we find our backpacks and nikons. And some really black coffee ready for us.