Syria, Day 44 of 85: Living conditions, and the fact that I have a couch in my room

Describing the basic structure of my life here in Syria is probably a post long overdue, but I can't imagine anyone really caring (other than my parents and the friends who are polite enough to pretend they care). At any rate, here we go.

I'm currently staying with my father's youngest sister and her family in Damascus, which--trivia--is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. In a few weeks I'll be moving to Aleppo, a city about 4.5 hours away by bus, to live with another sister of my father's, but for my now my life is all Damascus. I've been told that my aunt's apartment is in a prime location here, and I believe it--anything you could need is in walking distance, and her balcony has an amazingly cool view over the city and the mountains (which have their own cities). I'll take a picture and post it once, again, I can find an FTP program that doesn't hate me. I obviously spend a lot of time with this particular aunt and her family, and they are as follows:

-Eldest daughter (lives about a 15-minute walk away): a perpetually-happy English teacher in her mid-30s with three daughters, the youngest of whom looks and acts exactly like my baby sister.

-Middle daughter (lives a 5-minute walk away): a pharmacist in her early thirties with three young daughters and a fat, very squeezable baby son. She lets me observe in her pharmacy so I can put that on my med school resume, which is very cool.

-Youngest daughter (lives about a 30-minute walk away): the epitome of badass. She's a government accountant in her late 20s who works 30-hour weeks, raises a 3-year-old daughter, cooks and cleans at our house if she's not cooking and cleaning in her own, excels at styling the hair of her mother and sisters (I got in on this, yessssss), and leads group Islamic sing-alongs and such (since, y'know, she has MEMORIZED THE KORAN). She is what every good girl strives to be.

-Youngest son (lives in our apartment): a young man just a few months younger than me who's finishing up his university studies. He's basically the Arabic version of my brother Taurek--they look the same, dress the same, and have the same general sweetness. He's very fun to hang out with, and takes me out at night to wireless DSL net cafes and shops with cheap movies and video games (yessssss). He also gave up his room for me while I'm staying here and instead sleeps in the living room, which is incredibly nice of him. His room is awesome--spacious, aesthetically pleasing, and featuring (as mentioned in the title of this post) a COUCH in addition to the bed and two sofa seats. There is one word for this room, and that word is choice.

I'm currently halfway through a 4-week, 20-hours-a-week intensive Arabic language course which occupies me from 8:15 am to 1:45 pm (including the commute) every weekday. On the first day of my weekend (Friday--weekends are Fri and Sat here) I volunteer at a hospital from about 9 am - 11 am, and on the second day of my weekend, I enjoy every sweet moment of SLEEPING IN. In the afternoons and evenings of almost every day I fit in my computer work, which usually averages to about 2 hours a day…but since this schedule is pretty fragile and I'm bad at managing my time, last week was hellish and I ended up sleeping so little that I got sick. I'm now attempting to keep that 2 hours of computer work a day to an actual 2 hours of computer work a day, as opposed to my poorly-thought-out plan of 0 hours-0 hours-0-hours-8-hours-10-hours-death.

I also spend a lot of time hanging out with the family, which is another reason I'm bad at getting everything done. My aunt babysits her youngest grandchildren in our apartment at least 3 days a week, and there are usually big family get-togethers once or twice on the weekend and once or twice during the week. Since I want to be polite, and since I like my family, and since the babies are disastrously cute (and teach me Arabic, since we're about on the same level speaking-wise), this is what my brain becomes:

Do you really want to go spend a bunch of hours editing something? Because your cousins want to talk politics with you, and the babies want to sit in your lap. Oh, and they're all eating cake.

And this is what my work schedule becomes:

0 hours-0 hours-3 hours (socializing!)-2 hours (socializing with cake!)-12 hours-crying.

Anyway, I think I'm getting the hang of it now, but I very much look forward to Arabic class ending and my weeks becoming substantially less crunchy.

The weather here is really nice--we had a 25 degree (C) day this week, in December, while everyone back home was expecting snow. There's also absolutely no humidity, so not only is the heat pleasant, but I can straighten my hair and it will stay straight. On that note, I now wear my hair straight.

As Dave M. intelligently pointed out, there's one very distinct aspect of Damascus life that is pleasantly unique and I'm enjoying immensely--the city-wide call for prayer. 5 times a day, between approx 5 am and 6 pm (at this time of year), a bunch of guys go on loudspeakers at their various mosques and chant for a few minutes, which signifies the beginning of the time for Muslims to pray. Once one prayer time period is over, the men go on the loudspeakers again and chant for the next prayer time period. The chanting isn't loud enough to really bother non-Muslims--it's not loud enough to wake up someone who's sleeping, for example, unless maybe that person lives right next to a mosque--and it reminds those of us who don't wear watches to "Hey! Get off your ass and pray, lazy." It's not only convenient, but it's comforting; I distinctly remember one of the early days I was here, sitting in a room with all my cousins wearing headscarves, watching Syrian sitcoms where characters casually throw in terms like "By the grace of God," and seeing a news program about Muslims in China, and getting tears in my eyes. I spent my childhood in the States feeling like the only Muslim in the world...but there are a billion more, and I'm finally starting to see them.

Besides the .00001% who blow themselves up on TV, of course. I always saw plenty of them in the States.