Getting Clean Syrian Style

First things first, I must clear up the perception that the entire Middle East is a desert. This just isn’t true, especially not for Syria in general or Damascus more specifically. Damascus is the oldest inhabited city on the earth, and thus should be pictured as any normal big city that we’re used to, just omit the skyscrapers and insert hundreds of years old mosques, churches and city walls. That being said, Damascus is no tropical rain forest either. It is incredibly dry and dirty. And by dirty I don’t necessarily mean unclean. I’m thinking more about the way anyone looks after spending a day at the baseball field walking and sitting around all that loose dirt. It turns your sandaled heels black and will make any white shirt dingy.

It must be said that Syrians go to great lengths to keep everything clean. In fact I’ve never seen so much water being wasted in my life! There is no special day of the week designated for Attantheif (cleaning). It always seems to be a looming task. But it’s not really “cleaning” that they do either. It’s more accurately a “watering down.” Every night around 11 when all the shops in Souq Al-Hamidiyya have closed, a big truck with a water tank rolls in and a man hops out, lowers the hose, and just starts spraying everything with water (including people who get in the way)!

The same thing happens at my house where we have three terraces that constantly have to be cleaned. The family gets out the hose and just lets it run over the terrace, washing away the excess dust through the drain in the floor. [There’s a drain in every floor in every non-bedroom room for this exact purpose] Then of course there are the cleaning men in the street every morning with brooms, but I honestly get the feeling that they’re just pushing the dirt around. And shopkeepers who wash the floor of their shops and the area right outside the door, or just sweep everything right outside the door to their shop. Every time I pass by I’m wondering to myself if that isn’t the exact same dirt he swept out on his doorstep the previous morning.

I have finally come to the conclusion that getting the city sparkling clean is just not in the cards for Damascus. I think so myself, “well, at least maybe I can keep myself and my things clean.” But this too is a daunting and hopeless task.