Health Clinic Tour Day

Our first stop on the tour was the "Contagious Diseases" Clinic to get our HIV test. We pulled up in our tour bus. Nurse Julie got us numbers so we were in cue.

When we got inside, they put us in a holding cell until they were ready for us. It was hot and stuffy. The screens in the back were listing numbers for clients to go up and get done whatever it was they needed to have done.

Then we saw a tour of the streets of Damascus Midday.....with all the taxis (notice that people drive anywhere and that there are NO markings on the road).

Here is Nurse Julie in the polka dot.

It was a looooong wait. We stayed almost 2.5 hours in this room! We didn't have enough seats for everyone, so some of us like Kat and Andrea sat on some steps. Andrea's body language pretty much sums up how we all felt; bored and trying not to whine.

This is how you smash the pistachios into the icecream.

This is what it looks like before and after smashing.

and this is what it looks like rolled up in saran wrap.

Dip n Dip Chocolate Bar. Annie, Lauren and Kat

These are some Scenes from around Damascus.

This shoe picture reminds me of the Holocaust museum's shoe collection.

Wall Tiling and Balcony

By the front door and then again in the livig room, there are 2 sets of 7 light switches totalling 14 for each room. Yes, there really are that many lights.

Master BR & BR#3

More apartment

Damascus Apartment Tour

Here's a cross section of daily life

2 week reflection:

Weather – First of all, yes, it’s hot during the day, it is super incredibly hot (~ 42C). It can be unbearably hot until you suck it up and ‘just get used to it.’ You know how it feels when you take a cake or a casserole out of the oven, the heat hits your face and it mildly chokes you because it’s so hot and dry? It kind of feels hot like that. That’s a given every single day and I really try not to complain about that anymore except I know the Arabic word for it, so I like to practice.
10:30/11:00pm, I feel like it starts to cool off. The morning I got up at 6am, I was blown away about how cool it was! It was like it was fall. It is a little humid in the morning; it must be the residual heat sucking the moisture from whatever still has some overnight.
My goal is to get my sleep schedule adjusted so that I can work out in the morning. My goal is to start getting up at 6am and do my thing, then go to work, and have free time in the afternoon then, go to sleep at a decent time (9:00-:30 pm-ish)
Houses/apartments – The windows are made out of a glass is something like a two-way mirror to let some light in, but to keep the heat out. In the US, houses have shutters for decoration around the windows. In Syria, the houses have these dark shades built onto the outside of all the windows that extend out to be like a low awning or can be closed to keep out ALL light. I have these on my apartment, on pretty much every window. My house is a dark cave in the middle of the day.

Water – 6:00am ~ 12:00pm the city water is and it flows through the faucet and fills up the tanks on the top of the buildings. From noon through the afternoon, the tanks on top heat up from the sun’s heat. The afternoon and night’s water is supplied by the tanks. I have not turned on my water heater yet. If I was going to shower in the morning, I would have to turn it on because the water would be ice cold! But alas, the water for my evening shower is warm enough to steam up the mirrors. (Maybe that helps
Toilets – Apparently the plumbing/pipes or something is so old that no paper can go down. All toilets have a trashcan next to them and instead of putting the paper in the water, you put it in the bin. Easy enough to do, but it takes a little bit to break the old habit. Most toilets have a half flush and a full flush button depending on what you have put inside.

Bodies – #1) Everyone sweats. It’s normal to have sweaty pits, sweaty face, back, chest, and wet shirt accordingly. It’s not ‘gross’ because everyone has it. #2) We’re in the desert and it doesn’t rain so there’s lots of dust. Dirt-type dust and open shoes such as flip-flops and sandals are wonderful for creating dirty feet. All of our feet are black, it’s ok, normal and that’s just how it is. This may we why it’s considered rude for your soles to face someone. #3) Because it is so dry, a lot of people are having congestion, allergies and we’re all having problems with dry skin. I feel it inside my nose mostly. It’s difficult to keep up with hydration because no matter where you are, the air sucks the moisture out of you. I have not seen any humidifiers, but I would be interested if they are available. I started putting Vaseline inside my nostrils because I’ve had a couple light nosebleeds in the morning when I blew my nose after sleeping.


Walking – We walk everywhere but if we don’t want to walk, it’s super cheap to take a taxi. Around the town, a 50 – 75 pound ride is normal, which is $1 - $1.50.

Neighborhood – We live in such a posh section of town probably on account of all the embassies. I pass 3 embassies on the way to work each day: Embassy of Mauritainia, Ireland Consulate, and Embassy of Finland. The school backs up to Qatar and United Arab Emirates which is across the street from India embassy. I live in great location for security. I pass 3 embassies, but I don’t know how many security officers. There are lots of layers of police EVERYWHERE. There are the regular ones with the uniforms, then there are the ones that sit in the booths only sometimes with some type of uniform, but always with a gun. There’s the school’s security who sit in the air-lock type security entrance and then there are undercover ones who pose as street vendors.

Some women from the school claimed to have been followed. I have not been and I think it’s because I am not friendly to people on the street and I don’t want to bring extra attention to myself. I don’t smile or make eye contact at anyone until I know the person, even though they all look/stare/watch me. I have met and introduced myself to some of the shop owners so they know who I am, what I do and so if I need to go to them for any kind of help, I can.

I haven’t officially counted the dentists and oral surgeons on my 2 block to work, but I would estimate about 7, including a doctor from Iowa. Hair salons seem to be a thing too, because there are about 4 of them; 5 internet cafés, 1 chocolate bar, a Turkish restaurant (they do not speak Turkish and nothing in it is Turkish except for its name), 2 little grocery stores, 8 UN SUVs, a Paris Hilton Hand Bag store, several shoe stores and a DVD store.


Shopping – There are lots of stores on the sidewalks mixed in with restaurants. I have not quite gotten the hang of the store hours because they change for Ramadan. When I have found the stores open and I’m clothes shopping, the sales people are adamant about helping me find my size. When I go to try on clothes, they take the hangers for me. Why they do this, I don’t know because this means that I just drop the new clothes on the floor. Since they take the hangers, there’s nothing to hang up, so there aren’t usually hooks in the stall. This is frustrating to me, so when they take the hangers out, I ask if I can have them back. I’ve gotten some odd looks, but I just don’t get the hangers thing yet.

The major places to shop are #1) Shalaan Street – just a short walk from the school; #2) Cham Center – a real live legit shopping mall, so much like every other that you forget what country you’re in; #3) Town Center – This is like a shopping mall with a Super walmart; #4) Target – Yep, the real target. I have not been to this one as of yet. I heard it’s 24 hours, but then I don’t know about Ramadan. I go the phone number off a advertisement, so I’ll give them a call and hope they speak English.

Beauty – I wanted to get my eyebrows done because I forgot to bring tweezers, but I know I have them in my shipment. On my way to work one day, I stopped by all 4 stores to see if they did eyebrows and I had success at the last one. They have a guy, hasan or hussain, who does it. They put me in a regular barber shop kind of chair and laid me back; there was not a head rest, but the back was high enough. He began with a string technique where he holds one end of thread in his teeth, and makes a loop around his thumb and forefingers on both hands and wound it very tightly and used it like scissors. It was mildly painful; I think it may have been pulling hairs out instead of snipping them. When I was finished, he asked me if I wanted him to do my mustache. (I didn’t know I had one). I asked him “Do I need it?” He said, “Schwaye” which means a little. So I let him. He went back to using the string technique. This was not mild pain, it was excruciating pain. He asked me to stick my tongue under my lip so it was stretched out, but I could not keep it poked out due to the pain. I had to take several breaks to make it through that one. I may go somewhere else next time because if I go back to that guy, I may want anesthesia next time. It was fun because it was a rush!


Eating – Advice says don’t drink water from the tap the first 4-6 months. Not because it’s dirty, but because it’s Syrian and there are different bacteria in the water to which my body isn’t accustomed. Too much too soon could start to get to me. Eating food already introduces a bit of foreign things to me, but the amount of water I drink would no doubt saturate my body with Syrianness.

Syrian Stomach – It can consist of simply diarrhea but sometimes with vomiting. EVERYONE gets it so everyone has their own story; here’s mine. August 10th, I met Syria. I accidently woke up early one morning at 6:00am. I started out on a run, which turned into a walk and happened upon an American friend (from the school) randomly on the street. I had a bit of rumbling in my tummy, then throughout the day it shifted lower and lower. By 2:30pm, I was running for home and spent some time. I slept from 3:00 to 7:00 when I met up with some friends for dinner. I didn’t eat much, but what I did eat was a mistake. After dinner, I couldn’t get home fast enough; it was the longest walk ever. A couple times I had to bend over and hold my knees just because it hurt to be upright. My head hurt, my insides hurt, I was nauseous and clenching for my dear white shorts’s life. I spent that evening in the bathroom on the pot with a bowl in my lap. I vomited a couple times and moaned/whimpered through the night.

In the morning, I was feeling less sick, but not normal. I was drinking water and diet 7up when it hit me and I was back in the bathroom with my bowl in lap. That afternoon, I forced myself out of bed to go to the school because I wanted to get the 3G Syriatel gadget which would give me internet at home. I had that slow, crouched over walk that you use when you have to function and your body isn’t quite ready to be upright.

I got to school just barely for the 2:30 appointment; I had been very open about not feeling well, so friends were taking care of me. I went and saw Nurse Julie who told me that if it continues more than 24 hours to then take something. I was at the 24 hour mark and not sure if I was recovering or in the calm eye of the storm because I had nothing in my digestive tract either way. She prescribed Enterofuryl, an intestinal antiseptic, and De-Vomit. 3G internet guy showed up at 3:30, I got the 3G internet stick and then went to the pharmacy and went home and back to bed. I was so hungry that I ate some cereal and took my devomit and went to bed. The drugs kicked in and the next day I was totally fine, as long as I didn’t run, or jostle around my insides, the day after that I felt normal.

Arabic – Turkish
I found myself feeling very stubborn about learning Arabic, and I couldn’t remember the words and I felt discouraged because I had just put all this effort towards learning Turkish and now I have to start all over again when I just felt I was getting to the point where I was really learning fast. I haven’t found anyone who speaks Turkish here or any similarities in Arabic. What helped me get into Arabic, was that it was a much more versatile language than Turkish which was confined to primarily Turkey. Arabic is a much more widespread thing even if dialects differ.

In an effort to make myself stop being so stubborn and get over my little pity party, I’m using Turkish to help me with Arabic. I have the Turkish word on one side of the flash card and Arabic on the other.


Taxi – It is the law to wear a seatbelt if you ride in the front seat. All front seats of taxis have belts. The backseats do not have belts. If a woman rides in the front seat of a taxi, then it is viewed as a come-on to the driver. I feel a paradoxal pull here (is that the word I’m looking for?) I want to wear a seatbelt, so I would prefer to sit up front. However, I don’t want to come-on to the driver, so I should sit in the back. With this traffic, I feel like I would prefer the seatbelt. Sometimes in the back, you can find the shoulder harness, but no clicker to secure it on the hips. I wrap the shoulder thing around my torso and I get it as low as I can because if we are in an accident, at least my body will stay inside the car and not be catapulted into the street. (Can you tell my mom is a nurse?)

Day 2 - 7 August 2010

Journal – Saturday, 7 August 2010 – Day 2

The morning again started with a wake-up call at 9:20 but from Annie who was calling me to tell me to come over early to help her plug her computer in correctly. (Yes, just plug it in).

I said I’d be right over, but getting ready took a little longer than I meant it to, so Annie just came over. Lauren, Annie and I walked over to the school just after 10am.

Upon arrival, everyone was there. Makhmood was there to hand out money to everyone. He gave us the equivalent of $500 (SP 23,500). We all had money, so we went shopping at the town center. We had to take a cab, and since there were 6 of us, we had to get 2 cabs to fit us all. Mariah, Marion, and Brian took one and Lauren, Annie and I took another.

I practiced my Arabic on the cab driver and he helped me say some simple phrases. We arrived at the town center and walked into this market/bakery place which looked like a dead beat mall. I took care of the payment and gave him SP150 ($3) for the 25 minute ride; it was expensive because it was across town and out of his way so he charged us extra.

Lauren, Annie and I puttered around the store waiting for the others. After another 25 minutes we decided we weren’t in the right place, but probably the place on the next block is where we wanted to be. We walked through the parking lots and over some bushes and found what looked to be way more promising, clean and current.

We found the others right away. The store was like the basement of Ikea plus a grocery store, it was a one-stop-shop.

Annie bought a microwave, an electric frying pan, trash cans, and all sorts of big appliances; she spent almost all of her money. Everyone else spent moderately. I spent about SP 2,000 and got just a few things. I probably spent the least amount.

Well, we barely all fit to come over to the shopping center so Brian called Jim to send the DCS bus to get us. I was expecting the little white bus that I had seen on the roads.

We weren’t sure who was going to ride where or how we were all going to get our stuff in the bus, so luckily someone had a marker to write on the bags. Just as we began to mark our bags, the “bus” pulled up. It was Jim with the mini-suv. kHallad and one of the custodians were also there (what I didn’ tknow is that they were coming from a funeral for the custodian’s dad) and apparently Hani was here too in his car. Since so many people were in Jim’s car, we still couldn’t fit with all our purchases into the 2 cars, so we had to get one taxi.

There were 6 people who had been shopping, 4 people bringing 2 cars, 8 shopping carts, 10 people total, and white plastic grocery bags everywhere!
We hailed a taxi, so the taxi driver started loading our purchases into his car, Jim and kHallad grabbed what they could to get it into their car, Hani (who I hadn’t met) was also grabbing things and getting them into his car. There was other mall traffic backed up because we caused such a commotion that people were honking horns all over the place; DCS people were shouting to be heard, I didn’t know who Hani was, I was told to get into a “yellow car.”

I got in the yellow car and I was surprised at how nice it was compared to the earlier one. I told the taxi driver to “follow that car” he asked me in broken English, “where do u want to go?” I repeated with my arm pointing, “There. Follow that car. Madrassa Amerikee. Ja Hezz Park.”

After about 5 minutes of giving ‘not understanding’ he told me he wasn’t a taxi driver. The girls in the back I guess had caught on to the fact that this was Hani or they had met him before or something. We had a good laugh at that.

As we got back to the school, of course bags were everywhere in each car. As we tried to sort out our bags, there were so many people trying to ‘help’ the 6 shoppers. It got so confusing that it’s not surprising that we were all calling each other later that evening asking if you had this or that.

After unloading and back in our apartments, it was about 3:30, Laurent and I went to find an internet café and get a snack. Annie had to go to the airport to claim her suitcase which showed up.

Lauren and I spent the next 3 hours at the coffee shop. We sent emails and tried to work around the internet restrictions. Yusif said he’d help us, so we’ll take our laptops in Sunday which will be the first real work day since I arrived.

Dinner was at a little lokantasi tonight and it was what I would consider Syrian/Turkish food. Shish Taouk and Doner (chicken chunks and shavings), babaganoush, khobes (flat bread) and some other fun stuff like pickled something light purple, pickles, maybe a pickled green pepper.

After dinner, Lauren, Annie and I broke off from the group to go exploring for a closer internet café, and good shopping. We stopped at a store called dip ‘n’ dip. It was a chocolate everything store specializing in fondue and chocolate fountain sort of dishes. We shared a thing like a fondue with marshmallows, pineapple, kiwi, and decided we’d come back.

Day 1 - 6 August 2010

Journal – Friday, 6 August 2010 – Day 1

I woke up at 9:38am Syrian time after dreaming about taking naps because I was so tired. I puttered around still a little disoriented and in a fog from jet lag and a new apartment. I made a cup of instant coffee heated in the microwave and ate a banana out of the refrigerator from the food stash they left me.

At 10:30 Jim called me, met me in the street and showed me to the school. We walked in together. Since it’s an open air school, the perimeter is enclosed by a wall and we enter through a security air-lock type thing. In the main office, Annie was pouring coffee; she offered, and yes, I definitely wanted it.

I wrote an email to my family. See msrichoverseas.blogspot.com

Annie was making coffee in the office because this morning she couldn’t get her stove at home to heat water hot enough for coffee. She was unsure about her new gas stove because she had to turn on the gas and then light the gas burner. She used the glass top to put the pot on to heat the water after she got the burner lit. After the water had heat up as much as she thought it would, she put the water in her cup and as soon as she put the pot back on the glass, the cover shattered. She made sure she told Jim because there was glass all over the kitchen.

That morning, Jim drove us to the German store because it was a Christian store and everything else was closed since it was the Holy day of Friday. Jim, Annie and I got some things just to get by for the next few days such as, shampoo, water, trash bags, lunchmeat, cheese… I spent about $25; Annie spent about $80. She bought wine, salt and vinegar chips and some other stuff. We took one of the guys from the store back to the apartment with us so that he would know where we lived so he could deliver our groceries from then on out.

Just to give you a little background on our living location, we live at a dead end cul-de-sac traffic circle next to the Consulate of Ireland, and across the street from the Ambassade de la Republique Islamique de Mauritanie, with a UN building at the end of the block.

We dropped off groceries at my apartment and then drove across the circle to drop hers off at her apartment. Jim pulled up to the front of her apartment building. We all got out helping Annie carry her groceries into her house.

She had a handbag, a backpack, and a little purse. Apparently she had shoved the purse into the handbag, so her keys weren’t initially available. She sat her bags down and searched for her keys. 5 minutes later she was able to locate her keys.

The keys fit into the locks, but she couldn’t get them to turn. There was a top lock, a bottom lock and two keys. Annie worked with them for a while, then Jim couldn’t get them to turn, then the German store guy couldn’t figure it out either. We spent 10 minutes trying to get the door unlocked. Jim said he’d call and send kHallad to come over and get it to work for us so that he could take the German store guy could go back. Jim left with the guy and kHallad said over the phone he would be there in 10 minutes.

Annie and I waited for him inside the stairwell where it was cooler. After about 30 minutes, I went over to my apartment to call Jim to ask him where was kHalled. Annie and I decided on a hand signal so that we could communicate from across the traffic circle. Jim’s phone was busy, I went out to tell Annie, and she was wandering back inside and didn’t see me from my balcony. Several times I waited a few minutes and called him again and Annie was still inside and wouldn’t see my hand signals.

I went back outside and back to her apartment. She said she still hadn’t seen kHallad and so I went back to my apartment to keep trying Jim. This time Annie brought some of her groceries to my house to put in my refrigerator.

The phone rang. Jim said, “Oh, you are at your place. kHallad is at the apartment.”
“Really? We were just there”.
“Yes, I just talked to him, he’s inside and he can see the mess that Annie made.”
“ok, thanks Jim, we’ll go back over there”

kHallad was standing outside of the building next to Annie’s apartment and so when we saw him, with trails of sweat running down his face. He said, “Where have you been?”
Annie: “Oh thank goodness you’re here. It’s the apartment over here.”
kHallad: “No, it’s not, THIS is Annie’s apartment.”
Annie looking up and around: “oooooohhh”
Kat: “ANNIE! You don’t know your own apartment? Didn’t you come here last night?”

Annie had been trying to break into the Embassy of Mauritanie!! No wonder her keys didn’t work.

Annie to Hallad: “Have you been inside?”
kHallad: “Yes.”
Annie: “Did you see everything?”
kHallad: “yes”
Annie: “My stove is broken.”
kHallad: “Yes, I know”

There was a security gate outside the building for one of her keys and the second key was for her door. She was able to immediately open the security gate and her apartment door. Once inside, we all went to the kitchen. kHallad explained that the glass was a ‘cover’ for the stove and not to be cooked on, but to cover the burners when you were NOT cooking.

That brings us up to noon on Friday……
That afternoon, Annie came over for lunch; we ate turkey and cheese slices rolled up, drank wine, and salt & vinegar chips. I didn’t want to drink wine because I didn’t want to get anymore dehydrated. That wine, however, went down a lot smoother than I thought it would.

We decided we wanted to walk up to the U.S. Embassy to see about joining the commissary and the pool but we should wait until it was cooler. 10 minutes later was the longest we could wait because we also wanted another bottle of wine.

We set out with a map, Annie’s back pack, she had been shopping with (left still at my apartment), and some water. We walked for a while trying to remember where we had walked the night before and then had driven this morning. We ended up on streets we sort of recognized, but streets aren’t labeled, so we were navigating by how far it had been since the last traffic circle and in relation to the river (stream).

There were all these men in brown suits. Earlier as we were driving to the German store, Jim had pointed them out as the equivalent to the secret service, but for the Syrian president. Well, we used them as a landmark too. “Hey look, we’re on the right path because there are the suits!” We did not stop to ask for directions as Annie wanted to do.

We never made it to the U.S. Embassy; we took a wrong turn and ended up at the German store, Norma’s. We got our wine and headed home. ON the way home, we found an internet café to come to later when we had our laptops, and then decided to stop for iced coffee and sorbet at an Italian restaurant which was open.

Another DCS teacher, Peter, happened to wander up and he joined us at our table for coffee as we discussed the humour on the day so far. Peter gave us some tips about living in Damascus because he had lived here for several years prior. After Peter continued on his way, Annie and I went back to our separate apartments.

We met at the school and went to dinner at 7:30 with Lauren, who moved in across the street, Annie, Brian Smith, Jim, Bettie, Marion (who eventually showed up after her long nap), Peter and his wife Toni with 2 kids. Tyler Ready was under the weather because he had the Syrian-Stomach.

We went to a Japanese-Syrian type place for dinner and I had Hamour fish with steamed vegetables and some rice.

Blog Blocked

So apparently I can post to a blog, but I cannot view it. This is how it was explained to me: I can't view blogs (even my own) because Syria's bandwidth is only so big, so they block some sites to conserve space including YouTube(!)

Yusif, our IT guy at DCS, says he can get around that. So, if you respond to the blog, know that I may not get to see it, so also send me an email mskathleenrich@yahoo.com.

IAD - VIE - DAM

I arrived at the airport about 4:00pm to wait in a looong line. While I was waiting, I had someone watch my stuff while I tried to go exchange money. I waited through 3 people to be told that they don't exchange Syrian money. Not only do they not exchange, it was humourous the the accountant that I asked!

Back in line, I finally got up to the booth to check in my bag and it was 3.4 kilograms over. Fine with me, put the extra payment on my credit card. The Austrian Airlines lady I was working with was blonde and very nice. She kept trying to help me by suggesting I put my stuff in another bag. I was very nice back to her telling her that I didn't have another one and that I'd just put the balance on my card. She kept on being very nice and printed my boarding passes then walked me to the end of the counter where another austrian lady would also try to assist. The 2nd one helped me by telling me that she could make my second bag free. I also told her that I didn't have another bag that I wanted to move stuff to. They said that I didn't have to pay the extra $165 because I could rearrange my things to make it no extra cost. The first lady and the second lady began to put their heads to gether to help me figure out this dilemna. The second lady said, "I have a box in the back" and I said, "I don't need a box, I don't want to carry another bag."

She came back with a box, she explained how I would take somethings out of my suitcase and put them in this box, then no extra cost would be accrued. I went to the end of the counter where there was space and began working, intermittently the box would be weighed to see if there was enough in it to satisfy these austrian women adamant about me NOT paying the extra weight fee.

All was good, I had a box and a bag for checked luggage.


My flight was scheduled to leave at 5:40 and the plane was loaded at 5:42. We got in line for take-off and left the US at 6:18. I was surprised we were so close to on-time!!

The seats were colored grass green with alternating red and white head rests. The flight crew was dressed in fire engine red dresses, stockings and red shoes! The announcements were in several different languages. I thought I was hearing Turkish, but it turns out it was that Austrian language, German; "Tesekular" turned out to be "dankeshoen"

On the first flight, the seats were arranged 2-3-2 and I was in A next to the "Nice Window." The woman next to me lasted about an hour, then she moved to separate her kids who were sitting in C and E. I didn't sleep much on the flight, but I got to lay down in the two seater. No issues at all. I was surprised it went so smoothly.

In Vienna, I went through a mini-customs where they combed everyone's passport on each page (probably for palestine or israel stamps). We got on the plane and I sat next to someone who spoke a little turkish, a little spanish, but was fluent in arabic and french and nothing in English. We shared my ipod arabic pronunciations and became friends, her name was Emilie. She was an older lady, grandma age.

Stepping off the plane in Damascus was not like stepping off in just another European country. Men were in long white robes and women were in black. (This turns out not to be the case in the city, just the airport). And I wasn't really uncomfortable there, but I was close to it. Thank goodness for my turkey trip's comfort level around people who stared, not out of dislike, but out of curiosity at me.

The people are friendly so far, they're also stand-offish, which is fine because we're all new to each other. Again, like in Istanbul, there is a lot of English, but unlike Turkey, I'm thankful they speak English. I haven't quite gotten to wrap my head around much of anything in the arabic language.

I was surprised flying in to the city how Desert-y it looked. It's hot (not surprising) and my apartment was hot when i first got there.

However, it's a 3 bedroom apartment with a small-to-US-standards kitchen, but fine for an apartment, a huge US refrigerator, a clothes washer, a microwave and an oven, which is designed like a microwave, in that it sits on the counter as a separate unit.

I have not even begun to portray how different Damascus is from anything I've ever experienced or seen as far as the sights, but I do not feel nervous walking alone. iIn my one day here, I've been with people from the school and they've walked me around so I've been shown sort of how to get along.

I have a phone that I can't call internationally from, but my apartment phone number is 963-11-332-0568. There's no answering machine so let it ring for a long time and a 7 hour-ahead time difference.

I don't know what street I live on, they're not labeled so much. Apparently, you don't navigate by the same standards or address the same way.

I LOVE YOU GUYS! You are my support network!

Kathleen Rich