Riding an Emotional Wave to Syria

After missing the last shuttle to the Israel/Jordan border, my exit out of Jerusalem was delayed. Not wanting to hike with my pack all the way back to the hostel I was staying at, I chose instead to bunk up at politically charged hostel near the shuttles. Run by Palestinians and occupied mostly by journalists and sympathizers to the cause, I soon found myself accepting an invitation from an English girl to go "hang out at a tent" with her and some of her friends. Fully aware that such a cryptic invite would most likely result in something out of the ordinary, and without a good excuse not to, I found myself walking to the outskirts of Jerusalem to a squatters camp, where several Palestinians families, whose homes were recently demolished by the Israeli Police to make way for Jewish settlers, were living. I asked another guy exactly what was going on and why we were going there and he replied that there was already some people (international volunteers) hanging out there with the families in case the Police were to show up and execute the eviction notices. Which was set for tonight, he added. Great. Knowing my luck, all these kids have international organizations to bail them out of jail, while I would rot in jail as an unwitting spectator. At the camp, they were cooking food, watching footage of violent clashes between these volunteers and the police, and waiting out whatever was to transpire. We stuck around for awhile chatting up some of the volunteers. There was just a couple of them. Young and European, they had been doing this in the West Bank for several months now and I had to give it to them--they had some balls. They had been beat and shot at while sticking up for the Palestinians. There seems to be a pretty small but passionate and courageous group of them doing it although to my knowledge they haven't really made the U.S. news since American Rachel Corrie was run over by a Israeli bulldozer in 2003. We left the scene before midnight and as I left Jerasulem early today, I didn't hear what ended up happening.
It was a full day of transit. Took the shuttle to the Isreali border and managed to avoid both stamping by them and the Jordinians. Then while sharing a taxi back to Amman with a girl from New Zealand, she was telling me how she witnessed a bad accident while visiting the Dead Sea, and added that she feels that this sort of stuff seems to happen to her alot. Just as my inner monolouge was going something like I need to get away from her, I saw a delivery truck veer off the road and flip over. We stopped to help the occupants trapped inside, whom luckily seemed frazzled but not seriously harmed. Also, fought the urge to run away from the girl, before her aura would taint my lucky rabbits foot, that has kept things oh so well.
My day of excitement wasn't even half over. Technically, Syria requires a visa submitted from the Syrian embassy in Wash D.C. But I have heard that some Americans have been able to get it after waiting at the border for hours on end. I was gonna give it a try, due to lack of other options.
Negotiated a driver to take me from Amman, Jordan through the border procedure and then onto Damascus, Syria. I had to pay him a fairly large sum, due to the fact that he would need to wait many hours to see if I received the visa. He requested the payment up front, which normally I would almost always refuse, but this withholding recently resulted in a shouting match with a deeply offended man in Egypt and not wanting to repeat this episode, I took a chance and paid it forward. Halfway to the border I was getting bad vibes about his trustworthiness, so I decided to concoct a story that I had 3 friends wanting to make the same trip next week, and would he be the driver for them also? Hoping that the promise of future money would dissuade any funny business. As I suspected, after the border officials castigated me for showing up without a visa and told me to wait for 1,2, or 7 hours for a possible visa, the driver started to complain that he didnt have time to wait. I replied that he could leave but that he needed to refund half the money. He adamantly refused this idea, thus starting what would become a very heated exchange. Things advanced to the point where we were trading F-Us and he waved his cigarette in face saying "you do not F with me." Then feeling that I was in a losing battle, I tried my risky trump card, an appeal to his piety. I told him that he could leave but that his dishonesty was known by me and Allah (pointing upwards). This had a momentary effect until his moral relativism put him back on his spiel of leaving me to my own fate. Things got heated again and we managed to draw a crowd of Arabic men, always eager watch a show. Alas, I tried to diffuse the situation and stall his presence there by breaking out my deck of cards and showing him my one and only card trick. Amazingly, we started laughing and patting each other on the back. Such a dramatic range of emotions that I suspected schizophrenia in both of us. Finally after a quick 2 hour wait, my visa was approved and the driver, who would not drive me to Damascus but would pay someone else to do it, gave me an extended handshake while we exchanged unspoken apologies.
My new driver (Syrian) and the two other occupants (Jordinians) provided me a heartwarming welcome and through rudimentary conversation, explained their desire to see peace in the world. They, like all others I have spoken with in the Middle East, see a disconnect between government and people and harbor only ill will towards Booosh. Additionally for about the 100th time, they expressed their optimism for the future.
Finally arrived in Damascus and was pleasantly suprised to find a clean city with a nice mixture of modernity and antiquity. Spent the night strolling through the endless markets and treated myself to a much needed shave.
In the course of 24 hours, I have been inspired by the passion and courage of the foreign volunteers in Palestine, witnessed a terrible accident, narrowly avoided a fistfight with a taxi driver, participated in heartfelt political dialogue, and succesfully produced myself through 2 borders. Feeling more alive than ever.

Only scared of what we don't now,

Brian