Disneyland Disaster

As with all Follow the Women days, we get more and more behind schedule as the day progresses. We leave the presidential palace two hours late, and make our way to one of the most expensive restaurants in Damascus, Elf Layla wa Layla, or A Thousand and One Nights, on the airport road. It is open air: it is freezing: it is windy. We are handed light cotton coats by the Arabian-dressed "servants", complete with curly-toed shoes and turbans, and led to tables covered with mezze - humous, moutable, fatoush, tabbouleh, labneh etc - all the normal elements of an Arabic dinner, but in uber-luxury-style.

Ola (an old Syrian friend, previous Syrian co-ordinator but not participating this year as a protest against the sponsors control) appears, cold and annoyed, and whisks me off to her table. Soon after, the show begins, and the Disneyland theme emerges. It is the 1001 Nights story, shown in dance and speech - speech in Arabic which few understand - complete with a flying carpet and fireworks. Sumptuous food is served throughout.

It's another obscenely expensive part of the Syrian trip: we are staying in a 5-star hotel; eating at the most expensive restaurants, and most horrific of all: we do not know that Palestinian and Iraqi women are there as our guests. They have prepared presentations and presents for us; they have been waiting in the cold, and we ignored them, because we did not know that the restaurant had been booked out and everyone there was our guest. We thought it was public, and people were out there as a normal, albeit expensive, evening outing.

One woman turned to Mary: "Do you believe in that there can be peace?". "I have to" Mary said, "that's why we're here. Do you?" "I used to. But then I see people who say they're here to help, coming to the most expensive restaurants, and you don't even want to talk to us. If you don't care, who does?" [Mary, I didn't record this conversation, it's from memory - am I right? Email me if not! I'm sure that's the crux of it, anyway.]

Mary, and of course everyone else who gets to know about this, is horrified. What exactly are we doing here? Is it a tourist trip? What are we supposed to say when we get home: "Syria has lovely hotels and restaurants"? I suppose it does, if you have the money to enjoy it. Yay for Syria, unless you mind about the political prisoners held without trial and subject to torture, or the lack of freedom of speech, or the biased education system which does not lead to any sort of cross-cultural understanding.