Syrian Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

I entered the mosque late, the day before the refugee welcoming event.  There were still some people lingering around after Isha, the evening prayer, but it was relatively quiet.  I approached the young woman sorting through papers and boxes, and looking up at me, there was the unmistakable look of fear.  "Umm, can I help you?"

"Salaam alaikum," I reply.  Peace be upon you.  And the look of fear melts off her face.  I then start to tell her of the car full of donations that I needed to drop off so I could refill my car and bring another.  Her face morphs again to one of confusion.  You've come from where?  And these gifts came from whom?  And what background are you, anyway?

There's a certain fear about walking into a place where there is nobody else the same color as you.  It's one I've faced many times in my life, and to this day, there has never been a single time that fear was well-founded.  However, I am distinctly not used to people ever having any fear of me.  Which is why the look of confusion that crossed the organizer's face, even though it lasted for just a second, was so striking to me.

A cadre of young men helped unload our car.  For the first time of what would be many times, we told the story of where all these goods came from.  That we had casually asked our friends on Facebook one week ago for donations, and that we were overwhelmed by offers of help.  Help from Catholics, Protestants, Jews, agnostics, atheists.  From Italians, English, Germans, Turkish, Swedes, Irish.  From Americans.  In the end, we collected nearly $1000 of donations, and were nearly as overwhelmed as the people who received their generosity.

Also, it turns out my camera isn't
nearly as good as Brandon's.

What I had envisioned for this trip to North Jersey was my own Humans of New York style interview session.  To meet refugees in person and collect their stories, capturing a picture each time I could make an offer of help.  Unfortunately, things didn't quite turn out that way.  As I had alluded to in the beginning, there was an air of fear I had not anticipated prior to the event.  People were reticent to let strangers spectate the most personal aspects of their lives, and with good cause too.  Two days ago, a 24 year old girl was harassed in their town just for doing her laundry.  So certainly it would seem naive of me to assume that I could capture similar unbridled humanity.

The speakers focused on charitable opportunities to help our Syrian brothers and sisters.  About Quranic scripture detailing the necessity of helping their brothers.  Please note that all of this was in Arabic - I was decidedly not their target audience.  About the importance of showing these refugees that America is more than Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.  How important it is that they see love from within their community since they are likely to see hate from outside of it.

Unless you consider children with sticky fingers dangerous.
Then that place would have been TERRIFYING.

For my readers who feel more fear than love for this particular community (and I realize that it's a majority of you), I have a feeling you'd be interested to know what this intensely private community is telling its newest members.  To quote one of the speakers, "Be more American than the Americans, but never forget where you came from."  There was no subversive language, no suggestion of sharia, no kind words for the hateful ideology that drove these people from their homes.  There was nothing to be scared of, and a lot to be hopeful about.

After hours, one or two of the Syrian families were willing to step forward and speak in front of everyone.  They mostly told a story of exhausted perseverance.  How they gained security but lost their dignity in Syria by accepting the safety of a totalitarian regime.  How they were thankful for the gifts, but really what they wanted was a job.  How they'd be willing to accept a very humble life if it meant they earned it for themselves.  And through all of their talk, even through the language barrier, I could sense the lingering fear.

His other daughter was cute as a button.

So perhaps I was not able to HONY-style talk to refugees.  But I did get to talk to many of the people who were there to do good.  The Egyptian emigrant from the same hometown as me, who moved here 30 years ago.  When he first moved here, he had a BLT sandwich everyday for years, not knowing that bacon is pork.  His 16 year old daughter was one of the organizers of the remarkable event.  Then there was the Syrian emigrant, who came here almost 10 years ago, and now was serving as an activist for the new Syrians in the community.  There was the journalist, who was following one family around and was sharing their story.

Perhaps even more uplifting for us were all of the conversations were got to have with our donating friends.  Most are so humble as to explicitly forbid me from revealing their identities.  But we received gifts from people who were themselves asking for donations for their own causes.  From people who had to go tremendously out of their way to bring donations to a man without a car to pick them up.  From people whose cups were overflowing, and from people with just enough to quench their thirsts.  It felt in the end like we were receiving more than giving, as we wound up being the focus of so many other people's positivity.

In the end, the families were called up on stage.  A passionate speech rejected the label of refugee, and called on us all to call them our family.  Reluctantly, one by one, they came on stage.  Their response was mixed.  The children were exuberant, enjoying lavish festivities in their new home.  The adults, well, you could basically see every emotion on their face at the same time.  Happiness, sadness, fear, exhaustion, desperation, hope.  I would describe it, but I believe you can see exactly what I'm talking about in this picture:

In the end, we made our donation, and we know we did our bit to help.  But like all charity in life, the experience is bittersweet, as we were only left wishing we could do more.  We stepped away with phone numbers of other people looking to help, and we are hopeful to do more in the future.  In the meantime, every one of our friends looking to help can start by doing their part to fight the fear.  All it takes is a simple salaam alaikum...

Cruising with the Dragon

I'm not even going to lie.  This blog is going to be a blatant excuse to show pretty pictures.

It used to be that the marker of a wonderful day was excitement in the morning, driving me out of bed early.  Today, I have exceeded that high water mark.  I am sitting on a private balcony on the top floor of a small cruise ship.  It is dusk, and the lights from other small cruise ships flicker before me like fireflies.  Behind them, the faint silhouettes of monstrous stone island formations loom like friendly giants in the night.

With this backdrop, I am no longer content to be excited at dawn’s first light.  I am honestly dreading going to bed tonight, afraid to miss a minute of this splendor.

Please ignore the facial hair.  It was Noor's honeymoon.  She gets what she wants.

The location is Ha Long Bay, and this cruise was the primary motivation for a Vietnam honeymoon.  I had heard of it since it was selected as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, along with the Amazon, Table Mountain, and Iguazu Falls.  It consists of approximately 2,000 stone islands spread along the northern coast of Vietnam.  These are no ordinary rock formations; they are 10 to 20 stories high, and rise like fingers from the water.  Or, if you have a nerdier predisposition, they are reminiscent of the towering statues that greeted Sam and Frodo as they rafted through the entrance to Gondor.

Pictured: Both the scales of the dragon in the back and a community
of fishermen in the front.

Of course, the locals have a different story.  According to them, ancient Vietnam was surrounded by enemies, and so they prayed to the gods for help in defending their new country.  They responded by sending a family of dragons.  They helped defeat the invading armies; in the process, some of the flame kissed the bay and formed large jade formations, which now are the isolated stone obelisks.  Once their task was complete, they returned to the bay and entered its waters.  As they rest beneath the waters, the scales on their back are still visible as long, contiguous sections of stone.  Hence the name Ha Long, or "descending dragon."

A task as simple as lunch turned into a two hour affair, as it became impossible to focus on the food in front of us.  Every minute, the meal was stopped to capture an inspirational sight.  Bridges of Hanoi on the horizon.  Floating communities housing dozens of fishermen.  The perfect angle of sun cutting between two towers.

Thanks to our distracted lunch, we just barely make it out in time for our first activity: kayaking.  It is Noor’s first time, and my last experience in a kayak turned into bumper boats.  Despite ourselves, we successfully navigate two caves (twice each) during the 90 minute excursion.  It even briefly turns into a safari, when a rare endangered Cat Ba langur monkey emerges in the jungle canopy.  

Seriously, you try sleeping with this going on around you!

I could talk about the excursions during the cruise, but the reality was that no excursion was necessary.  Perhaps only the Rift Valley is the only other place I've been that so immediately captures your sense of wonder.  The scale, shape, and number of the rock formations defies explanation or comprehension.  All one is left to do is drink it all in, and I hope these pictures transport you there in a way my words are failing to do so.  Suffice to say, it was the single most romantic experience in both of our lives.

Closer view of the community of fishermen.

Sunset on Ha Long Bay.

It only took a hike up about 12 stories worth of stairs cut into the rock to take this picture.
WORTH. IT.

In Search of the Authentic Travel Experience

I am laying in a military sized cot, my head and feet touching both ends of the cabin.  My wife lays in a like-sized bed, her feet finally resting for the first time today.  “You know I’ve never been in a real train before?” she says, as the sights of downtown Hanoi roll through our window.  As the hours pass, the view goes from city to town, and the lush green hills and mountains of northern Vietnam start to appear.  This is the Fanxipan train, a colonial-era locomotive that connects Hanoi to Sapa, and is our lodging for the night.  No one by any stretch of the imagination would consider this environment romantic, from the wood paneled walls, to the stale smelling sheets, and the dirty linoleum floor.  But I can’t help but notice Noor staring out the window, with the most subtle but the most genuine of smiles on her face, transfixed by the world passing us by.

Our luxurious accommodations on the Fanxipan!

This may not be the honeymoon most people would envision.  We will not shower tonight, and the constant parade of people outside our door will keep us from even changing our clothes.  The ill-kept train rails mean a rough ride that will likely throw us from our beds in the night.  In the coming days and weeks, my decision to bring Noor here for our honeymoon rather than a beach resort will be questioned.  “You could sit on a beach, with your day’s biggest challenge figuring out what you want to have for dinner.  And you’re telling me you’d rather sleep in an old train with the smell of smoke to keep you company?”  Well, dear reader, I can now say with the utmost of confidence that both Noor and I would.

If you fall into the category of beach vacationer, I doubt this blog will change your opinion.  I travel for the same reason most people read: to experience another world.  It’s one thing to watch Darjeeling Unlimited or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to get a vibe of what this part of the world is like.  It’s another to come and see it for yourself, aided by tour guides who bring you to the places they think you would like.  It is a whole different and challenging thing to get out of the tourist bubble and live day-to-day experiences in which a local would partake.  This train trip falls very clearly into the last category.

To contrast, earlier this day, we went to a very popular tourist spot called Cu Chi.  A 90 minute drive from Saigon brings you into the jungle, where a small regimen of Viet Cong successfully were able to maintain their position near the heart of the American-supported South Vietnamese capital through the duration of the war.  They achieved this by digging very narrow tunnels through a long expanse of jungle, and only periodically emerging to booby trap the environment.  Soldiers would spend months without seeing daylight while spending most of their days navigating tunnels too narrow to turn yourself around.

Today, Cu Chi is a popular tourist spot, getting up to 1,000 tourists a day.  Perhaps you are thinking that this would be a popular place for the Vietnamese to see, to inspire them with deeds achieved by their ancestors in fighting off an oppressive enemy.  Similar to how Americans love to visit the Alamo.  You would be wrong.  The site is predominantly visited by Anglo visitors (we saw mostly Americans with some Brits and Aussies, plus one Japanese and one Korean tour group).  More surprisingly, the Americans we saw were of an age that could have participated in the Vietnam war themselves.

At first this made sense to me.  The Vietnam war was notoriously ugly and unpopular, and I could see former soldiers wanting to come back and experience the land when it is in a better place.  To realize that their actions have not destroyed the people.  However, if that was the case, then the experience likely would be dramatically different.   Specifically, there would not be the sound of live gunfire continuously permeating the grounds as you explore.

You, too, can relive war at the fabulous Cu Chi tourist trap!

Yes, the entire time visitors are learning about the challenges experienced by the Viet Cong stationed here, there is a distant noise of sharp explosions.  As you get closer, you start to realize that these are not pre-recorded through speakers.  There is even a rat-a-tat of automatic fire, and the ambiance effectively mimics a war zone.  Surprisingly, this did not appear to trigger PTSD in any of the former soldiers.  In fact, at the end of the tour, you discover that it is the tourists themselves who are shooting.  The site has erected trenches and targets in a former battlefield, and for a small fee, you too can experience warfare.  For a larger fee, you can even run the machine gun turret.  Much to my consternation, the patrons taking advantage of this opportunity were the population of former vets.

Let’s just say I had no desire to pretend I was shooting at Charlie (or at Joe, for that matter). 

The tourists that come here are used to having every amenity provided for them.  They stay in the four- and five-star hotels in Saigon, which are every bit as luxurious as anything you'd find in America (and at a third of the price).  Noor and I have had that experience, and both have found we'd rather share a cramped, smelly train car through the mountains than get pampered and pretend we're in America.

I stare out the window, and it has gotten dark out.  Either from the jet lag or the excitement, I have no want of sleep.  I want this experience as much as I want tomorrow’s next set of challenges.  Of course, there is still the problem of what we’re going to eat tomorrow…

What awaited us in Sapa...