Learning Arabic with a Syrian wanted by ISIS
Happy Friday!
I just spent an invigorating hour with M., a refugee language teacher from Syria. He came to me through Chatterbox, a social enterprise that matches refugees with a talent for teaching with language students. Fantastic idea.
I haven't spoken Arabic properly since the last time I was in Egypt in January 2010. That's a heck of a long time for a language to lie dormant, but I was surprised by how easily some of came back to me, and M. was amazed - 'You're half Egyptian,' he very much joked.
He told me a little of his story, how he started a newspaper in his home town in North Syria and got into trouble when ISIS took control. M.'s pro-democracy, pro-free speech rhetoric didn't go down well and he was branded an enemy of Islam, 'and other bullshit.' After several of his colleagues were killed, M. decided to leave the country.
Now he teaches Arabic, drives his motorbike around town at night doing Uber deliveries and is trying to get hold of his academic papers so that he can return to university to do a masters in Education and Development. When he's done that, he'll go back to Syria to help rebuild the education system. The poor state of education in his country was why, M. says, when the people got a taste of freedom, they didn't know what to do with it.
Over a cup of mint tea, we chat about Arab hospitality. During my travels in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine I experienced countless expressions of hospitality, large and small. From the time I got a motorbike escort through post-revolutionary bandit country in Tunisia, to the lavish home-roasted pigeon dinner served up by a stranger I met once in a cafe in Cairo. (Okay, so that's large and large!)
It's that hospitality which partially inspired my first forays to the refugee camps of Calais: an amorphous urge to show at least some semblance of solidarity with the people who had shown me such kindness. (The rest of the inspiration was bone-idle curiosity and Daily Mail baiting.)
M. himself was in Calais in January 2015. (I wonder if he came to our New Year's Eve party...) He remembers the kindnesses that he received on his way to the UK. It does mean something, he insisted. It might not seem much, hanging out, bringing food or blankets, but it does mean something, knowing that in your darkest days someone, at least, still cares.
Now he's doing what he can to return the favour.
INPUT
I got five on it.
GIVING: Homelessness charity Crisis are recruiting for Crisis at Christmas volunteers. Fabulous way to spend a couple of festive days.
FUTUROLOGY: Four human colonies on Mars. And four other mind-bending ways we (in this case, the US) could be spending our defence budgets.
HISTORY: What does the 'dark' mean in 'Tall, dark and handsome'?
MORE HISTORY: Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. A fateful letter if ever there was one. Jane Corbin did a decent doco looking at 100 years of fairly uneventful history in Palestine and Israel.
BOOK: The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane (2007). If this book doesn't inspire you to take up your bivvy bag and head immediately for the isle of Barra, I don't know what will.
OUTPUT
Fortune favours the Dave.
Meditations on Meditations: Praise & Service, Core Beliefs, Adversity, Love, Change, Retreat, Indignation (October)
"No one ever died while breathing". Psychedelic Breathwork with Alchemy of Breath (October)
The Most Living: Synopsis (October)
Wim Hof: The Cold is Our Teacher (September)
This weekend I'm climbing the highest peak in the City of London (22m above sea level) as preparation for next week, when this newsletter will be coming to you live from the Outer Hebrides. Thrilled about that, I am.
One last thought from MARGE:
Do not be distressed, do not despond or give up in despair, if now and again practice falls short of precept. Return to the attack after each failure, and be thankful if on the whole you can acquit yourself in the majority of cases as a man should. (Meditations 5:9)
Ma3salama, go with peace.
- dc
p.s. Life To The Lees: Cycling Around Britain is still merrily asale.
p.p.s. Oooh... You can forward this email to a friend!
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