Qamishle

The hotel the taxi driver took me to had air con, a colour TV and most surprisingly a plug in the basin. This latter item meant I wouldn't need, when washing my clothes, to kneel beside a washing bowl and get sore knees. So that was great. Overall a reasurring landing in the Arabic sphere, then.

I say Arabic because Syria is officially an Arab Republic. But what does 'Arab' mean? As I understand it, an Arab is one or more of three things: someone descended from the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula (including, so it is said, the descendents of the Biblical Ishmael); someone who speaks Arabic as a first language and has grown up in an Arabic society; or someone who not only speaks Arabic and lives in an Arabic culture but considers themselves ethnically and culturally Arab. Since this third definition embraces subjective feelings -surely fundamental in any assessment of identity- this is the one I prefer.

While Syria is 70% Arabic, Qamishle is 60% non-Arabic, mainly Assyrian and Armenian, but also Kurdish. Many of the current Assyrian-Armenian population used to live in Turkey but were forced to migrate south in the 1920s and 30s by the Turkish policy of population transfer, a policy controversially (to the Turks) considered by the relatives of those affected to have embraced genocide.

Before I arrived I hadn't realised any of this. I just thought there were Kurds in north-eastern Syria, that the rest of the country was Arabic and that the Armenian genocide* had affected only regions in Turkey. I wasn't even aware of any Assyrian genocide*. Indeed, I didn't even know 'Assyrians' existed. I'd thought they'd gone out of fashion with the Babylonians. Silly old ignorant me.

All this was explained to me just hours after arriving in Qamishle by the incontestably remarkable Stephen. A half Irish, half Armenian Christian tour guide from Damascus. Commanding my attention just seconds after I left my hotel to explore, I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon following him, or rather being marched, around town as he showed me where I could get my bus to Al-Hassake tomorrow. Then he took me for tea with a doctor friend at the local hospital. Assertive and ebullient, forceful and familiar, Stephen was very kind and friendly but in a way I couldn't help find overwhelming. He took a special interest in asking me about my planned itinerary in Syria, and recommended specific hotels in Hama and Aleppo, writing out vouchers in his name so I could get a discount, as well as saying I could stay with his friend, the Assyrian Archbishop of Al-Hassake, when I said I planned to go there next.

While we drank tea he showed me how I should add a small amount of tap water to my mineral water bottles to slowly adjust my system to the local bacteria, though I thought I'd ignore that, fearing it wouldn't work.

Then he took me to a hotel owned by another friend of his, where he said I should have stayed. I had been overcharged by my hotel, in his view, (12 dollars), just as I had for my 2 dollar taxi from the border. He was precise in telling me how much I should pay for hotels and transport in Syria. Apparently, then, this was not a country where prices would be fixed and transparent, and though generally low, not reliably low. In Turkey you can be fleeced too, of course, but I had come to trust the people and acquired a sense of how much things should be. The numerals, as well, were recognisable there, which had helped. The impression Stephen gave was that Syrians shouldn't be trusted in this matter.

Guiltily, in the face of his kindness and interest, I wanted to be alone. I felt my head couldn't breathe because of his urgent comments and input. He also had this well-meaning yet somewhat irritating habit of sometimes not just touching but gently hitting me on the leg to command my attention when making a point. But I wanted to see him again and accept his invitation to eat later so we arranged to hook up at nine.

Wandering through streets that had only recently flooded with people and activity - Syrians being partial to the habit of siesta - I went for a tea in one of the tea houses. All male environments, high ceilinged and well-lit, men sit around tables on hard chairs, smoking, be that tobacco or the nargila, playing cards or backgammon, drinking only tea, coffee or Syrian produced soft drinks. I think I cut quite a noteworthy figure, hunched over my notebook, alone in this far eastern corner of their country.

Most of the men wore western clothes and didn't look very different to the Turks I'd left behind. Their energy levels, however, indeed the energy of the whole town, seemed one or two notches up on the dial. The contrast was not as great as that between Bulgaria and Turkey but it was noticeable. Perhaps it was most evident in the dialogue witnessed on the streets between cars, their horns and pedestrians. I don't know how many people get hit by cars each year in Syria, and I'm not sure I want to. Or maybe Syrians are so well accustomed to the barely regulated cacophony that they manage just fine. Memories of Cairo returned, memories supported by the incresed presence of dust and the dearth of western glossiness.

Some of the men were wearing the traditional bedouin costume of long white cloaks (the Jalabiyya) and red and white head gear (the Kuffeya). They looked rich and at least some of them were foreign, possibly from one of the gulf states. I knew they were foreign because some were staying at my hotel. Their passports, as well as mine, had been kept by the hotel manager. He showed them to me when I said I wanted mine back, indicating that his keeping it was normal. I'm not sure what he wanted to do with my passport but I presumed it was a police ruling regarding foreigners.

When I met up with Stephen I thought we'd be eating in the hotel of his friend but instead he took me for tea to the shop of a fellow Armenian, also an English speaker, though not as fluent. His father was the only member of his family to survive the Armenian genocide. He had hidden, as a five year old, under the body of his dead brother above him. Well, that's if I understood him correctly. Alot of the masssacring happened south of here, following death marches from Turkey. I forget this Armenian's name but I was glad he'd heard of his fellow countryman, Gurdjieff, one of the two important Armenians in my life (the other being Baret, a friend from University). I found it quaint that he referred to Muslims as 'Musselmen'.

Leaving Turkey I'd automatically supposed Syria would be more Islamic than Turkey. Overall, it probably is, despite also being a secular state in its constitution. Yet here I was, talking to Syrian Christians, after having only met Muslim Turks.

Stephen had frank opinions on many things, including Islam. To him, Islam is inferior to Christianity because of how it allows, if not encourages, Muslims to feel superior to what he called the 'other', especially in the context of marriage. A Christian can marry a Jew but if either wants to marry a Muslim they must convert to Islam (something which appears to be an officially irreversible act). He also interestingly told me that, in his opinion, the 'Archangel Gabriel', who according to Islam was the medium through whom the Koran was dictated to Muhammad, was in fact his real biological father. The man tradition says was his father, so Stephen alleged, was in fact impotent (I hope I remember the details correctly - it was a week ago now). Well, well, well. Presumably Muslims may take issue with this. Oddly enough he even said it was a 'secret teaching'. Finally, he said Muhammad was a very gifted student of religion, very well educated -unusually so for the Arabs of that time - who simply copied and adapted his ideas from Judaism and Christianity, contriving his own new faith. Jesus, on the other hand, was himself the Word of God itself, God himself. Stephen's Christian faith seemed sincere and deep.

Despite these controversial, potentially inflammatory remarks, there was not a hint of malice in Stephen as he spoke. Clearly he was no Islam-or-Arabophobe in his daily life, given his social effusiveness and the quantity of his friends.

Regarding the Turks, he thought theirs was a very noble culture, like the Persian. I suspected he would think Arabs were lower down on his list, though he didn't say anything derisory about them as such. He took objection when I reminded him that the Turks had massacred his Armenian countrymen. No, they hadn't he said. No they hadn't I questioned, eyebrows raised, wondering if I'd found an Armenian unethused by his own people (well, the non-Irish half). No, the Turkish policy was that the Armenians should leave the country. It was the Kurds who decided to kill the Armenians, and did the killing.

Obviously, I know nothing about the truth of any of this. I'm just reporting what he said. But I hadn't even heard about this accusation towards the Kurds before. Was this a widespread Armenian idea, or only his? I wonder what the Turks have to say about it. I suppose, perhaps, because they don't even recognise the existence of the Kurds in their constitution it might be tricky to say that the Kurds killed the Armenians to get off the hook themselves. Presumably its far less complicated to just say there was no genocide.

I was getting hungry; thirsty too. I hinted I'd like that meal we spoke about. Alas, instead, we wandered the streets for another hour, as he took me to two or three Armenian churches after I expressed surprise that there were such buildings here. Finally we got a felafel from a street siding vendor. Before long, after saying I needed to go to sleep (which was true), I agreed to stop briefly at a friend's house on our way back to the hotel. As it was, I was persuaded, happily as it turned out, to have a meal, in which I was served far, far too much lovely Assyrian food, for which I would be punished in the morning.

(*note: I say genocide because if I write that word with quotation marks or say 'alleged genocide' people will think I'm following the Turkish line of denial. Not being Turkish I have no reason to do this. Generally, in addition, I do not believe it's natural for people to make up stories about their relatives being slaughtered, whatever the political motivations of doing so may be. Also, I do not deny that the violence, no doubt, went in the other directions too)