Dobrá čajovna

Dobrá čajovna, according to Wikipedia, is a teahouse chain originating in Prague. But, two years before I visited Prague, I lived in Burlington, Vermont, where I regularly patronized Dobrá Tea, a teahouse in the center of town. I was told it was a copycat (not a franchise) of the original Prague version – while that may or may not be true, it’s fascinating to me, this element of globalization. Here’s the Burlington teahouse:

Dobrá Tea, Burlington, VT

My other favorites of this phenomenon come from beautiful Syria, where entrepreneurship is (or was, at least) thriving. The first example comes with a small story: In 2007, I moved to Boston from Morocco, upon which I discovered a great little, brand new cafe called In House Café. The owner, whom I quickly befriended, was a Halabi, and he served delicious Halabi food and exquisite cappucinos.

One day, I decided to create a fan page for the cafe, somewhat jokingly. While Googling for a photo of its logo, I was surprised to find not the Boston cafe that I’d become so familiar with, but a very similar one. Even stranger, the photo was taken by someone I know:

In House Coffee, Damascus

As it turned out, In House Coffee was a popular Syrian coffee chain, which I would later discover when I visited in 2009:

In House Coffee, Damascus

Though I can’t find a photo of the Boston edition, BU’s student magazine has a nice writeup of it, with interior photos and a profile of the owner, Ahmed Dairy, who apparently also owns a cafe in Aleppo. No mention, however, of In House Coffee.

But wait! It gets even weirder. Apparently there is also an In House Coffee, with the same logo as the Syrian one (the Boston cafe’s logo is similar, but not identical), in Worcester, Massachusetts!

In House Coffee, Worcester, MA

Now, those darn Halabis are awfully creative. After sharing this anecdote with a friend from Aleppo, he told me of another one…the story of Crema Cafe. What makes this story particularly strange is that it has the same Aleppo-Boston connection as In House.

In Harvard Square, Cambridge (MA), there is a lovely little cafe called Crema, which caters to the local student population, serving delicious baked goods and scrumptious coffees. As it turns out, in Aleppo, Syria, there is also a lovely little cafe called Crema, which caters to the local student population…well, you get the point. No one knows which cafe came first, but I’ve heard it suggested that, in this case, the Cantabrigian cafe is actually the replica. The two cafes’ logos are identical.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find photos of the Aleppo cafe, but here is the Cambridge location:

Crema Cafe, Cambridge

I think what fascinates me most about this phenomenon is not the copyright issues, but the fact that, before the Internet, this would have been an incredibly easy venture. Find an excellent cafe or restaurant, memorize it, and replicate it at home…instant business model! Nowadays, even if you can get away with it legally, you’ve got sleuths like me ready to expose you for your unoriginality.

If anyone has photos of the Aleppo location of Crema Cafe, do let me know.

Of the cities I managed to visit, however, which were unfortunately quite few, Aleppo was my least favorite. Why, I still haven’t figured out. It was perhaps the similarities to Meknes; the meat hanging in butcher shop windows, the men welcoming me to Syria, the lack of women in the public sphere…

Before I go on, it’s probably worth mentioning the difficulty of going from one area of the Arab world to another with no real experience in between. From the Maghreb to the Levant is not a simple transition, you see. Many things look the same – the new parts of cities are almost identical; shop windows, signs, and even manner of dress are often very similar. The same language is spoken, for the most part the same religion practiced…but looks can be, and are, deceiving. Syria is a world away from Morocco but had you not spent significant time in one or the other, you might not notice how or why. I suppose in that sense I’m fortunate.

But Aleppo – you think you’re in Meknes but then you look up. And there it is, in all of its glory, towering above you, older than time, casting shadows over half of the city, just begging you to climb.

And climb we did…

There is so much to see from the top…

And from the bottom…

And the souqs – oh, the souqs!  Although I had been turned off by my initial few hours in the city, it redeemed itself with glorious soaps, beautiful cloths, and towering stacks of spices…

With a last walk through the souqs, it was straight through to a taxi, then onward to Tartous.  But lest you think Aleppo left a bad taste in my mouth, it did not.  In fact, when I think of Aleppo, I will always think of fresh cherry kebabs:

And yet such are the woes of my generation: as Rebekah Heacock and I have mused, we are indeed “the first globals” whether we like it or not. We are caught up in this world where borders seem thinner than they really are, friends in faraway places can become real with just a few clicks of the keyboard, a visa application, and a trip to the local airport (okay, perhaps it isn’t always that easy, but you get my drift). In the past year, I have met over fifty people that were previously only avatars and blog URLs, but who have become best friends and loved ones. Becoming attached to people so far away can hurt desperately; it can also demonstrate the true power of this new world we live in. It can also change your life.

But this post is supposed to be about Syria. Syria, just the name of which causes raised eyebrows where I’m from. Syria, which people assume to be this country on the axis of evil, this dark place hidden away from the world. Syria, which causes people to somehow forget thousands of years of history in remembrance of the past fifty or so.

In reality? I loved it. Along with Prague, it’s the best place I’ve ever traveled, only better, because the people match the beauty of the place (not the case in the city of a hundred spires). And having gone in with no real magical expectations (I admittedly did most of my reading on Wikipedia, which is fine, because I know who authored most of Syria’s Wikipedia entries), any that I did have were far exceeded.

But of course a country seems perfect when you’re only there for eight days. I don’t want to give some magical perception of the place, because I realize that I barely dug beneath the surface. I spent all of my time with the inimitable Anas Qtiesh of Global Voices, and we were often joined by the lovely Sarah, and occasionally by the beautiful Razan. I ate fetteh and cherry kabobs (which my dear Syrian Bostonian friend told me this morning are not in fact an Aleppine tradition at all), and drank countless glasses of the lemon-and-mint-smoothie that is polo. I rode on the nicest train I’ve ever been on in my life (only the German route from Munich to Prague remotely compares), countless incredible Syrian buses (including once in a VIP section in the back that reminded me of the mob), and plenty of taxis and services (microbuses). I visited the Citadel of Aleppo, the Khan Asad Pasha and Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the Mediterranean coast in Tartous, and the ruins at Bosra. I drank countless cups of strong black coffee, plenty of Barada beers, and copious amounts of homemade Syrian wine out of a gasoline can.

People keep asking me how my trip was – some with amazement that I went there at all, others with the same curiosity as if I’d just returned from Paris or California. Others still ask “why on earth would you want to go there?” Still others are surprised I managed to return at all. I don’t really know how to answer these questions – If I say it was incredibly safe, I was never bothered once, and it felt like home, they either don’t believe me or are shocked. If I say things seem to run so smoothly and everyone is perfectly kind, I feel like I’m betraying Syria’s reality (which is to say that of course it’s not perfect, but a tourist can’t see below the surface). So when anyone asks, I just say I had the time of my life.

(Photos are mine and Creative Commons except the one of me, which is CC but by Anas Qtiesh)