what happens in black and white?
days looks different.
melbourne, australia Continue reading “black & white” »
black & white
Reply
Category Archives: middle east
Beirut
The sea – most of all the sea.
Coming from Damascus, two things are sights for sore eyes: the sea, and green things. I drank in green; on corners, on waste ground, balconies, flowerpots. My friends had lived in, and not really left Damascus, for a month at this point and I can only imagine how they felt. Nurseries. Trees in pots. Trailing ivy. Gums. Mimosa (?). Breathing air.
And the sea.
Awfully toxic and polluted, but to see a horizon. Delicious. Sniffing salt air.
The Mediterranean sea, basically a very large and deep bathtub with originally only the shallow Gibraltar strait to replace water through, the oceanographers estimates it takes a century to replace all the water in the Med, so it’s saltier (evaporation, narrow flow) than the atlantic, and have less nutrients.
The nutrient-poor, high-salinity of the Mediterranean sea getting mixed with water from the Red sea, through the Suez canal, and tiny marine creatures with it. It’s been going on for a while, but no one know quite which way it’s going.
Do we ever? Continue reading “Beirut” »
Damascus
Damascus is a suprisingly small city- or at least it feels that way. The traffic is as maddening as you’d expect; but not quite as crazy as you’d might fear. The old city is as exotic as you’d hope, but not as impossible as you’d might be lead to believe.
This is not Bankok. This is not Jakarta. Thank god.
No dogs, was one of the first things that hit me. Going to bed after arriving, at four in the morning, I thought- fall asleep fast – the dogs will start the morning concerto, and then the mosque, and then the traffic.
But there are no dogs. It makes sense, of course, when you think of it, but four in the morning.. I expected a Bankok alarmclock. Continue reading “Damascus” »