(746 words)
I am Alexander and I am Russian. I’d like to tell you an interesting story about a trip I made to Damascus, in Syria, back in the 80eies. I worked in a city in the heart of Siberia as a translator. Once I was asked to interpret for a dancing group, composed of boys and girls aged between fourteen and seventeen as the group was going on a two-week tour to Syria.
They were a very professional dancing group, as they’d all started dancing at about the age of six, and had been training intensively almost every day since then. They learnt many different types of dances, so it was very impressive to see them. It was a real pleasure for my friend to work with the group, and to see them dance so often. Every time I saw them performing I couldn’t help admiring them, as they danced so magnificently, better than many adult dancing groups that I’d seen.
Anyway, we travelled to Damascus in July, in the middle of summer. It was unusually hot in Siberia at that time, about twenty-nine degrees Celsius, so everybody was sweating. I said to the group before we left, “Don’t forget, we’re going, to Damascus, very close to the desert, and it’s going to be something like forty-seven or even fifty degrees Celsius.”
When we arrived at the airport, however, and got out of the plane, we couldn’t believe we were in a desert region, as we all felt a bit chilly! It turned out that the temperature was only eighteen degrees Celsius!
The next day, however, there was a heat wave and it was blistering hot. The temperature reached forty-seven degrees, and during the day it was almost impossible for me and the group to go anywhere without staying in the shade. We had to walk under covered walkways, or stay under the canvas awnings of shops and cafes, as it was absolutely unbearable in the sun.
I remember that Damascus was dead during the day-time, with nearly empty streets and no other signs of life. But when the sun went down at about nine o’clock in the evening, the city came alive. People would come out into the streets, the cafes and restaurants would open, and social life would start. They’d go to parties, visit each other, buy and sell things, go to the cinemas and so on. This