Last Night in Damascus

Our last night in Damascus was the most random ever. We were supposed to go to our friend Said's house for a supper of stuffed zucchinis made by his wife. When we met, however, he said we needed to do something else first. We said OK and followed him to a fancy office in some nearby shopping district. The office was the executive room for some Syrian wholesale makeup company, but the man at the office also produces and publishes Arab music CDs. Apparently our friend Said, who is an English teacher, was helping some Islamic singer-songwriter (who doesn't know a word of English) with an English song on his upcoming album for the American market. Our job was to (1) listen to the song to point out grammar and pronunciation problems; (2) edit the English liner notes in the CD booklet; and (3) assure them that they didn't need to write an apology for the musician's English in the CD booklet. So, before our fantastic supper of stuffed zucchinis we hung out in a bling bling exec office, drinking coffee, listening to and editing some cheesy religious song by a guy who speaks no English but whose album heads to America for release this week! The weirdest and most random things happen in Damascus. You have to visit here.