November 5. Bus to Beirut.

The other charities I was to support in Aleppo need bureaucracy, and that makes me sad. A friendly couchsurfer knew a couple of them but this is what they needed. They need some official writing of my government telling them that is has an agreement with Syria. My government! The government of the country that issued my passport? What does that help them? Does it make my dollars any cleaner? I do not want to help them. I curse bureaucracy once more, knowing that I will live only in this world, that is so absolutely drenched in it, knowing that it will kill me in the end. That could be a nice t-shirt slogan by the way, "bureaucracy will kill me in the end". But until that day, I will stand up against it, and I hope you stand up with me. And so I take the bus to Beirut, where I hope to find a more accessible ways of donating some money to the needy. A Dutch couchsurfer suggested I could work together with Hezbollah. Would create a nice shocker, and perhaps even an argument why you should after all be interested in my amazing adventure.
On a dusty afternoon, I leave from Aleppo and the bus radio is playing compelling Arab rhythms. As the bus zips along the outskirts of Aleppo, I try to imagine what life is like for the people living here. I see endless rows of beige concrete buildings, and they are expanding the city, which has already far over one million people into the dessert.  Houses that are inhabited are recognizabel by the rusty satellite dishes on top of them. If there is any universal thing about our species, we find it in the ingeniuous ways we have invented to fight boredom. All over the world, where boredom can no longer be avoided by strict religious ruling there is an inevitable need for something we know as entertainment, and that stretches from all varieties of story-telling to more direct ways of getting the right hormone cocktail auto-injected in our veins. Name one institution that doesn't exist essentially to conquer boredom. When I have time again, and access to a library, I promise to write more on the anthropology of boredom, perhaps as an hommage to Levi-Strauss who died a few years ago, age 100. I assume he has lived a very exciting life.

We cross the border, I only need a twelve dollar exit card. On the tv screen I see beautiful Arab women swining their heads in a way that is best described as headbanging, showing as much as possible of their shiny black hair. It was the absolute opposite of their completely veiled counterparts I had seen in some conservative areas of Aleppo.

In the darkness we drive along the main road, and I feel happy as we pass "Alu Saab pret a porter", "shoe avenue", "white city boutique", and "wooden bakery". Those smooth American slogans...

I go to a café in downtown Beirut and work a little bit. I contact my host and get lucky: she can pick me up on the way since she is taking a taxi home. So I wait in front of the blue dome mosque until a woman's hand waves at me from a taxi. A very pretty woman welcomes me to Beirut and we introduce ourselves as the taxi takes us home. Mona is working for a UN project working on rural development project throughout the Arab world. We have a short conversation introducing ourselves, switching to French at a certain point. I have a good night on the couch.

November 3. Very dangerous. But perhaps a good believer.

A healthy breakfast in the attic. I don't understand the French guys on the table next to me, although I have said of myself that I speak that language. Don't worry, better focus on the real things, you have a mission now dearest one. The sun stands already high as I walk out and capture some of Aleppo's life with my camera. I am fond of a photograph with a bicycle in the front and a veiled woman in the back. There are hardly any women on the street in this part of the town. So, I am looking for charities. Where to start? First, let's check my upcoming travel itinerary. I walk into a travel agency to ask about the cost of traveling to Israel and perhaps visa information.
"Where's that?"
-"Israel-Palestine occupied territories."
"We don't communicate with them" he cuts me short. It's as simple as that. Any other questions?
I ask him maybe he knows about some deserving charity here in Aleppo and the travel agent happens to know a monseigneur. The next thing I know is I am standing in a church explaining myself in hoodling-doodling French to a very friendly white-haired priest. Yes, his church is working with caritas France and they are supporting Iraqi families with food, medicine, fuel, and rent assistance. I ask if it's possible to visit them and document it for my book. Of course! Two young women take it over from there, and select two families for me that are particularly needy. I am amazed as we drive off in the taxi through the crowded streets of Aleppo. It is real! I can make this my reality.

"So he is the president since 2000? How do you feel about it?"
-"I am very satisfied." she replies.
"But can you tell me some more because I only know the Western media and they stigmatize your country as an evil place and your president as a brutal dictator..."
Well, I don't get the chance to say exactly that because she warns me with a tactful pat on the knee. It is very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very bad to mention Israel or say anything bad about the regime. You run the risk of deportation, simply have to leave the country within 24 hours - if you're lucky.

In the afternoon I walk around in the historical town, and visit a mosque. It's a very nice one, I could look it up for you if you are interested, and give you the name of it. I am looking at a group of people listening to an Imam proclaiming as a student of French literature says bonjour. Our conversion is about Chateaubriand, Racine, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Nietzsche, and Marx. He has fallen in love with the old French literature, with Racine and Molière. Then he takes me to a chamber where the Imam goes after his proclamation. My French companion offers me a seat and begins:
"Do you believe God is one?"
-"Yes, what else could he be?"
"Good! And He has 25 prophets. The last one is Mohammed, but in essence they all say the same thing."
-"I like that idea. We are all brothers."
"Exactly! There is only one religion."
-"Yeah!"
"Do you know what islam means? To accept, surrender, or submit to the highest principle."
-"So true..."
"Welcome to paradise!"

We visit the tomb of one of them, Zacharia. Let me share this with you. Perhaps I am a good muslim. Let's go through the five pillars of Islam.
#1. "God" is one. If I proclaim that you cannot hear the hypens, so that will be okay. Literacy is, of course, not a requirement. I have to work on the second part though, the part referring to the prophet. My concept of "god" is more gnostic: we all carry this voice within ourselves.
#2. I have to get up early to venerate the deity. That will be hard, five times a day at heliologically calculated times. I am not so much into venerating deities, so this is a tough one. But I hope I can make it up for that by overdoing number 3.
#3. Give 2.5% of your possessions to charity. I give away the rest, 97.5% to charities around the world, and try to inspire other people too. That should create at least some goodwill on the part of the Almighty Allah.
#4. Good news. The Ramadan does not apply to travelers! Since I am a traveler in my blood, I don't need to worry about that.
#5. Being so much of a traveler, I'd probably make it to Mekka and become a Haj some day.
There are bonuspoints too. Let's say, circumcision. No comment.

I stay with a cool couchsurfer called Christophe in old Aleppo and I feel like a king, we smoke a bit of Lebanese hasj, and there are some great paintings on the wall. Christophe is a young Frenchman of very friendly, suave, character, and he is in soap. You probably heard that Aleppo is famous for its soap.

We have a great eat out with other couchsurfers, chat about our trips, some of them are on bigger trips. Murdoch from New Zealand is a fellow writer and we decide to hang around together the next day. I can establish a contact for his exhibition of photographs of Iranian prisoners in Berlin that hopefully takes place soon.

November 2. Move it! On to Syria.

I can't make it back to Adana in time, so I won't visit an ACEV meeting myself. I kindly ask them for some photographs to publish on my website, along with their contact information because there might be visitors - occasional internet surfers - who would want to make a donation. They will provide me with footage, and I am very thankful for that. After all, ACEV is my first charity and I couldn't yet act as self-confident as I will later on.

But I feel like it's time for action. I want to get to Syria as quickly as possible. I take a bus to Antakya, where it is drizzling. They tell me to take a taxi to Aleppo which would cost me about twenty dollars. An old wound of parsimonious thrift plays up and I say no. I like hitchhiking anyway. So I try to hitchhike standing under a highway overpass my trembling thumb raised to every passing car and getting ignored. I get carried away by negative emotions. Am I supposed to do this? I am supposed to be the jolly charity adventurer? Hitching in the rain. My objective is to inspire, to make a difference in this odd world. I should think of a more professional way of fundraising instead of standing here in the rain with my trembling thumb. O, I think, if only mighty people identify with my cause and start promoting my project, start doing fundraising and getting me in personal contact with Brad Pitt, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dorothy Parker. I am being delirious. Things don't make sense now. But I know being unhappy is not a good means to achieve my goals.

So stop moaning and just move on. A servis (minibus) takes me into Antakya - I find it a terrible town. The driver speaks German and gives me a rich sample of it straight away, as we pull over where a woman is standing on the sidewalk.
"Who is that woman?"
-"Früher isch habe sie oft gebumst. Jetzt ich verheiratet. Jetzt kann ich nicht mehr bumsen. Verstehst du mein Freund?" (I ushed to shag her back in the days. Now I married. No I not shag anymore. You understand my friend?)
A driver can take me for 10 YTR to Aleppo, but I have to wait in their office. They offer me tea tough.

I worry if what I've heard about the visa issue is correct. But it is. It is better than that! Double entry seems to be no problem (fyi it is a problem, I will have to issue a new visa upon re-entering later), so I'll go to Lebanon. The people at the border are friendly. Smiles, relatively uncomplicated, I pay 34 dollars (fyi a transit visa costs 15 dollars, 3 days) and they offer me Arabic pastry greasy and glistening with sugar - I like it.

I casually disperse ash from my glowing butt into the Syrian nightsky. It's beautiful and I think I am a character to be played by a young Clint Eastwood and I feel so cool. Here I sit in that car, smoking a sweet American cigar I just bought in the taxfree shop and feeling very good. I am promising myself not to get caught in the ugly spiral of melancholy again. My driver hums a folklore melody, and I start puffing away to celebrate I managed to cross the border I deemed to hardest on my journey. It feels fantastic. This is why  I travel - I know it again. We drive through the land where the "dead cities" are, a famous attraction of northern Syria I gladly add to my list of yet-to-be-done things. That Clint Eastwood-character tips his earlobes and says in a slow voice "maybe next time".

That character walks into a bar, you know, with a sqeaking swing door that you push vigorously to make it swing back and forth then walk in, giving the drinkers that curiously look up from their glasses a stern face.
"I'm looking to do something good" I say with a raw voice and spit on the ground to my right. The man bows for me and runs away, asking if anybody knows about something good. I look around with a confident, superior frown and light a cigar. I pitch the match away. The man comes back and starts stammering excuses why he took so long.
"Okay, forget it" I say and look him in his eyes, blowing smoke in his face. "What have you got?"
The man stammers about an orphanage around the corner and that the Sister has just died and they are desperate.
"Thanks" I say and drop my cigar butt, trodding heavily on it in a long slow movement of my boots while not evading the look of the man, nodding in a provoking manner.

I am nothing like that, but pretending sometimes feels good.

There is the city center, and there is the internet. I feel a bit lost now, and start thinking about moderate endorphine levels, that is applying the Aristotelian theory of the golden middle to the scientific world.

And I realize again what my idea is about. Perhaps it wouldn't remain that exciting an experience for me if I would have to take a taxi through the crowded streets of Aleppo every day to visit some poor refugee family and pay their rent. Perhaps it would be just as boring as sitting in any stifling office cubicle, and hence not appealing to the average man?

They take me to a hostel where I can lay my head down in a dorm in the dusty attic, on strong colorful carpets.