25 Sep 2004

Dear Janet,

Thank you for taking care of everything. I thought I wrote to you, but I was pretty ill the last couple of times I had Internet access and may have forgotten in the fog. I did not slow down much to accommodate the pathogens, so finally resorted to strong antibiotics yesterday - I have some sort of lung infection. The cars run on benzene and most do not have catalytic converters, and many people smoke.

I have a 4-bedroom/2-bath apartment in Damascus, a few blocks from the Umayyad Mosque, where St. John the Baptist is buried - funny neighbor. There is no marked tomb for Salome. The markets smell wonderful - in the spicy sections, not too lovely in the meaty sections.

I went to Beirut last week - fun, fun, fun (even while sick). Tomorrow I depart for Aleppo where I will stay in a very good hotel, renovated old house from the early Ottoman Empire.

Big cumin and coriander scented kiss,

Jean Marie

Dear Tom,

Did a woman with a strong West Indies accent call and give you my phone number. It was pretty humorous. I was quickly reciting my contact information, finally I heard that she was saying, "but you have the wrong number." I established that she was in MA and had already written my Syrian number and figured it would be less time to give her your number and move on. The international calls from my cellular are expensive. Incoming are free.

You should visit. I have a lovely 4-bedroom apartment in the center of Damascus, a great juice bar just downstairs. John the Baptist is buried a few blocks away in the old city. The souqs are more exotic than I imagined. It is wonderfully easy to pop over to Jordan or Beirut.

A cumin and coriander scented kiss to you, Janet, Matt and Kaili,

Jean Marie