Martha Graham and the Middle East

Last night I went to see the Martha Graham dance company. I sat beside a man from Maine. He told me that he had worked in third world economic development. We talked about the places he'd been, and discovered that we had both been in Syria last year. A friend of his from Aleppo had picked him up at the border with Turkey and showed him around.

He spoke Turkish, having worked in Turkey for a number of years. He said he had known Farsi, which both helped and hindered. His first time in Turkey, Farsi would slip out when he tried to speak Turkish; then it was illegal to speak Kurdish or Farsi in the country. His driver convinced him to stop attempting Turkish: "You'll go to jail; I'll go to jail." He didn't learn the language until much later.

We compared dates and learned that we had missed being in the country at the same time by a few weeks. He asked me what trips I was planning and I told him I was thinking of Spain and Morocco or Morocco and Egypt in the fall. He said Morocco was magic. He recommended travelling from Siberia to Mongolia. He said Lake Baikal was amazing.

After the performance we shook hands. As we parted, he said it was nice sitting next to me. I concurred. He said, "An unusual commonality of experience." Posted by eku at April 10, 2005 9:49 AM