And so it ends….

I’m sitting in a cafe off the lobby of our hotel in Doha, Qatar, checked out, with my bags, ready to go. We’re having a dinner together here at 7 p.m. – in a half hour – and then the bus comes to pick up 18 of us for the airport. (The rest are staying for an extended trip, and will be heading back to Cairo with Denis tomorrow through June 18.) I don’t think some of us are quite done yet with this place. I had students coming to my hotel room all day to ask if they could continue to post for a little while. (Plus, I still have five articles to upload that weren’t quite ready yet, but will be next week.) I don’t think they got onto the screen all they wanted to say. Of course they can still post, I told them. I suppose I will too. Or, maybe not. It’s hard to know how we’re all going to feel when we get home. But tonight, I am acutely aware of how I feel. I am thrilled that they had so many successes. I am touched that they became so close. I am grateful that everything went relatively smoothly. And above all, I am proud of the remarkable work they did. We arrived in these countries without sources, without language skills, and without bearings. And in each place, these journalists managed to put together a long list of compelling pieces that inform, illuminate, and educate. They wrote features, hard news, reviews, and photo essays. Three of them broke news and were referenced in The New York Times. All of them were lauded in The Boston Globe – twice – for the work they’ve done here. Because of Denis’ enormous network of friends and contacts – and because of the sheer talent of the students – we were able to see and hear and accomplish an astonishing number of things. I know that each of them has benefitted in ways that can’t be gauged yet. I’m just so grateful that I was able to witness it. As for me, I leave this region with a renewed sense of purpose as a journalism professor, and as a reporter. I don’t know how I’ll incorporate all that I’ve learned, and all I’ve seen, into my career and life. But let’s just say, I’m looking forward to whatever might come next…

Disconnected thoughts as I draft a script of what I’ve seen here…

It’s 5:22 a.m. on Thursday, June 4, the morning of the day we leave to head back to Boston. (We arrive Friday afternoon.) I don’t think this will be my last post – I’ll be at my computer all day editing stories and captions, so I’ll have a chance to say more – but pretty close to it… I feel strange as I sit down to write – a bit emotional, a bit anxious, a bit overwhelmed. How can I begin to summarize an experience that’s been so varied? I fear it will read like a first draft of my beginning students’ articles, where they throw everything in because they feel they have to. Because they don’t yet know how to self-edit and hold back. I suppose that will be forgiven here, under these circumstances. Or at least, I beg that it is. So, here goes:

Draft 1:

• Our first full night here in Egypt, Patrick – one of the graduate students – had a grand mal seizure. I was standing next to him as it began, and stood bent over him as he lie on the floor in its grips. I had never experienced anything like that and, more importantly, neither had he. In the hospital, where he stayed overnight, there were cats running around, people were smoking, and the professionals weren’t wearing gloves. The diagnosis was exhaustion, dehydration, low blood sugar. But I refused to accept that and insisted Patrick return home to get checked. After many tests, it turns out the Cairo doctors were correct. He’s fine. Fine, but now heartbroken. (He gave me permission to write this post.) I’m so sorry Patrick. I think about you every day, and am haunted that maybe I altered your life by denying you this chance.
• I was born Catholic, converted to Judaism to get married, and now make a point of practicing nothing – which is a crime in the places we’ve visited. Two things have struck me related to this:

The convent at the base of the mountain that, way above, holds the shrine.

Thing 1: On the road to Aleppo in Syria, close to the border of Lebanon and along the path the Crusaders took, I and a few of my students, stumbled into a caveside shrine to Mother Mary. The stone floor was cold, and there was a tree inside, with vast branches reaching out to the sun. I looked at the paintings of her, and felt comforted by them, which startled me. Until I realized that in fact, they were prompting me to think of my own mother, who has been and remains a peaceful, loyal, supportive force in my life. What a testament to love and relationships that their influence can rise up out of nowhere, even inside a dusty cave, high up in a mountain on the other side of the earth.

Thing 2: One evening, I set out alone to say good-bye to Damascus, and found myself in a shop with a man who offered me tea and a seat. We talked for three hours about the strife in his region, his loyalty to his people and his land, and the sometimes-stifled life he leads because of that. He told me a story about a Christian woman he once loved, but who wouldn’t raise her children as Muslims. So seven years ago, he said goodbye to her, and promised himself that the next woman he kissed would be the woman he married. At the end of that evening, he asked to kiss me – not because he wanted anything, but because he felt connected. He was visibly shaken. I am at once Christian, Jewish, a non-believer, an American, and most of all, married, I told him. The obstacles to this request couldn’t have been greater. But the fact that he asked moves me to appreciate those quiet and memorable moments people can collect and share with each other, here and there in life.

A shot from above the newsroom at al Jazeera.

• When we arrived in Qatar, I didn’t know what to think about it. I stood on the street and looked up amid so many towers of shining metal and glass and etched or carved concrete – an army of magnificent skyscrapers. But there are no people here. The streets are empty, because no one walks in this heat. The stores are empty, because the native Qataris apparently have fleets of servants who do the shopping. The people I have met are British, or Canadian, or Malaysian. It couldn’t be further removed from the landscape in Cairo, which is chaotic, and crowded, and unkempt, and filthy and… much preferred. I have felt transformed here, though – professionally. That moment came at the studios of al Jazeera. For the first hour there, before we visited their beautiful sets and talked with a program editor among others, we heard about their commitment to balanced and fair journalism. We also heard about the smear campaign our previous administration created to make Americans believe the network was a function of terrorist interests. When I was in Cairo in January, I mentioned this to my friend Katarina, a reporter and editor from the Associated Press bureau there. She laughed at me. Al Jazeera, she said, has hired away all the best TV journalists from the BBC and other news outlets. It is the model of strong journalism here, she said. Still, I was skeptical, until I visited there on Tuesday. As a reporter for nearly 20 years, I know I can trust myself to recognize the real deal when I see it. The network seems to me to be as balanced and fair – and legitimate – as any of the big three at home. How is it that I teach journalism at the college level, and didn’t understand that? How is it that I had never seen a full broadcast of one of the most important networks in the world until I visited here? It’s shameful, and I have resolved, as part of my goals from this experience, to educate myself and not perpetuate these kinds of myths.

Draft 2:

Minutes ago, my husband Geoff sent two emails to me entitled “daughter, 10:37 p.m.” and “father, 10:38 p.m.” Their only contents:

Hang in there guys. I’m on my way…

Eminem in Qatar. (Not)

I have tried three times to watch the video of Sasha Baron Cohen falling onto Eminem at the MTV Movie Awards. (Every time I open MSN, it’s one of the top  links.) But when I click “play,” my screen says: “This video is currently not available in your country.” Apparently, it offers a glimpse of Cohen’s bare behind. So, no go here. Happily, one of my students, Lisa Newman, has written a story about something along these lines. Take a look.

Don’t miss our coverage…

The students have been doing such high-quality work. In the last few days, I’ve posted seven articles from Syria, and am chasing one more student for the last, which will complete our Syrian catalog. Pretty good for only being in the country for a week. Four students are still working on two pieces out of Doha. We’ve only been here for two days, so that’s about all we could manage from this leg of the trip. And I have a few still to post, that came in late, from Cairo. (The Cairo catalog is huge.) So – I’m writing just to remind folks to head back to the main site if they haven’t visited it in a while. I would hazard to say that we have reported on things that no one has, because of the access we’ve had here.

Quick post: Busy busy busy…

We’re nearing the end of our journey, so there’s a lot of work to do in editing stories, chasing down photos, and posting everything. So, as I have asked before, bear with me. I have so many things to say as we wind down here… If I could only grab a few more hours in each day…. More later.

We’re in Doha…

 

Sorry this picture is so terrible. It's the best I can do this morning as I scramble to get out the door. This is the view from my hotel room, through tinted (and slightly dirty) windows.

Hello parents and friends. The students can’t access their email tonight because Internet here is $25 a day. So, I’m writing to represent them… We got here on time, around 8 p.m., and settled into the hotel at 9. I’m too tired to fully go into what Doha is like. In fact, I couldn’t really capture it adequately anyway. The buildings are spectacular and extend way up into the sky. It’s shiny and clean and miraculous. It’s nothing – not even one bit – like the other places we’ve seen on our program. We’re all staying at the top of a 26-floor hotel named Movenpick. One entire wall of our rooms looks out onto the water on the left, and fantastic skyscrapers lit with all kinds of colors to the right. I think most of the students are just lounging around on their beds tonight, looking out their windows. They’re hungry, I think, but there’s not much they can do about it now because even a snack in the lobby is $20. (Don’t worry – they were fed on the plane…) And anything else they could walk to is closed. So, we’ll get them to a grocery store tomorrow to offset the prices here… In the meantime, check back again soon. They’ll find their way to some Internet in the next day. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to post, on the main site, the last of the Cairo stories, as well as the Syria pieces, which are starting to come in.

Journalists at work, late into the night in Aleppo…

It’s 12:40 a.m. Sunday, and many of us are blogging away in beautiful Aleppo, Syria… Here’s a quick snapshot of what’s going on around me right now. It’s been like this for hours now, with everyone finding his or her way to this unofficial “newsroom” off the lobby after they had dinner at the market, or on the roof of this stunning hotel. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: I’m so proud of my gang.

Some in our group, blogging through midnight Saturday and into early Sunday in the city of Aleppo, Syria. Everyone is staring into his or her laptop except Sean, who's snuggled up beside me there on the right, watching Beetlejuice on TV (translated into Arabic). Once again, it's a satisfying moment for me.

A quick glimpse …

… of the valley I spoke of yesterday, where we were in the province of Homs.

 

From my hotel room, the view of the Krak des Chevaliers castle. We stood atop the castle earlier in the day for a long time to take in the magnificent panoramic views of the valleys.

 

The other side of the valley, from my hotel room. (The castle is just to the left.) Those are olive trees on the terraced hills.

 

The look of the houses next to the hotel, sharing the view of the valleys opposite them.

“Places I would go”

Sorry to be so confessional today with Geoff’s emails… (that’ll teach him to encourage me to blog…) But, again, in the way of explaining another aspect of how I have been affected here:

From Geoff: “So I would be nuts to worry that when you told me how much your life has changed in the last four weeks, etc., etc., that you’re thinking it’s going to be a downer to come home and be Mrs. Hempel, right?”

From me:  “I want to come back.  But I want to live a bit of a different life. Not for the main stuff, but for the stuff that fills in the cracks. I want to take Lila in the summers  for a month away. I want you to come if you can for all of it. But at least for some. We’ll live in hostels with backpacks and on bread and cheese and oranges. I just want to roam around with her, chilling out in markets and in parks and at free museums and in the countrysides of different places.

From Geoff:  “I’m all for roaming. Let’s do it. Places I would go:”

 south pacific
 canada/nova scotia
 pacific northwest – portland, seattle
 china
 fiji
 midwest rambling
 colorado
 portugal/spain
 turkey
 australia
 azores
 climbing mountains in maine

Any other suggestions?

It’s like 1986 in here…

 

Kate, Dani and I in the back room of a computer repair shop somewhere in the province of Homs, Syria. The computers were slow, the lighting was bad, and we were starving but for popcorn and chips... but somehow it was just right.

It’s about 9 p.m on Friday, and it’s been an interesting day… We started at 9 this morning and made our way north through Syria to the Krak des Chevaliers, a castle that sits atop the next valley over from where I’m writing this. We’re in Homs now, which is a vast province in Syria that encompasses a city and many villages. It’s magnificent, and reminds me of the hills of Tuscany. Just like there, olive trees and grape vines dot the terraced hills all around us for as far as I can see. The air is cool, clean and crisp. It’s breathtaking.  But right now, Kate, Dani and I are sitting in the strangest place. It’s an “Internet cafe.” But really, it’s the back room of a small storefront with four old computers and bad  hallogen lighting. I sound as though I’m complaining, but really, it couldn’t be more perfect.  Ossama, our guide and my dear companion since arriving in Syria, set the whole thing up. It’s incredible what he went through to get us here.  He knew when we got to the hotel that I was anxious about being able to post. (We really are in a small village. There was no hope of finding Internet near where we’re staying.) So he called a friend, who picked us up at the hotel, (I bumped into Dani and Kate and they asked if they could come) and took us on a multi-stop journey all over the place to find Internet. Ossama kept hopping out to check for access. We finally found it three villages away. He also set up transportation to get us back. I am overwhelmed with the way people like Ossama and Abduh (from Cairo) have protected and taken care of us through this adventure. It’s touching and inspiring. And I aspire, as part of what I have learned here, to be as helpful and generous as they.