Physical reminders of a place

Maaloula, Syria

Maaloula, Syria

If passing through the Syrian town of Maaloula, particularly if you are passing by the slightly expensive restaurant some 100 meters shy of the entrance to Mar Thecla Convent, you might notice a young man with Aramaic writing tattooed on his arms. Curious, you might then walk over and ask, “Excuse me, what does your tattoo mean?”

It was over a complimentary cup of coffee that Atala shared his story. A few years earlier he was preparing to leave Maaloula for Canada, where he thought he might settle and start a new life. But he loved Maaloula. He was born and raised here. His church and many of his friends and family were here. Still, there were compelling reasons to immigrate to Canada, and so he made the decision to give it a shot.

Before leaving Syria, however, he visited the local tattooing facility and presented his bare arms to a man with needle and ink. Sometime later he stepped out with a simple declarative sentence on his forearms: I LOVE MAALOULA. “I wanted to go to Canada remembering where I had come from,” he told me. “No matter where I live, Maaloula is a part of me.”

As things turned out, Atala decided to return to Syria after just a few months in Canada, and he is now married and working in his family’s restaurant just outside one of the town’s famous monasteries. When asked if he regretted getting the tattoo, he said not at all. It was a reminder of his attachment to a place and its people, and also of that period in life when he was on the cusp of changing countries.

As for me, I really liked the tattoo. I liked the story behind it. I liked that it was in Aramaic—Maaloula is one of only three towns left in Syria that still speak Aramaic (rather than Arabic) as a first language. I also liked imagining Atala giving some ruffian a left hook with a forearm that bore the words “I love” on them.

But what does this post have to do with vagabonding? Places, both ones we come from and go to, leave marks on us. In the busyness of our lives, however, these marks can seep out of view over time, even out of consciousness, and often we’re the lesser for it. Atala’s story illustrates one method of preserving a physical reminder of something you don’t want to forget. There are other methods too, of course. Your own stories and ideas are welcome in the comment section.

Posted by | Comments Off on Physical reminders of a place  | January 4, 2011
Category: Asia, Images from the road, Notes from the collective travel mind

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