How We Visited Hawai'i

I'm going to be an envy of all my linguist colleagues! Actually, no-one will probably care one whit. But I think it's still cool, in my lingogeeky way. I've been to one of the three villages in the world whose native tongue is Western Aramaic. Ma`alula is a beautiful christian community that nests high up in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of Syria (and not a Hawai'ian atol, Nina!). Pictures required for full comprehension, but the word nest was not chosen at random. And this is not the only significant fact about the place. We have visited two monasteries there, and both of them have a story to tell.

St. Thecla said to have been fleeing from the anti-Christian persecution some time in the first century of Christ, when she came to an unpassable mountain. God split the mountain asunder, so that she might escape, while the horsemen who hunted her were foiled by the narrow passage. She subsequently hid in a cave at the other side of the ravine, where she stayed for the rest of her life (or most of it, according to another telling). We went to the said cave, and there's a small shrine in it. Not much to look at, but homey. It was filled with icons, and in one wall there was the tomb of Taqla (as the locals call her), with many objects lying on it and hanging above it — watches, bracelets, and sundry other presents — and several wooden crutches in a corner accompanying one prosthetic leg — conceivably from the beneficiaries of healing miracles granted by the holy spring water in the adjoining cavern, or by the saint herself.

St. Sergius and St. Bacchus were Roman soldiers martyred for their Christian beliefs in the 4th century AD. The church was built on top of a pagan shrine, and is so old that it still preserves the pagan architecture. The altar is not flat, it has raised edges; and it is not rectangular, but semi-circular. The original altar was destroyed, but it was in the same shape. The pagan one also had animals engraved in the altar walls, and a blood drain in the middle. No hole, nor animals, adorn the new one's marble, only a small triangular indentation intended to hold a relic. And it is so old that the wooden beams still holding the interior support walls carbon-date to a period not at all much later than that of the saintly couple.

In St. Thecla's, we were thankfully left alone. No postcard-pushers! Yay, how happy we were! Then we walked through the passage, and roughly 10 minutes later we found ourselves at the monastery of Sarkis and Bakhus. It has tiny little doors, as if the building was from the wonderland, and I had yet to take my DRINK ME. The reason for that was probably the fact that a stone building on the top of a hill about 2 km above sea level would have severe insulation issues. I managed to bump my head only once, but that was while I was looking at the beautiful tour guide, so it does not count. Gorgeous, smart and trilingual (at least). She talked about the history of the monastery, the icons there, and the Aramaic language, then gave a rendition of Our Father on Aramaic and Arabic (sequentially, not simultaneously). Then we were shown to a souvenir shop, where we resisted in vain our shopping drive, and ended up buying half the store. Okay, I exaggerated; but they were very friendly, and bid us taste their wine (which some subsequently bought, it being a very fine wine indeed, and ridiculously cheap at that; I did not, for I would have enough trouble transporting my other breakables, and I do not drink wine — which was commented as strange by our colocutor, I wonder why...), and convince us not to abandon Christianity for Islam. We assured them that no such thing will happen (in my case, I can say for sure for such a thing to be a complete impossibility, because of my unChristianity). There was even a cassette tape telling the history of the monastery, in Yougoslav, but that one we decided to skip. The nice lady at the shop explained that some Franciscans visited from Yugoslavia. Probably from Zagorje, we figured. They tell me the wine is really good.