Even the unfriendly ones aren‘t that unfriendly. You wouldn’t even notice them if it wasn’t for the goggle-eyed stares at your breasts and occasional growling sounds.
One rung up from this there’s the moderately friendly ones: these tend to look politely at the breast area and then, when you catch their eye, smile and say “Well-come”. The meaning of this is always quite ambiguous.
Then you get the really friendly ones. These want to sit next to you, feed you countless cups of sugary tea and invite you home to meet the family.
These are the people who engage all their friends to help you find your way, until you have a Pied Piper throng of Arabs leading you through the city.
Sometimes they also like to put their arms around you and casually waft a hand across your bum cheeks on the way down.
But then there’s the one-eyed madman we met a few days ago - he was in a league of his own.
We first encountered him in a barber shop in Damascus. He beckoned Aaron in and, for reasons unbeknown to me, Aaron accepted the invitation and plonked himself down next to this heaving, one-eyed hunk of a man.
Following what was an obviously engineered twist of fate, I then found myself sandwiched between his bulbous face and sweaty arm, while he repeated his splattering and unlikely statement of being a jockey.
Fast forward ten minutes and we were bemusedly trotting behind him, with absolutely no idea where we were heading, watching as the evening sun streaked through his dress, crisply outlining his black underpants.
He finally reached his destination and led us into what I assumed must be his house. He took us through a hallway, past a darkened room where veiled women lurked in shadows, and into what I can only describe as the most ridiculous room I ever saw in my life.
Lining the walls, neatly placed in order of size, were hundreds of glistening swords and guns.
Giant machetes and bulging sabres perched dangerously above our heads as he stood in the middle of the room, bellowing like a proud father: “You likeee? You likeee?”
Had we solved the mystery of the missing eye?
After showing us a priceless photo of him sat on a bow-legged donkey heralding some type of sword - a jockey, of course! - he then produced a box filled with Arabic clothes and began dressing us up, with his friend appointing himself official photographer.
(There’s also the part where his friend studied my legs a little too aggressively and had to place a cushion on his lap, but I’m not going to expand on that one.)
The next day while wandering through a completely different part of Damascus, we came across a shop that sold every type of sword under the sun.
While we marvelled at the shiny swords suspended from the ceiling, we heard a spluttering voice come from behind us: “My frienda! My frienda! Come and sit downa!”
Lo and behold. There he was. On a stool next to the sword shop, with the sun illuminating his full glory.
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