Border Birthday

April 22, 1998. One of 56 days spent driving through Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan.

That's the day I started my birthday out in Turkey and finished it in Syria. Or was it started in Syria and finished in Jordan? No, we were going into Syria. We arrived late in Aleppo due to border delays, and there was no time to visit the famous souks. We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant where the band played Happy Birthday.

I received anonymous flowers at hotel reception. I accused everyone else on the truck—at total of 8 passengers and 2 drivers— before accepting their protestations of innocence and wondering who sent the flowers from home, and how they'd found me.

It was a long time and many years of handing passports over at hotel desks in different countries before I realized that a Syrian hotel clerk had switched on to the date after seeing the passport list. The flowers were from a total stranger, one I never thanked, not knowing who had sent them. I remember being baffled and saying "Who sent these? Was there a note?" and the clerk laughing and shrugging. "I have no idea."

The Syrian falafel sellers at the border had been equally celebratory. They'd seen my friend Nikki making a card for me and insisted on adding their own touches. They also made me a small bouquet of wildflowers (there isn't much to do all day at the border). I accepted it graciously, but a part of me wondered what the Arabic writing on the card said. I have to admit the more suspicious part of me wondered if they'd written something inappropriate.



I found that card in a drawer the other day. One thing that has changed since 1998 is that now I have several colleagues who speak and read Arabic as a native language. I scanned the card and sent it straight to Captain M, who wrote back immediately.

The green one says: "Happy Eid or happy birthday."
The blue one says: "You are my life."
The brown one says: "All the love."
The last one says: "You are the love."

Mystery solved.