Daily Life in Syria These Days

We have had much contact from our friends in Syria over the last month. The news is not good. Here is a glimpse of what life looks for them day in and day out.

Sept 18: Another difficulty is added to our life now, since in Syria the mid of September is the time that schools and universities start. But it seems that they won’t now, because thousands of refugees are living in schools and in the university campus, and fighting is still going in many areas in the city! In addition to our fear to send our children out!

Sept 22: We are closing another week with the same situation of fighting in the city, same expensive {food}, at the same time more closed streets for cars, more check points, more very negative expectations about the moment we live and the one will come, because of the new additions to the situation which are Snipers {who are now very famous in many areas over buildings, killing people in many cases with no reason, but killing!} and Mortar shells {which fall randomly killing people. For example last night more than 10 of those mortars, somewhere around our area, which made us awake up till 5.00Am.}

Sept 29: Since last Saturday till Thursday our days went slowly and in danger of Snipers and Mortars. But since Thursday night Friday morning and last night, I can’t tell you how horrible were our nights till morning, and it seems that tonight is the same, the fighting is strong to a point that we were smelling the gunpowder and the smoke of fire. Even now while I am writing this from minute to minute a heavy bomb or explosion shaking our windows!

Oct 6: Since the very big explosion Wednesday morning, I feel so sad and depressed. The same area and square I took my 13 years old son to walk around Tuesday noon, it was a very nice day full of life! I tried to go after the explosion but fighting was still on, isn’t it strange! It was not enough that they sent 2500/Kg of explosives, but they sent fighters at the same time, it is fully crazy. I took my son again Thursday morning to see the destruction, I think “dreadful” is a suitable word to describe the scene. More mortars fell on buildings, streets and people, killing and destroying. More fear in our hearts from strangers who came to live in our area, or even pass through it. More fear of cars, hundreds Kg’s of explosives were in many cars prepared to blow them the same last WEDNESDAY!

Oct 13: I will give you some real examples of how life is like for some of my friends and neighbors:

(family of five persons), who used to be a goldsmith remain without job for more than one year, then he decided to change his career, he rented a shop last April, and now because of fighting in the area he closed his shop for more than 5 weeks!

(family of three persons), who used to have a small truck for his business, but nearly he is closing his second month without using it at all for many reasons, especially Gasoline and safety!

(family of four persons), they are from Iraq, came to Syria few years ago because of the crazy situation there. He is a chemist, but with no job more than four months, since factories are closing!

(single), just finished his BA in physics, his family has a small shop downtown, he tried to use it, but downtown shops open for one day and close for more than three days, and finally, the last blast obliged all shops there to close the whole week!

(single), he used to work in office connecting with car registration authority, he lost his job more than five month ago, when the “opposition” blowup the building. Then he found a printing house, but it closed two month ago because of the very bad situation.

(family of five persons), have a small shop, but nearly empty, because he hasn’t enough money to buy goods, at the same time he is afraid to buy, and no one knows if the war will arrive to his street tomorrow or coming week!

(students) those who are waiting their graduating from the university, and afraid that this will not happen this year.

Oct 25: Today, the rebel army arrived to the street where our home is located, with their cars and weapons , and it seems that a huge fight will start here very soon since the official Syrian army is coming in any second, the free army are making checkpoints. These was a car bomb car last Sunday morning in our area, 5 minutes walking from our home, the situation is not good, in fact Tuesday and Wednesday fighting started very close to us, something like 10-15 minutes walking form our home and church.

Oct 26: Thank you for your prayers which helped us yesterday a lot. My good news about what happened yesterday are two: first that the opposition forces which entered our area and put one of their check points in front of our church, they withdrew after noon, and the second one is that there were no fighting in our area, which mean ourselves as well our properties are safe!

Syria Update

Roman ruins in Damascus {photo from our trip in 2004}

Some recent news from our Syrian friends... 

Today started as a terrifying day.

We woke up at 5.45 A.m. because of shooting very close to where we live, then it turned into a real battle, with heavy guns and explosions, and a very loud shouting of Allah wa Akbar – God is big! It remained like this till 9.15, then stopped till 11.00, when they resumed the fight for half an hour.

And it remained calm till now 3.30P.m without knowing the result of the fight. Few minutes ago, I went out to walk around and see what happened, nearly all streets are empty and many thieves stealing furniture of military center close to us! I wrote in the morning on Facebook: It is very unusual to have your morning tea, with the music of “normal” guns and heavy machine guns and the shouting “allah akbar”!!

Then there were many, many days before we heard from them again. We were quite worried, but relieved to hear they are okay!

After 30 days of loosing the internet connection and also the mobile coverage we are able to open the internet suddenly. Today Sunday 9 September 2012. This email is to tell you that we are safe.

And today, we received some more news from him...

During the last month, I kept writing you hoping to have chance to send my mails. Here I’ll summarize what we had in the last month.

Fighting is still strong and heavy and getting closer to our areas. More mortars fell on buildings and churches.

Daily life is getting difficult more and more: more closed streets, more dangerous streets, Bread is in better situation than before, especially if you are willing to pay more. Gasoline and Diesel and cooking gas, is the same. As well if you are willing to pay for example 5$ to 1 litter of gasoline instead of 1$, and as I told you before it is 70-100$ for cooking gas instead of 10$!

Kidnapping: it’s getting so dangerous to go out of the city are more and more, and kidnapping is a great business now, and in general, no use of paying to release the kidnapped ones, because they will return them, dead, in more than one piece, raped or they inject him by Diesel injection!

Way to the airport: two weeks ago, I went through the city to the airport, it was my first time to pass by the areas that are under the rebels, it was very sad to see the city divided, buildings destroyed, streets in big damage. On my way, there were three check points: Syrian Army, Muslim forces and Kurdish militants!

I always find the anniversary of Sept 11th very hard, as most do. It is the day my homeland was attacked 'from the outside'. I can't imagine how it must feel to be living through an attack 'from the inside' like our dear friends. 

To read the other Syria updates, go here and here. 

More Prayers for Syria

My blogging has been a bit silent this week. Syria weighs heavy on our hearts. Here is the most recent update we have received from our dear friends...

{to read the first update, go here}.

August 4th - Hope my email finds you well. Your emails and phone calls were real encouraging. I wrote this mail Wednesday night, but since that time till now, Friday noon, we hadn’t any internet access or cell phone coverage! This night (Friday night – Saturday morning) was the worse since 10 days! Very heavy explosions and sound of fighting not far from our home, by strong machine guns. The situation is still the same as for the centre of fights and also the same in the other safe areas. What is very new is that one of the main tribes or maybe more than one tribe (originally from Aleppo) decided to fight with the army of the government against the oppositions who are nearly from the same background.

On Monday and Tuesday I went downtown again and  noticed that the people got used to the new situation, and the bakeries are working little bit more than the past few days. More streets are closed, and in addition to gas for cooking and gasoline for cars, a lack in Oxygen  for medical use start to be noticed.

Let me explain the fear of the Christians here in Aleppo, it’s not only that they are not armed but they are afraid that the scenario in Homs (another city in the middle of Syria) could be repeated here. Because what happened there was that when the fights nearly came to its end in Bab Omar (an area there) the fundamental armed groups ran away towards the Christian area and forced some families to leave there apartments and the other families ran away from their fear, until now we have hundreds of Christian families out of their houses which is the same as the Iraqi scenario.

Please keep us in your prayers.

Prayers for Syria

In 2004, our family spent three weeks touring Syria with a Syrian family who are dear friends of ours. It was such a fascinating trip {and quite the adventure}!

We crossed in to Syria from the Jordan border, traveled up to Damascus, further north to Sednaya, Maalula, and as far north as Aleppo. Syria is a beautiful country, has wonderful food, some amazing historical sights, and a very slow and simple way of life. We were the first Americans to visit the tiny village where our friends were from. As we entered the village, we were taken from house to house, introduced, and invited in for tea and sweets. It was an amazing show of hospitality, took all night long and became the night that I drank the most tea in my life!

Here are some other trip highlights:

Hamidiya Souk in the Old City, Damascus. This market lays on the old Roman street that would have lead to the Roman Temple of Jupiter. A market has been on this land since Roman times!

Beautiful rug seller in the Old City markets.

Amazing tile and gold inside the Umayyad Mosque.

Inside the Convent of Our Lady in the tiny village of Sednaya, one of the last few places that still speaks Aramaic.

Toward the end of our trip, we spent time in Aleppo, a northern city and is Syria's 2nd largest city. We visited Aleppo because our friends had lived in this city before they moved to Jordan and much of their family was still in Aleppo. We had a great week meeting and visiting their family, whom became very dear to us. We have stayed in touch with them since the trip!

The city of Aleppo looking from the hills of the medieval Citadel at the city center.

The street our friends family home was on.

As has been reported this week, Aleppo has been under heavy fire. We have been in touch with our dear friends and it has brought this sad situation so close to home for us. Here are excerpts from the emails we have been receiving from them this past week...

July 24th - For the first time we cancelled our ladies meeting because of the very bad night we had, and uncertain expectations for today.Would you please keep praying for people in our city, and especially Christians, who have no place to run away from the city if the situation will go worse: the way to Turkey is closed and no Christian villages around the city!

July 27th - Thank you for your encouraging words and prayers. Monday and Tuesday nights were very very bad in Aleppo, hearing the sounds of heavy weapons were horrifying.
Wednesday and Thursday (yesterday) the fighting continued, but not like in the beginning.
Now it is Friday morning, the day started as a hot day, in temperature and sound of battle. The last two days, the city was nearly closed, and this is the second day without bread! (nearly all bakeries were closed). This is our 5th day with out gasoline, and gas for cooking now around 70$ instead of 10$!! Of course if you can find it. We still have water and electricity. We start to see dozens of families in public gardens and some schools. Hope this Friday will go easily and peacefully.

July 29th - It was encouraging to read your emails and know about the huge number of people are praying for us and for my country. Till now there are no changes in the center of fights. Yesterday and today I went downtown walking through the streets, the city is still closed and hills of rubbish are spread everywhere except in some streets where they started cleaning up the rubbish. As for bakeries, few are opened but hundreds of people are waiting their turn and fighting for bread, where you need between 5 to 10 hours to buy 2 kgs of bread ! And as a gift a guy from my church brought me today 2 kgs of bread since we are out of bread at home ! So u can imagine the gifts we are giving each other’s these days. Today, Sunday Morning, it was nice to hear some church bells ringing announcing the beginning of prayers. We still have electricity and water which is a great blessing. One of the very tragic situations is seeing people with some of their stuff on the sidewalks of the streets and in public gardens wondering what to do or where to go because they lost their houses or ran away because of the fights. Please keep praying for us, we are really in need.