dispatches from here

The satellite view of the Eastern Syrian Desert. There's basically lots and lots of sand and rocks, and the green strip bisecting it is the Euphrates river. Seen from above, you can really appreciate how important it has been throughout antiquity and how it was able to sustain civilization for thousands of years.

On our way to the eastern Syrian town of Hassake, we stopped over in a small town on the Euphrates River called Dier as-Zur for the night.  This has got to be one of the dustiest places I have ever been, with a fresh daily 3mm coat of dust on everything in sight once the sun sets and the winds pick up. It actually hurts to breathe in the evenings and visibility is minimal.

During the day we wandered down to the banks of the Euphrates River and had a chance to see one of the two rivers that defined Mesopotamia and gave birth to the ‘fertile crescent’ and the first civilizations of the ancient Near East.

I came across a group of local kids swimming in the river and couldn’t pass up an opportunity for a baptism in the Euphrates.  Relatively clean water, cool and crisp, wide and slow moving.  A swim in the Euphrates is definitely an unforgettable experience.

The Euphrates at Dier Az Zur. This used to be an old Assyrian village many generations ago (the name means 'Small Church'), but there aren't any left there now. In the 1990's it turned in a boom town when oil was found nearby. Local kids were jumping off the bridge into the river, a temptation I was able to avoid. Those splashed in the river are me...swimming against the slow current.

Swimming with the local kids in the Euphrates!

Bedouin tents and families are sparsely scattered across the Syrian desert.  Although no longer living as traders and nomads, their homes and dress haven’t changed much and you’ll still see an occasional camel.

Bedouin tent in the desert, just off the side of the ruins in Palmyra

After a week and half of non-stop interviewing, filming, photographing, editing and translating, the project is nearly complete. In addition to the photodocumentary project I came here to do, I’ve joined forces with Adam Teale to wrap the photos in a short documentary film format. With the bulk of the work behind us, a first draft of the video completed and reviewed, we decided to leave Damascus and continue exploring Syria. Damascus definitely has a different feel and atmosphere from the rest of Syria. It’s a harsh, mean city where everything you try to do is a serious chafe and it seems everyone is out to get you. It didn’t help that I was living in the refugee camp, which is even worse than the rest of Damascus. After my fourth week there, I’m pretty excited to get out.

I’ve been pretty busy in Damascus with project related work. Aside from the refugee health project, I’ve also been working on my MD thesis, which is the physician workforce distribution and health policy research I did in the year between my third and fourth years of med school. The refugee health project is nearly complete, I just submitted the final version of my thesis (from Damascus and before the deadline!), and now I feel hugely relieved and free to travel.

Our first stop was Palmyra, about 4 hours by bus from Damascus and one of the most impressive archaeological sites in Syria. Although its mentioned in Assyrian texts from Mari dating to the 2nd millennium BCE, it was incorporated into the Seleucid Empire in the second century AD, and later grew in prosperity under Roman rule.

Riding through four hours of flat, barren desert to Palmyra. Eastern Syria really looks like the photos that the Mars Rovers send back.

Sunset in the desert

The Temple of Bel! The god after whom I was named...I wasn't sure if I should pray here, or wait and be prayed to...so I just took pictures instead.

I’m back in Damascus after an excellent, well needed week away in Aleppo (Halab in Arabic). I’m also at about the halfway point, and have met three major milestones:

1. I’m no longer afraid to take pictures.  It took me a full five weeks to get back to my old self.
2. My Arabic has improved to the point where I can read the signs on buses fast enough to flag down the right one before it blurs by.
3. I have had the best shawerma of the trip so far, in a little town called Afamea, about 100m south of the intersection that leads up to the ruins.

The trip also took an interesting turn in the cafe attached to a little hotel in Aleppo. I met Adam, a fed-up-with-the-man, job-quitting, TED-talking, Mac-toting, 300 video-editing, world-traveling, open-source Australian. We spent two days visiting Roman, Byzantine, and Hittite ruins, taking videos and photos (which will be up soon).  He’s also much faster at updating his blog than I am, so check it out for some more photos (I make a cameo appearance, fancy that!).  He’s inspired me to take more videos to go along with my project, and I may have inspired him to join me in the refugee camp in Damascus to collaborate. Maybe we can put together something impressive.

Hitching a ride through the Syrian countryside

No crosswalks, no stoplights, no patience. Only one rule: use your horn as often as you possibly can.

My life flashes before me every time I try to cross the street

But up close, they look so harmless

Traffic police: not there.

Yes, those are chunks of cheese. And yes, they live in very old, dirty, rusty barrels.

Really puts the overpriced olive bar at Whole Foods to shame

Before the rain over Aleppo

Fresh fruit in the Aleppo souq

A pancake-a-teer

A pyramid of cumin, decorated with paprika and salt

the nut store.

Child labor: working the sewing machine at midnight.

Shoe repair outside the souq. There are about 40 of these guys spaced every six feet.

Fresh fruit juice! I always stop for a tall cold glass of freshly pressed blood-orange juice.

A little beard trim before Friday prayers

Seems he has some fans out here.

Yup, that goes there.

Cinema with awesome movie poster art

Soccer at the Aleppo Citadel

Super tiny Chinese buses that wait until 12-15 people pack inside before taking off

Hitching a ride to Qala'at as-Samaan. From L to R, Adam, me, Muhammad, Muhammad, and Ahmed. Seriously.

Monday was my first day in Damascus, and it was also my first night in the clinic. There were many individuals involved in setting up the clinic, including the Assyrian General Conference and the doctor that runs it, Dr. Milad.

Its set up in one of the poorest districts of Damascus, Jeramaneh. That also happens to be where most of the Iraqi refugees live, and about 80% of the Assyrian refugees. Its really odd to walk down the street and hear people speaking Assyrian, walk into stores to find Assyrian shopkeepers, go to an Assyrian internet café (or café-net as they’re called here).

The clinic is a simple, austere outfit. A small waiting room with nine red plastic chairs and the secretary’s desk. The only wall decorations are a bare fluorescent bulb, a clock with a painfully loud second hand, a cross, and an antiquated fuse box. To right of the waiting room is the sole examination room.

To the left of the waiting room is a plain room with two beds, where I am staying with Dr. Milad. A simple room with no real signs of habitation, except a few pieces of clothing hanging behind the door and a cell phone charger clinging to the wall. He has graciously opened his clinic/home to me.

The clinic exam room, with the bare minimum of supplies to deal with the stream of patients.

The medicine cabinet with an assortment of donated medicine from all over the world. The supply is completely arbitrary and uncertain, and patients only get a week’s worth of meds per visit, even for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension. When we have to give patients medicine, I spend a bit of time digging around, trying to find the right meds, struggling to make out the names, sometimes in Arabic, German, French. The problem with trade names is that each country has their own, so I rely on the fine print that usually has the generic name, and usually in English.

The room I’m sharing with Dr. Milad. Simple. Quiet.

The secretary, who volunteers all of her evenings in the clinic, registers patients as they arrive. She also brings us tea and coffee throughout clinic, which is amazing. Dr. Milad I head to her house after clinic a few blocks away and join her family to watch a hugely popular Turkish soap opera, “As the Days Pass” which has been dubbed into Syrian Arabic. I only understand about 20% of the words, but am slowly learning.

There are daily rolling blackouts throughout Damascus lasting two hours. At the clinic, its from noon to 2 pm, which is fine because the clinic is only open from 6-8 pm. However, in addition to the standard rolling blackouts, sporadic blackouts also hit. Tuesday night, we ran clinic with flashlights and candles. A patient brought in her meds, sometimes she takes losartan, and sometimes valsartan depending on availability in the clinic. Valsartan is written in Arabic as “falsartan”, because Arabic doesn’t have a “v” sound. Makes trying to decipher medicine names extra tricky.

In the absence of any governmental support for refugees, the church becomes the only institution that provides any social services. As a result, in Amman the churches are the epicenter of the refugee crisis. The Chaldean Catholic Church has 7,000 members and one priest, Fr. Raymound Moussoulli. The population here has also been in massive flux, as the increased rate of foreign visas being issued has helped many of the members head to the West.

He describes the church mission to me in four parts: pastoral services, spiritual services, psychological services, and social services. The pastoral services include home visits and certain services. As far as spiritual services, being the only priest for a community of 7,000, Fr. Moussoulli holds services 9 times per week, once each evening and three services in different neighborhoods of Amman on Sundays. A grueling schedule shows clearly on Sunday night. The psychological services involve all sorts of family counseling, dealing with marital problems, and helping families cope with being away from their homes and often apart from each other. As far as social services go, there are a lot. The church turns into an ad-hoc school during the day with informal classes for children from families that can’t pay to go to Jordanian schools. The church also helps pay tuition for some children enrolled in schools, which can cost about 500 Jordanian Dinars (~700 USD) per year. They help families find places to live, fill out UN HCR (High Commissioner for Refugees) paperwork, find work, and get them plugged in to various NGOs (Caritas, Mercy Call).

On the day I attended services, there were snacks and sandwiches celebrating a family of five that had been accepted to Canada. Fr. Moussoulli, always happy and supportive when families found a more permanent home, noted that with the high flux of refugees, it was hard to keep the church’s services functioning.

A converted basement of an apartment building. Cozy, to say the least.

Two competing sources of salvation, as a flier from the UNHCR gets more bulletin board space than a picture of Jesus.

Entering church for morning service.

Fr. Moussoulli checks a passport and helps fill out an apartment rental application for one of his members.

Fr. Moussoulli finally has a moment to take a break, as Sundays are particularly busy with three sermons in different parts of the city and many people seeking his help.

Sunday evening mass

Weary after his ninth mass of the week.