Blogs

by Kelly Hayes-Raitt

Some tourists come to Syria armed with preconceptions. Sally Tawfik, a music teacher from Houston, Texas, came with an armful of handmade cards from members of her church.

“There are times when you feel connected to people in another time and place. In this time of pain and war, I can’t imagine what you, your family, your friends and your country are experiencing,” wrote Drea Legare in one of the cards Sally carried to Syria for Iraqi refugees.

“I came to Syria to bridge a gap between me and someone not like me,” said the earnest 23-year-old about her participation in the month-long Middle East Fellowship’s Damascus Summer Encounter.

by Kelly Hayes-Raitt

“It’s a wonderful experience to see a similar country to the country my parents grew up in,” says 13-year-old Saviora Sanati, whose parents left Iraq soon after Sadaam Hussein’s brutal conquest. Savi was born in San Diego where she will start high school this fall. The Middle East Fellowship’s one-month immersion program in Syria is her first time outside of North America.
“I thought there would be bullets flying and bombs dropping [from Lebanon], but it’s totally cool,” says the precocious teen. “It’s safer than the States.”

Savi and her older sister Sasha are spending their summer perfecting their Arabic and volunteering at a senior center run by the Greek Orthodox Church. Since most Arab families absorb each generation into their homes, it is the rare senior without family. The 25 seniors who live at the St Gregorios Center for Orphans and Aged People are quite socially isolated.
The Middle East Fellowship volunteers organized a day to give the elderly women manicures and are creating a game room to improve the seniors’ opportunities for socialization.

“Most of them have no families,” explains Savi. “We’re someone to talk with and laugh with. We make their day!”

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To read more blog entries from Kelly Hayes-Raitt, please refer to her website: peacepathfoundation.org.

by Kelly Hayes-Raitt

“I thought it was a normal day,” Sasha Sanati describes yesterday’s volunteering at the St. Gregorios home for seniors. “But Helena was crying. ‘What is this life?’ ‘Why am I living?’ I felt bad. She was really depressed,” said the sensitive 19-year-old, tearing up.

“It made me realize not to take anything for granted. I’m learning to appreciate what’s around me. She really touched me.”

Participating in the Middle East Fellowship’s Damascus Summer Encounter program, Sasha is here with her younger sister and older brother for one month. “I feel like I’m living here instead of just being a tourist.”

by Kelly Hayes-Raitt

“Americans have no idea how classy Damascus is,” says Anna Mazhirov, an articulate, poised 20-year-old English major from Duke University.

“[They have no idea] how rich Syrian history is, how well-formed Syrian character is, how open the people are. How good the food is! They have no idea how far [the reality] is from what they’ve built up in their minds from the media.”

Born in the Ukraine and raised in the Brooklyn, Anna has eclectic interests that take her from nasally riffing on Marisa Tomei’s “My Cousin Vinny” character to unselfconsciously performing an intricately graceful Arabic dance for the Middle East Fellowship’s Summer encounter participants.

by Kelly Hayes Raitt

Slinking behind the heavy carpet curtaining the doorway between Damascus’ blinding, dusty “old city” and a dark, primordial hall with a drizzling fountain in the middle, Sandy, Sally and I hoped to melt away our travel fatigue in one of Syria’s famous hamams.

The Turkish Bathhouse, open to women only before 5:00 pm (after which it becomes men’s domain), is tucked among shops selling intricately beaded and woven scarves, gracefully curved pewter kettles, fragrant zaatar-sprinkled flatbread soaked in olive oil, and cellphone cards.

Blinking, we three women of a certain age crept down the ancient stone stairs into a high-ceilinged, arched room, built in 1027 AD. Carpeted benches on raised platforms lined 3 of the walls. Women in various states of fleshy exposure lounged about, little children in soggy underpants ran amok, and the robust woman who took our money and wore a ratty skirt and a sodden towel that couldn’t even pretend to cover her breasts tried to upsell us to buy the whole spa package, loofah included. Another woman with well-placed tattoos and an unhooked bra cupping just her right breast came over to translate. She turned out to be the massage therapist. We ordered the works: Steam room, massage, exfoliating scrub, soap and scrub, and drink. Total cost: 280 pounds (about $5.50).

by Peter Ryan

I'm staying at the St. Elias Monastery in the Dweila neighborhood of Damascus, which is a Christian part of town, though "St. Elias Dormitory" is a more apt description. Every room has two single beds. I have free internet access, air-conditioning, a TV, a private bathroom and a mini-fridge. Damascus hosts a number of extravagant 5-star hotels. This is may be humble in comparison, but I am by no means "roughing it." The hot water knocked out for a couple of days, but that only made today's shower all the more enjoyable.

I've spent most of my time so far wandering around, getting a feel for the place. Walking is an adventure in itself. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way, and, if you cross the street, cars won't slow. At best they'll honk to remind you to pick up the pace. Luckily, the Monastery is only a few minutes walk to Bab Sharki, one of the seven gates to the Old City of Damascus.

Here is the basic lay-of-the-land: