Diary of Agnese – 4

At 6 I’m woken up by the crowing of a rooster and the singing of the Muezzin.
The others are used to it by now, I was too when I lived here. But every time we start all over again.
Today I’m following the group in the local activities.
They are trying to organise some inter-religious communal moments in occasion of Ramadan and Lent, which this year overlap for a little while.
The Muslims will have their month of fasting, which we all know by now, even in Italy. The Christians have 40 days of penitence, which we’re used to see unobserved in Italy, but here are carried out by fasting from midnight to midday, and by abstaining from all animal products.
Syria really is big and travelling it’s not just the scenery that changes, but the ethnic and cultural geography as well.

Diary of Agnese – 3

Yesterday my suitcase, full of gifts from Syrian friends to their relatives, lost a few pieces, which reached their recipients, but immediately filled up again with something else to bring to those in Italy.
Today we leave for Homs.
Exiting Damascus, the bus drives by Ghouta, the neighbourhood literally reduced to rubble by the violent oppression of the regime.
That of the chemical attacks.
It’s striking, because it’s right next to the city, like a crude amputation that never healed.
Rubble, heaps of abandoned rubble.
Then a rocky desert, and behind the snowcapped mountains...poetic.

Diary of Agnese – 2

Today in Damascus I saw a Syria trying to raise its head to say how beautiful and how alive it still is.
T. is 30 years old, and tells me he came back after many years abroad. Years of diaspora to stay safe.
He tells me that not everything is going well, that many things aren’t alright, and that his
friends have much to complain about.
“But for the first time, I have hope in the future.
God built the world in 7 days, do we expect to take even less to rebuild it after a war?”. After years of desolation, looking towards the future, he thinks that tomorrow could be, and in that chance lies all of his determination.

Diary of Agnese – 1

The first great thing is this: it has been a while without leaving, but now I can. I am leaving for Syria.
And I can do it because my passport, unlike others, opens the doors to over 180 countries.
It is a privilege of few, and certainly not of the Syrians.
I realize from this, too: “leaving” is something special.
I understand it from the people who write to me, asking me to bring small possessions, things that could not be sent on their own.
Some Syrian women who got here with the Humanitarian Corridors leave in my care small gifts for holidays and birthdays, for the nieces they never met, or documents for a reunion that have not been delivered for months and get lost god knows where.
Then they leave in my care their wishes.