Me posing with our driver Manhal who’d be accompanying Akel and I for the rest of the tour as we made our way around the country.
The red line I drew on the map roughly traces our route through Syria’s four largest cities and population centers. We started in Damascus, the capital, in the south and made our way north on the M5 Highway through Homs and Hama on our way up to Aleppo while stopping off at a few different points of interest along the way.
Starting in 2012, the Syrian government began to lose control of different parts of the M5 Highway as different parts of the country were captured by rebel groups. It wouldn’t be until 2020 when government forces regained total control of the M5 and it was officially reopened for public usage. Akel said that it was extremely dangerous to try and travel the road during the war. Because their means of freeing the people from the government that oppressed them was by interrupting all aspects of normal life, it didn’t matter if you were a civilian, rebel snipers were known to shoot and kill anyone they saw on the M5. Our driver Manhal didn’t speak much English, but Akel was translating for me as we got to know him a bit during this initial ride out of the city. During this time I learned that, in Syria, with a few exceptions such as when you’re the only male child, military duty is compulsory for adult males for a period of 18 to 21 months. Manhal joined the military in 2010 and, then with the war having broken out in 2011 and the government needing all hands on deck to fight off the insurgency, wouldn’t end up being relieved of his duties until 2020. And unfortunately, I learned that his brother had been killed in combat back in 2014.
Maloula
Welcome to Maloula, one of the two remaining towns where Aramaic – the language spoken by Jesus Christ – is still used by people in day-to-day life
Glancing out at Maloula from the convent of St. Thecla. I’ll wanna talk about the mountain to the left of the steeple and the hotel on the top of the hill behind the dome in a bit, but there’s something else I’d first like to mention. Although the next parish over from the one I grew up in was the now-closed St. Thecla School, I never knew anything about this saint, least of all that she was a woman. That said, she was born in 30AD, was a pupil of Paul the Apostle and was converted into an early proponent of Christianity, doing what she could to spread the word of God. During the time in which she was leaving her old life behind and becoming who she was destined to become, she faced many hardships. According to Wikipedia, “Thecla was miraculously saved from burning at the stake by the onset of a storm. She then encountered Paul outside of Iconium, where she told him, ‘I will cut my hair off and I shall follow you wherever you go.’ She then traveled with Paul to Antioch of Pisidia. There, a nobleman named Alexander desired Thecla and attempted to rape her. Thecla fought him off, tore his cloak, and knocked his coronet off his head, which caused her to be put on trial for assault. She was sentenced to be eaten by wild beasts, but was again saved by a series of miracles. In one scene, female beasts, particularly lionesses, protected her against her male aggressors. While in the arena, she baptized herself by throwing herself into a nearby lake full of aggressive seals, who were all killed by lightning before they could devour her.”
Following all that drama, Thecla ended up in Maloula where she continued to preach and also where she continued to face persecution. One time in which she was being chased by people who wanted to kill her and had ended up at a dead-end surrounded on all sides by impenetrable rocky mountains, Thecla fell to her knees and prayed to God to save her. As the story goes, God parted the mountains to allow Thecla through, and that’s actually where the name Maloula – Aramaic for “entrance” – comes from. Because of all this stuff that supposedly happened here, Maloula is a popular pilgrimage site where a lot of different Christian celebrations take place. Now, this is not at all easy to see, but if you zoom in on the cliffs straight ahead in the photo, you’ll see a cross at the top. And if you’re able to see that cross, you should also notice that the side of the cliff directly below it is stained black. I was not fortunate enough to witness this, but Akel explained that during a certain celebration – I think it was the Festival of the Cross – the local people set tires on fire up there and roll them down the side of the cliff.
A nun we met at St. Thecla Monastery gave me a bundle of grapes to enjoy while exploring the premises
In 2013, Maloula was captured by the Islamic rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra. In addition to literally defacing many of the paintings of Jesus and the saints around the town and in St. Thecla Monastery, during their time in control they also decided to kidnap a dozen or so nuns and hold them hostage in the town of Yabroud. Within a year of the al-Nusra takeover, the town was recaptured by Syrian forces. I think the nuns spent about three months total in captivity before their release had been brokered, and all said they were treated relatively well by the rebels.
Butt out!
I was really impressed by this tree’s horizontal quest for sunlight at St. Thecla Monastery
Jesus and God chillin’ on a park bench with the Holy Spirit floating right above them. For me it was weird to see a depiction of God in a church setting. I don’t recall seeing that anywhere during my Catholic upbringing. I mean, I’ve seen Him depicted in cartoons and satire stuff over the years, but never like this. It just seems improper. Because He never appeared in flesh and blood the way Jesus did. I dunno, just seems weird.
He’s very trusrworthy
Here I am following behind Akel through this narrow rock valley up towards Safir Hotel (the one that I mentioned being on top of the hill up above the dome in one of the earlier captions)
Because of its strategic position, Safir Hotel was used as the main base for the Jabhat al-Nusra rebels after having taken over the town. It used to be a luxury hotel – supposedly the nicest in town – and this is what it’s been reduced to.
You call this a lobby?! And the service here is terrible. I left the place a Google review of one star.
Maloula as seen from the Safir Hotel. If you zoom in and look hard, on the left side of the base of the mountain across the valley you can see the dome and the steeple by St. Thecla Monastery where I’d started my tour around the town.
Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi
First things first, the English meaning of “Deir Mar Mousa al-Habashi” is The Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian. And the closest town to the monastery is An-Nabek on the M5 highway. Once you turn east out of that town, you’re out on this desert road for a while.
Then at some point you turn left off of that desert road and start heading towards these mountains. The whole area has a real “middle of nowhere” feel to it which, being a monastery, I guess is exactly what they were going for.
At the base of the mountains from the previous photo is a long stone staircase that leads up to the monastery
It’s believed that Deir Mar Mousa al-Habashi was founded all the way back in the 6th Century. Without getting into detail, the place went in and out of use over the years and had been rebuilt several times – the most recent rebuild having taken place in 1992 when Italian Jesuit priest Paolo Dall’Oglio and deacon Jacques Mourad founded the current coed monastic community that operates there. Both those men would end up getting kidnapped by ISIS. Paolo Dall’Oglio was said to have been captured and executed in Raqqa in 2013. Mourad was caught in 2015, was held captive for five months, and then managed to escape and went on to become the Archbishop of Homs.
View of the desert from the monastery. That track on the left side of the photo is the staircase we took to get up to the place
The Al-Khalil Monastic Community of Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi is devoted to four main tasks: prayer, work, hospitality, and (interfaith) dialogue. Here I am taking advantage of the hospitality aspect of the community as I go to grab seconds of the free spaghetti lunch they’d served me.
Me chillin’ out after lunch on a full belly, admiring 11th and 12th century frescoes
This Syrian woman named Huda Fadoul gave us about half an hour of her time to explain all about the frescoes seen here in the church at the monastery. We were free to talk and ask her questions, and I’d have to say she got a pretty good look at us during the interaction. Keep in mind that this place ain’t exactly overrun with tourists either.
About a week later, I was standing in line to check in for a flight to Istanbul at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport when I noticed that the person standing in front of me was the lady that’d given us the tour at the monastery. I said, “Hey, excuse me, you live at Deir Mar Mousa al-Habashi, don’t you?” And she said, “Yes.” I said, “Oh okay, yeah, you just gave me and my guide Akel a tour there.” “When did you come?” she asked. “How many years ago was it?” “Years!?” I replied. “We were just there last week.” “Oh,” she said, “I don’t remember you.”
Brief Stop in Homs
Back on the M5 Highway, approaching Homs from the south, all the trees on the east side of the road were leaning sideways. Akel proffered that they were that way because of a strong eastward wind that sometimes blows across the country from the Mediterranean, but I was a bit skeptical of this explanation. I mean, I know that wind can cause immediate damage like broken branches and even uprooting, but can it really be constant enough to affect the direction in which trees grow? Weird.
Kid selling gas on the side of the highway next to one of those crooked trees
One of the first things I noticed about Homs when entering the city from the south were all the new buildings under construction to replace all the ones damaged and destroyed during the war.
Other parts of the city look like a post-apocalyptic ghost town where you won’t see hardly anyone amongst the hollow shells of bombed-out buildings
Our main purpose of stopping off in Homs on our way to Aleppo had been to visit Um al-Zennar, which is a Syriac Orthodox church known in English as Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt. According to legend, as the Virgin Mary had been ascending to heaven she dropped her belt down from the sky to give to Saint Thomas the Apostle, and what you’re looking at in this photo is supposedly that very belt. That said, Catholics believe that the belt they have stored at Prato Cathedral in Tuscany is the original one. And followers of the Greek Orthodox Church think that the belt they have stored at Vatopedi Monastery in Mount Athos is the original one. So, I guess it’s up to you to decide which of these dubious claims is the most veracious.
Holy water on tap at Um al-Zennar. They say that this location – particularly the small tunnel-like rooms under which the modern structure sits – has been used as a Christian place of worship since 59AD. Now mostly rebuilt, I guess that 70-80% of the aforementioned modern structure had been destroyed during the war. I couldn’t find anything online to corroborate this info, but while we were there Akel was telling me that when the shit was starting to hit the fan in Homs, some Italian priest came in and started disassembling and taking down anything of value – perhaps even the holy belt itself – and bringing it elsewhere for a couple years for safekeeping until things in the city eventually cooled off.
Aleppo
The first order of business upon our arrival to Aleppo had been to grab some shawarma and falafel sandwiches from this fast food place called Amo Hamid. Akel has a gluten intolerance and couldn’t eat the bread from pretty much every restaurant we went to on the trip. He had to carry his own special gluten-free bread. And since gluten intolerances are not something that’re widely known about in this part of the world, it’s not easy for him to ask employees at every restaurant to put the meat or falafel on the bread that he brought instead of the bread they normally use. So, here he is at Amo Hamid holding his bread up, trying to get the attention of one of the guys who’s about to assemble our sandwiches.
Breakfast in the restaurant at Aleppo Palace Hotel, with views of the city and the giant flag located in Saadallah Al-Jabri Square
In addition to the hard-boiled eggs, cheese, bread, jam, honey, hummus, cucumber and tomato that I normally eat at breakfast while traveling in the Middle East, Akel told me at Aleppo Palace Hotel they got this traditional Syrian breakfast food called mamounieh that I should try. I heeded his advice and ordered a bowl from one of the women who’d been standing by the kitchen. I guess mamounieh can be described as a semolina porridge with cinnamon and some nuts sprinkled on top. I had about two bites and then set it aside. Eventually Akel asked why I wasn’t eating my mamounieh. I told him I didn’t like it and asked if he wanted it. He said he doesn’t eat it because it’s got a lot of gluten in it. Sadly, by the time we left the table, the bowl remained as full of mamounieh as it appears in this photo.
Here we are driving towards the Citadel of Aleppo. Aleppo is known in Arabic as Haleb, and “haleb” is a verb meaning “to milk.” The city is said to be called this from the time way back in the day when Abraham was passing through the area on his way to Canaan, whereupon he milked his goat and shared it with the poor.
Entrance to the Citadel of Aleppo, which is considered one of the largest and oldest castles in the world. We were not allowed access to the citadel because – as you can see with some of the scaffolding there – the whole place was under reconstruction. For many, many centuries there’d been a great rivalry between Damascus and Aleppo over which city is older, which city is better, and all that typa stuff. Nowadays, Akel said, there’s not much of a comparison. Aleppo used to be an important stop on the Silk Road but got kinda screwed over after World War I when portions of the Ottoman Empire were carved up by Britain and France more or less into the Middle Eastern nation-states as we know them today. These new borders cut them off from trade with cities located inside the newly formed Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq to the east. And not more than twenty years after that, when the French were still in control of Syria, they handed the province of Iskanderun over to Turkey, cutting Aleppo off from the easy access to the Mediterranean that they’d enjoyed for many years during Ottoman times when Iskanderun had been part of the Aleppo Eyalet. And then more recently, whereas Damascus remained comparatively unaffected by the war that started in 2011, Aleppo was totally destroyed. All the businesses left during that time. And then when relative stability had been achieved in the city and everything was in the process of being rebuilt, that massive earthquake hit the region in February of 2023 and fucked everything up again. So now, Akel explained, when it comes to the Damascus-Aleppo rivalry, pretty much as a consolation prize, people give Aleppo the title of oldest city, while Damascus takes the title of oldest capital.
Wandering around the old marketplace of Souq Al-Madina, a lot of which had been destroyed and/or burnt during the war
With somewhere between 12 and 15km of market, the centuries-old Souq Al-Madina – which is comprised of a bunch of smaller souqs with different names that had all historically specialized in selling different types of products – is said to be the largest historic covered marketplace in the world. And a lot of the businesses that left here when the war violently disrupted daily life in Aleppo have, as of September 2023, yet to return.
Looks like whoever sits and drinks tea in this abandoned part of the marketplace likes to take their teabag and throw it up against the ceiling when they’re done with it. It reminded me a lot of when I was back in grade school and kids used to take handfuls of toilet paper and run them under the faucet until they were nice and soaked, and then throw them up on the walls and ceiling.
Akel walking through a particularly bombed-out portion of the marketplace. He said that the path you see him walking on there was originally cleared of rubble once government forces regained control of Aleppo, but then the February earthquake shook all the rubble back down and the path had to be cleared once again.
A Japanese photographer capturing some of the workers who’d been doing their best to rebuild the historical souq.
Aleppo is famous for the soap that’s made there. Located in the old Khan Al-Qadi section of the market which dates back to the 1400s is the Jebeili family soap factory. Apparently the building housing the factory used to be a stable that’d been repurposed at some point, and as you can see there’d been mountains and boxes full of soap absolutely everywhere. I was told that the soap is stacked in this way so that each individual bar can receive maximum air exposure because this stuff needs a good six to nine months to dry before it can be packed and sold.
This man at Jebeili soap factory (unfortunately I don’t recall his name) had been taking us through the entire process of how the soap is made. First olive oil, water and lye are all mixed up in a vat and boiled for a couple days, and then laurel oil is added and the mixture is poured out onto a huge sheet of wax paper that covers the floor of the factory. After it cools off and hardens for about a day or so, someone walks all over the big mass and tries to even it out and smooth the surface before it’s cut into cubes and then stacked to begin the drying process. Here the dude is showing us how he uses the tool in his right hand to stamp each individual bar of soap.
Some of the different stamps they use on their soaps
Here we were walking through a restored part of the souk when I saw this. I’ve always thought it strange that in the same conservative Muslim societies where women are very modest and cover themselves up so men who aren’t their husbands can’t get a good look at ‘em, it’s precisely strange men who are the ones that run the shops from where these conservative women buy their most intimate apparel.
At some point somewhere in the souq, Akel and I reunited with Manhal. Here we are following him to his car on the left of the photo just before he took us to go visit this fancy soap shop called Khan Al-Saboun where…
…they had this 1520kg (that’s 3351 pounds) bar of soap on display. I guess that Khan Al-Saboun was completely destroyed during the war and, after rebuilding it all, they wanted to kick off the reopening by creating what has been claimed to be the largest bar of soap in the world. It is a huge bar of soap and I’m not trying to take away from their accomplishment at all here, but I did some research and some company in China already holds that record for a 14.45-ton piece of soap that they made back in 2015. That’s close to 32,000 pounds. There’s really no comparison.
After visiting Khan Al-Saboun, we started heading to the Suleimaniyah/Azizieh neighborhoods of the city to look for some lunch
We ended up stopping at this Armenian fast food place called Faskein wa Avo where we ate these here sandwiches called “toshka.” Along with the cheese, tomatoes and pickles stuffed inside of that toasted bread had been an Armenian sausage called “sujuk.” They were really good. According to Armenia’s Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs, before the outbreak of the war in 2011 the estimated number of ethnic Armenians living in Syria had been around 100,000, many of whom settled there during and after the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915-16. Of that 100,000, 60,000 of them were said to be centralized in Aleppo. Since the onset of the war in 2011 however, according to that same source, more than 60,000 Armenians fled the country – 25,000 of whom ended up settling within Armenian borders.
Here’s where we ate, sitting in these chairs out here on the sidewalk outside Faskein wa Avo. The three women on the left were all from and live in Aleppo, but were of Armenian descent. The ladies spoke pretty good English and told me they had relatives living in the US. They all said they watched a lot of American TV and movies and wanted to know what shows I was into. The woman on the left said she was currently watching Outlander and The Walking Dead. It’s weird how sometimes you can go to a place like Aleppo, Syria, that you’ve only ever seen on the news as a war-torn hellhole thinking that all the people are going to be so different from you and unrelatable, but then you meet people and have the same sort of conversations that you would with someone you meet back home. Couldn’t feel more normal. Which I think makes the war that much more real and that much scarier. These were normal people whose lives were disrupted, whose friends were killed, whose homes were destroyed. What if something like that were to happen in Chicago? I can’t even imagine.
The shirt of some dude I saw walking past while eating at Faskein wa Avo
After a little afternoon siesta back at Aleppo Palace Hotel, Akel and I went out to walk around the surrounding neighborhood. One of the places that we strolled past had been St. Elijah Maronite Cathedral
It was so strange to me that you could be among all these destroyed buildings where there aren’t any other people around and…
…it’s only a 2 to 3-minute walk down this path until…
…you’re on this busy street that’s bustling with life and commerce.
To end the day, Akel and I spent a few hours sitting on a bench watching life go by at this public park before…
…walking along the river in Azizieh on our way to…
…Wanes restaurant for dinner. On the left is daoud basha (beef and peppers in tomato sauce served with rice) and on the right is yebra, which are grape leaves stuffed with rice and ground lamb.
