A Day in the Life of a Syrian American – Lady Narrator

“God has put a button on my hat today,” he said in his exotic accent. It was unique and only illuminated his bright smile. “My dear sister,” he continued, “Do you pray for your country?” I smiled. “Yes, of course.” He smiled back and asked, “What exactly do you pray for?” I looked down at the frame before me, with over 30 signatures of people from all over the world who had been amazed at our Syrian history, and said, “I pray for peace. Just peace.” He nodded in approval.

“This morning God spoke to me. He put a button in my hat and told me that surely, surely the chaos in Syria would end and peace will come to its people. So do not hope for peace, but believe. God is not man. God cannot give us a Word and change His mind. He is God and so what He says Will be.” Despite my history with those who have had “conversations” with God, I agreed with him. In Islam too we believe God is not man, but only God. We also have verses that repeat the concept that all God has to do is say, “Be” and it will be and that His vows are concrete. And I knew (and still know) that God does everything for a reason, if we never get to see the manifestation of that reason in our lifetime—so as he said, I do have the conviction that surely one day, peace will come.

He told me how miraculous it was of him to stumble upon our exhibition in Downtown Los Angeles today when he was actually on his way elsewhere. But he realized God had sent him here for a reason—to deliver this message to me since it was freshly given to him by God directly just a mere few hours earlier. I accepted. For the past four days I had been praying to God more than usual—and by more than usual I mean actually making prayers when I had been long overwhelmed with life and slightly forgotten to do so. I needed Him and His presence to reassure me that I should not lose faith, even if I lose people or things around me. That one day, I will either know the reason for things or feel a sense of contentment for their happenings even if I remain ignorant of their purpose. And maybe, just maybe, it will all unfold into its proper place.

This pastor was just the beginning to a day that left me in tears—although I have been crying since we opened the doors of the Pico House for our “A Country Called Syria” exhibition to the public. He left me a flier for his upcoming event the next day where he would heal our life problems through the power of Jesus and revival of faith and was on his way.

I smiled and fell in love with God even more. How can I not? He brought to life this dream of ours and allowed souls from all over the globe to taste and touch the soul of Syria that is almost forgotten. People from Mexico, Canada, Russia, Philippines, Denmark, Morocco, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, France, Oman, America and even Syria were in awe, just utter awe, at the truth about Syrian history and culture. A man came to sign our Welcome Book and began falling apart in tears. He dropped the pen and went outside, apologizing for his demeanor. I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. He was not Syrian and had never been there, but he knew. He was educated enough to know that what is happening there is destroying life and history in the most inhumane way possible. Another man in a suit came up to me and was utterly impressed with the accomplishments of our Syrian and Syrian American figures we listed. From artists, to politicians to businesswomen and men, we are showing them who make up Syria.

Friday was different than the remaining days we held our doors open. After a slow agonizingly empty week, something felt unique about this day. The air was different; the courtyard full of eager minds waiting to satiate their curiosities. An Assemblyman held a business meeting in our exhibit’s setup in the morning. Count 30+ people. A commercial was being shot right outside our door beneath our banner. Count 15+ people. School buses and tour buses parked outside with groups and groups of visitors. Count 25+ people.

Another man walked in. He was from the group shooting the commercial. “Wasn’t Syria called something else in the past?” he asked with confidence. “Yes," I replied, "It was once Mesopotamia, along with its surrounding areas like Iraq and Lebanon.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Mesopotamia! I remember. I did a school project once back in Brazil when I was in high school about Mesopotamia and its rivers.” I liked him. He seemed knowledgeable and sharp. He continued to impress me when he began discussing the current conference in Geneva with regards to Syria. “I’m not satisfied with how stubborn these political aspects and people are. It’s not fair that such beauty has to suffer at the expense of these beings.” He got it. He appreciated it. He spent a good 30 minutes ditching his commercial crew to take a trip across Syria.

He walked around on a tour with a historical perspective, trying to fathom how every canvas painting he was admiring, every handmade artifact, and every portrait hanging illustrates a piece of this world that is being demolished so shamelessly. He couldn’t grasp the concept. Who can?

Visitor after visitor stopped by the welcoming table just to comfort my mother and I that Syria and its people are in their prayers too—not forgotten at all. Each one was grateful that we showed them what our country has to offer and wished that our exhibit went on past Sunday, February 23^rd 2014. But alas, our funding only allowed us said time.

He finished his tour, took a photo and went back to the film crew. Ten minutes later he was back. “This is really Syria?” I smiled and nodded. “Wow, just wow. I am so amazed. I want to stay but I have to go back to the crew.” He felt at peace here and I knew exactly where it stemmed from. There is a magic about Syria that no visitor can ever explain and it is the greatest honor that we were able to capture it here. I pray that it always stays and only gets better.

His film crew called him back and so he left, but returned once more to offer my mother and I two fresh cool bottles of water for our efforts and the long day ahead of us. He was truly grateful that his clients requested to shoot their commercial here, at the Pico House in the El Pueblo Historical Monument of Los Angeles.

God is there with each and every one of us, even when we forget. So just like the pastor said, I do believe (not just hope) that Syria will be at peace. And I do believe that each and every one of us that strives to keep our faith will feel the inner and outer peace we look for…someday. I pray that we all find it and I do pray that every reader who can get the chance to see the work of Syrian American Mothers does—be it at this exhibition or the more to come!

A Country Called Syria

Once I spent six months in Syria, nowhere near a proper comparison to actually living there, but that, combined with my annual visits, gave me a good enough perspective into the country that was eternally labeled third world. Somehow though my eyes saw it richer than the U.S. To me it was the land of opportunities (to come), the land of potential to thrive, and although it had a long way to go, I witnessed progress each time I stepped off that tiny stuffy crowded airplane. And despite the negative feedback I heard from both Syrians in Syria and Syrians in America, I had a different perspective of its potential every time I walked through the corridors of the Damascus airport.

That airport is closed now. It has been for quite some time thanks to this war. Yes, I call it a war. Ask Syrians and each one will give you his/her own answer as to what it is that is happening there now: From civil war, to terrorism, to revolution to whatever. You want the bottom line? Innocent people are dying from the hands of people fighting; and a land of history is almost entirely demolished.

On my last trip, the six-month long blissful journey, I felt the truest beacon of hope, one that words could not define. One so strong that I was ready to quit my final semester of graduate school and stay in the warm shelter of my grandparents’ home in Abu Rumaneh. I wanted to hear the sounds of sirens, cars honking for no reason and random people talking Arabic in the alleyways at every hour of the day. I wanted to be able to hail a taxi and go anywhere for less than $3. I wanted to be able to tell my grandma that I’m just going for a walk somewhere, anywhere, because I could in the safe streets of ancient Damascus…and then hear her scold me out of concern of me “a girl walking alone in the shawari’ (streets).” I miss her and her worry filled love.

Even now as I write this I cry in realization that in my very own lifetime I will never get to experience that again. Then I cry even harder when I recognize that that should be the least of my worries because there are people being expelled from their homes and even killed in their homes for no reason in Syria. People who had faith that their economy would boom and their social issues would eventually improve, the way it almost started to about four years ago.

I didn’t end up quitting my final semester of my Master’s degree. Instead I bid my grandparents and Syria what I thought would be a temporary farewell and returned to earn a Public Policy & Administration degree with the intent of bringing it back to Syria. It was only after this trip that I recognized the true value of an M.P.A., even more so than I would have had I been thinking of the U.S.

Suddenly I was writing papers and reading textbooks with the mindset of how my American made skills and knowledge could be used to help my family’s homeland—a country called Syria. How could I help its citizens raise its level from third world to first world? How can I help bring it back to its elite status it once had? Did anyone even know that Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world? Or that the first alphabet to ever be discovered and actually documented came from Syria? I wanted to save Syria. That’s right, as over reaching as that sounds, I wanted to save Syria and I had packed my bags and my degree and was ready to do so. Then it was March 2011 and it all changed.

But that’s not what I want to talk about really. I want to go back to those six months, when I spent hours on the balcony overlooking the Four Seasons and admiring the randomness of my exotic Arabia. I had a notebook and a pen with me wherever I went and always wrote down ideas. The one repetitive theme that kept appearing within my words of what I wanted to change (besides economy, social welfare, and healthcare) was the education system. These days many Middle Easterners, who can afford to, send their children to study in Europe and the U.S. It is considered prestigious and of higher quality than the Middle East. I understood that it was also slightly easier to do so considering how difficult it is for Syrians to actually graduate high school. The education system in the Middle East differs and is far more complex and intimidating than it is here. But ironically I think that’s why it creates stronger and smarter graduates than anywhere else in the world. I’ll never forget when I learned in high school that the best people to trust in medicine are Arabs; and after learning the history of medicine and realizing it originated from within our lands I recognized the value even more.

However, despite the thick skin it forces many students to grow, I noticed how little room the education system there provided for those who were more in tune with hands on or the life skills style of education. These are the students who can’t do the whole textbook, cram it in your brain type of studies. The artists and creative thinkers rarely ever had a safe space to thrive. In my time spent with the high school and college students in Syria I found that these were the following options to success:                

Men – Medicine or Engineering                                Women – Pharmacy

Anything else was leftover that you received based on the scores you got on your senior year exams. Those are the death of many poor students. One point below the requirement and you’re deemed a failure and sent to a secondary level of education that eternally dictates your career path. Many Syrian students end up repeating the 12^th grade to try again and obtain a higher score on those exams in order to get in to the upper level career path schools and that broke my heart. I realized that’s a flaw I wanted to focus on in order to help Syria nurture the talents and skills often overlooked in many, actually all, of those students that didn’t reach the standardized test score requirement.

I had a friend who ended up repeating the entire senior year and I wanted to help her but couldn’t. She is so talented, artistic, brilliant, witty and absolutely comedic. I knew that had she been born and raised in my neighborhood in California she would have thrived in any fine arts program. That’s what I wanted Syria to have—a more well rounded educational system that would provide access to diverse studies, all of which are necessary to build a stronger and more progressive country. And that was my long-term goal. I kept seeing what Syria could become and realizing that it failed to reach that level because it was lacking in the variety of professionals, like women's studies or gender studies or social sciences or environmental health. What happened? Syria had such creative talented people that were magnificent in their non-medicinal or engineering work and yet had a positive helping hand in government and politics. It could happen…or so I believed until 2011.

My parents I know suffer far more than I do because that is where they grew up. Cities like Aleppo and Hama were places they visited in summers and winters on family road trips and now they don’t exist anymore. Really, go to Google and type in cities like Homs, Hama, Deir Ezzor or Aleppo and you’ll find maybe two beautiful historical pictures (and by historical I mean about five years ago) and the rest are all rubble. Gray, stone, ash, and blood. I’ve seen my parents watch the news and my mom ends up in tears. After the first year she had a fit and realized she couldn’t just sit around and do nothing.

“Dania, I need to help Syria,” she said, “but I don’t know how. I want to do something for my country.” Mental pacing for weeks until an idea was hatched: Create a phenomenally beautiful historical and culture exhibit that portrays the beauty and riches of Syria so that the world may know…A Country Called Syria. Once you put a face to the name everything changes, and we want to put a face to the name of this country that is being bounced across every news station. We found a way to alter the education system, maybe not in Syria, but about Syria. And that was when Syrian American Mothers (S.A.M.) was born.

She called up every Syrian American mother she knew and set up an official meeting. One glorious spring morning almost every Syrian American mom in SoCal was sitting in my living room, cross-legged and eager to hear of this new “plan for Syria.” I sliced up the deli sandwiches, whipped up the Arabic coffee and tea and listened to my mom’s speech. Suddenly everyone’s eyes lit up. The wheels of our minds started turning and they have not stopped till this day.

S.A.M. has put together four amazingly entertaining and educational exhibits across Orange County, and because of our great success we have been invited to host our exhibit at the Pico House Gallery in the Historic Los Angeles District in Downtown Los Angeles. When my mother received the invitation she cried. It was the hardest I had ever seen her cry because I knew she saw the Grace of God in her dream come true. When we took a tour of the facility and saw its glorious walls and corridors we knew this time A Country Called Syria would be the greatest it has ever been.

And so I would like to invite every reader within (and without) driving distance of Los Angeles to make an effort and come attend this nine-day exhibit. Attached to this post is our event flier designed by another Syrian Mother who has graciously donated her time and efforts to create every flier and poster utilized in our past, present and hopefully future exhibits. Thank you Dima A.K.H. You are outstanding! And to the ladies of S.A.M. (especially the Palestinian American amazing women who have joined our team and are even more enthusiastic than we are!) thank you! And to my fiance :) who is putting up with the stress and cancelled dates, thank you for your support and faith in S.A.M. It is a big therapeutic relief! And to my mom who is constantly having panic attacks and fluctuating blood pressure levels, thank you! Thank you for being the amazing woman you are, who never gives up, always is on the run, and never stopped believing in this dream. I can’t wait to keep growing up and be as wonderful as you are and to continue this beautiful creation you have made.

Our exhibit of A Country Called Syria will be opening on Saturday, February 15^th 2014 at 10:00 AM and closes on Sunday, February 23^rd 2014 at 3:00 PM. The exhibit is open for the entire nine days of that week from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM daily and is free to all. I urge you to come. Come meet our volunteers who have dedicated their time to put this together. Come read about our history and our contributions to civilization. Come and recognize who Syria is and who it will one day be!