I met these four lovely ladies on the 19th of October 2009 at the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, in Syria. They are, from left to right, Selda - soft and quiet, Yana, her daughter - happy and chatty, Saya, older sister to Selda and aunt to Yana - distant and dignified, and Lava, younger sister to Selda and equally aunt to Yana - friendly but sad. We had a great time although my very poor Arabic wasn't much better than Yana's rudimentary English and the conversation consisted mostly of pointing to things, rolling our eyes, smiling a lot and nodding enthusiastically. The most frequently used word was "Canada", we said it 18 times followed by "Jameel" (Arabic for beautiful) which was said twelve times linked to Damascus, Syria and the Mosque itself. Today, nine years later to the day, I wonder desolately what became of my lovely, soft, quiet, happy, chatty, distant, dignified and friendly but sad Syrian friends ... Sadly, we know what happened to Syria, Damascus and the Mosque, it is all over the news, as Dylan would say it is "Only a Pawn in their Game".
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