I was 13 when I envied the grandchildren in the Four Seasons series.
In our modest apartment in Jaramana, I quickly realized that the suburbs, however close, are not the city. The grandchildren in the series had a spacious grandparent house in the heart of Damascus; the grandparents were cultured, sophisticated, and affectionate; their houses were close together; and they had regular family gatherings. Whenever the suburbs were mentioned, they were something distant and undesirable to live in.
In the summer, we would move to our village, Labin, one of the villages of the Lajat region in northwestern Sweida governorate.
Our country house was built on a rocky hill at the edge of the village. We would settle in this gray concrete block at the beginning of each summer, having fled the sweltering heat of Jaramana, and leave it at the beginning of autumn.
We would tidy and clean the house, ridding it of insects, bird droppings, bats, and mice, in an annual ritual that was both bleak and sometimes frightening. Yellow and black scorpions had made their nests among the blankets and mattresses, and yellow spiders, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, with fangs that frightened more than they harmed. Lizards, geckos, and sometimes a snake would slither through an unseen crack. But the air was enchanting, and the open spaces were vast enough for playing ball and riding bicycles. The cheerful greeting "Hiyyallah" (Welcome) echoed everywhere, followed by affectionate, sticky kisses that were impossible to avoid.
Hours after arriving home, just before sunset, I would step out onto the spacious veranda, where the breeze flowed with refreshing generosity. With the indulgence of a youngest son, I would leave my mother and siblings engrossed in cleaning, waiting for that scene that would always repeat itself.
In the distance, below the hill, I would see my grandfather, a hazy gray figure, slowly advancing along the asphalt road, pushing an old, single-wheeled cart. On it lay something heavy, something we all knew: an old black and white Sanyo television, the old-fashioned model.
The television was carefully wrapped in a colorful scarf to protect it from the sun and any bumps.
Slowly and steadily, Abu Hatem, in his 70s, would climb to the top of the hill with his television. When he reached the top, we would rush to kiss his hand, as my mother had instructed, and he would smile the smile of someone who had fulfilled a sacred duty.
Then we listen to their recurring dialogue: My mother says there's absolutely no need for television with this fresh air, but my grandfather stubbornly insists, with a touch of irritation, that it's unacceptable for his grandchildren, who came from Damascus, to be left to languish in this small village. My mother argues that it's unfair for him to miss the news, to which he replies that he has an excellent Japanese radio.
Every year, we would spend three months in Labin, walking through olive groves and fields of wheat and lentils, observing the hardships of the farmers of the Lajat region as tourists, watching the second part of Captain Majid and Sandy Bell in black and white on Jordanian television and variety programs on LBC, channels whose broadcasts we couldn't reach in Damascus. My grandfather, without a television, would listen to Monte Carlo and Radio Orient from Paris as a daily ritual, then fall asleep before the main news broadcast ended.
I think now how often this scene repeated itself for years until I began to think it was just another part of life.
Every year I grow older, and Abu Hatem withers, but his determination never fades. Every summer, he drags the television up the hill and waters the olive trees surrounding the house with the perseverance of a 20-year-old. Once, he gave me a rosary with translucent crimson beads. “Next year, I’ll ask you about it”, he told me. The gift confused me at the time. What would a reckless teenager like me do with a rosary? I lost it a few days later without much thought. The following year, he actually asked me about it. His memory astonished me, and I fell silent, embarrassed, not knowing what to say. He smiled sadly and then handed me a yellow rosary from his pocket, less beautiful than the previous one. I still have that one to this day.
Years later, my father and I would stand before his body the night before his burial, shrouded inside a blue refrigerated truck with a glass window, his body so thin, his eyes closed in peaceful sleep.
The next day he will be buried near our house, up the hill, and I will be in the pickup truck that will carry his body at sunset. The wind will whip my face harshly, and the tears will dry quickly; men don't cry.
My grandfather's house in the old quarter, like the houses in all the villages of Sweida, is built of basalt in its enchanting blue-gray color. The most spacious and luxurious room in the house is a large guest room that was once the hall of a Byzantine church. Scattered around it are rooms, hiding places, and grain stores, and within the thick walls are narrow passages and holes for breeds of cats that protect the houses and stores from mice and insects.
Sweida before 17 August… I Was There
13 September 2024
This guest house has welcomed thousands of visitors from Sweida, Daraa, and the Lajat region, and from all over Syria over the years.
Like most people in the Jabal al-Druze region, my grandfather, Abu Hatem, inherited an obsession with the reputation of his guest house, regardless of the cost. This meant honoring every guest who passed through the village, no matter how insignificant or important they were. It also meant that the women of the house would prepare food at any time they were asked, even if it was three in the morning. It also meant that the children would watch the lavish platters of food being carried from the kitchen to the guest house, without any right to taste its delicacies, as the guest came first. One guest would leave, another would arrive, and then another, and the children would eat whatever was available so they wouldn't go to bed hungry.
I remember that in my early teens, these stories of generosity used to infuriate me. Whenever someone mentioned the courage and legendary generosity of the people of Sweida, I would reach for an imaginary dagger in my pocket, as if I wanted to free myself from the constraints and harshness of those qualities.
It was in this guest house that my grandfather's cousin was killed in his sleep during one of the Bedouin raids.
In the upper section of the guest house are rooms inaccessible without long wooden staircases, which monks used long ago to hide during raids. In the 1970s, my grandfather built an external basalt staircase leading to one of these suspended rooms, plastering its walls with blue and white lime mortar, and it became known as "the attic".
This attic is the most beautiful corner in the universe. Tranquility washes over you the moment you enter, and a sense of monasticism and asceticism pervades your being. It was there that I read Hanna Mina's "The Yatr" and Pushkin's "The Commandant's Daughter".
From there, you can climb to the roof and overlook the entire village. Moving around this magical house is like something out of a fairy tale: small rooms with low doors that you can only enter with reverence, and endless chambers and secrets. It was there that I later realized there was no reason to envy the grandchildren in the Four Seasons series. What I have, no one else has.
Time would turn, and I would find refuge in a Bedouin home in the Lajat region in 2012, having fled the Assad regime's checkpoints as a defected soldier. I would stay for a few days with some other defected officers and soldiers from Sweida, hoping to somehow reach Jordan via Daraa. But in a fateful accident, I was injured by shrapnel in my knee, and I remained in their territory for 25 days. The distance between the Bedouin village and ours was no more than five kilometers. I received special treatment from them when they learned I was Abu Hatem's grandson. We exchanged visits during holidays and had business dealings. One of their young men, Rakan, used to joke with me: "When you get better, I'll take you on my motorcycle to visit your grandfather's house". I would laugh and ask him, "And the checkpoints?" He would reply, laughing, "Just tell them you're my cousin, and they won't say anything to us". "Okay, agreed", I would say, laughing. Rakan disappeared a few days later. They said he was killed in a nighttime army ambush, but no one could confirm his fate. I wept for my "cousin" that night.
Amidst the sound of indiscriminate shelling, a daily occurrence in the Bedouin villages at that time, I reflected on how sad the Lajat region and its inhabitants must be, as if the harshness of their geography weren't enough.
Basalt sprouts from the earth instead of crops. The land is scorching with little rain, bitterly cold in winter, and scarce water sources.
To cultivate a small plot of land, you must painstakingly clear it of mounds of rocks and thorns, and beneath each rock lies another, larger and harsher. You must survive the stings of scorpions and snakes (one of my ancestors died from a snakebite), sow your seeds, and wait for the meager bounty of the heavens.
But it is this harshness that has protected its inhabitants from hordes of armies, and it is what will keep me here safe, like a wounded fugitive.
Before sunset, after the stifling summer days, a gentle breeze begins to blow. The sky clears, scattering its stars, and people gather to converse with a warmth and generosity that seems out of place in this environment, as if it were the most beautiful place in the world.
Civil Society Spotlight: Episode VI
06 August 2025
I reached Jordan then, thanks to a bit of luck and the help of many brave men along the way - Druze, Bedouin, and Haurani - without ever seeing my house or my grandfather's house in Labin for the last time.
My village, Labin, now lies among the other occupied villages of Sweida, empty of its inhabitants, its houses looted and burned. Anyone who thought well of the invading forces (from the General Security and some Bedouin and Haurani neighbors) and dared to stay in their home was arrested or killed in cold blood.
But we would be betraying the story if we stopped the narrative here and allowed the thugs and bullies to be its heroes. The people of the south have lived alongside each other for decades, with all its joys and sorrows - a heavy truth that shouldn't be used to sharpen knives.
On the morning of the attack, an old Bedouin acquaintance of my grandfather's came to his house and warned the residents of the impending assault. He then drove them to a nearby village in Daraa, where they were taken to a church for safekeeping.
My cousin's daughters (aged 16 and 14) sought refuge in a village guesthouse along with several other women and children. As the attack began, three Bedouin assailants stormed the guesthouse, confiscated the women's phones, and took everyone to a nearby Bedouin village as hostages for a possible prisoner exchange. After several hours, the Bedouin men disappeared and were replaced by Public Security forces, who took the women and children to the village of Al-Maliha Al-Sharqiya and began interrogating them indiscriminately. During this harrowing time, a noble man from the Hariri family, an old friend of my cousin's, bravely offered to personally secure the girls' release. He then took them to his village, and after several days, under extremely difficult circumstances, managed to get them to relatives in Jaramana.
I wish I could mention the full names of these two people, but the painful truth is that their noble act might have put them in danger. What a sorry state we've reached.
In Berlin, my chest suddenly tightens at night, and my breath catches. With steady strokes of my pickaxe, I widen the irrigation ditch around the olive trees, resolutely striking the rough earth until my hands crack and blood flows from my fingers. Dreams mingle with nightmares, and longing stings me. I wander through the old house, finding it spacious with many rooms. I eat a salty labneh sandwich and dip it in a strong, pungent olive oil, the likes of which I have never tasted. Everything there seems so distant and so beautiful. I always dreamed of returning after the fall of Assad, but even now I cannot cross those barriers. These villages have become another planet; anyone who tries to reach them to check on a tree or a door is shot before they even touch the ground.
At three in the morning, I open Google Earth to see our house in Labin from above, an old image that hasn't been updated since 2022.
I see a house, though I don't know if it still exists. I fix my gaze on that spacious veranda, kicking the cheap Chinese ball a little harder so it bounces into the orchard behind the house and hides among the olive trees. I go down the stairs using the mouse cursor, walk among the trees to my uncle's house, then back up.
I return to the main road, retracing the steps of our relatives' houses one by one, until I reach my grandfather's house in the old town. I see him there, in front of the guest room, under the grapevine, dozing off while listening to the Monte Carlo news.
If only I could sleep, Grandfather.
