My alarm goes off and I'm ready for 'Valley day w/ Flora'. I wake up in the sweetest mood after spending my night snuggling with Teresa. I remember seeing her tiptoe on my bed at some AM hours. 'oh it's you Teresa, come' as I lift my bed covers for her to land between my spooning arms. The last time we snuggled was the night before I left Beirut in November so it was nice to have her back.
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| Old photo of Teresa |
We set off with Flora into what is a very confusing bus system to get to Sahle Valley. We finally end up in a minibus with loud Arabic music which sounds Syrian to me, and we enjoy mountain gazing through the window.
We arrive at a village with no tourists and have a walk around on the hilly neighborhoods. The locals look at us and call out 'fadale' [come]. They are curiously impressed to see two foreign-looking strangers in their hood. We smile and pretend we're off to somewhere. We can see the valley from where we stand but we can't explain in Arabic that we want to go there. Among Arabic pantomime we figure they're inviting us in but our limited Arabic vocabulary and their limited English one will not get us through an awkward hour in their homely homes. We smile, thank them and carry on walking.
Fresh air, sunny roofs and snowy mountain sites complement our positive mood as we decide to reach the valley. We find a driver in an old Mercedes who's willing to take us. Even though he didn't understand where we wanted to go yet.
Arabic pantomime continues and we finally recognise the valley. We came here to visit Syrian refugee settlements and between untranslated lines he says, 'Dgri Suria!, meaning 'Syria is straight on'.
'Yalla, dgri!' I say.
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