I got twisted around my tongue on how Basil was killed. He was killed in an automobile accident in Jan 1994. I just can’t remember much about Aleppo. It seemed lethargic and without much life, The famed Suq was rather disappointing and the Mosque…well once you have seen one, you have mostly seen them all. The same with Churches and Cathedrals. I’m just not much on archeology except as how it affects the cultural life. In Aleppo the people there seemed lifeless and spiritless as they did in most of Syria. I remember leaving Syria for Cyprus and how happy I was to leave it. As I sat in the airport waiting, across from me was a Syrian woman in abaya and wearing a hijab, Running around and all over her were three little boys. As I noted boys are often ill disciplined in the Arab world until they reach puberty. Don’t ever sit next to them on an airplane. Their mother will just look at them with adoring eyes as they trample all over you. Anyway the lady seemed so stressed and unhappy as she gazed with vacant eyes out of the airport window, a mess of never washed glass, flyspecked and smeared with fly goo. I thought to myself…so much for the oft quoted Arab Muslim argument that their women happily trade some freedom for security. What security?
( God. I was so happy to get to Nicosia and life again)
