Darkush, Syria - It’s our last day in Syria. We’re not in the hospital, not in the madness of packing up and getting out.
Frogs are croaking somewhere on the riverbank behind us. The sun breaks through the mulberry leaves.
We dip sour lime-green plums - jarannik, they’re called - into salt between sips of tea brought out by one of Mohamed Zabek’s 10-odd kids.
Others keep popping out from behind the long grass of his farm. It’s difficult to keep track.
Darkoush is a small, rural town. You have to click zoom on Google Maps several times before it finally becomes visible.
Could this really have been a war zone, you wonder, leaning back on a plastic chair.
But it was. Before the town was liberated eight months ago, it was.
Zabek’s children play with his automatic rifle, safety on. They’ve all been trained to use it.
His wife Iman breastfeeds their youngest and says that, yes, she has a gun of her own.
Zabek farms jarannik and olives, and moonlights as an armed bodyguard for the Gift of the Givers contingent with his nephew, Abdulrahman.
Twenty years old. Quiet. Serious. Abdulrahman was studying maths when the war broke out. He wanted to be a banker. Now, he wears a camouflage vest over his skinny jeans and collared shirt and speaks about going to the front.
“You need to go back to school.”
“I need to fight.”
“And after the war?”
He dips a jarannik into the salt and pops it whole into his mouth. He chews. He spits out the pip. The frogs croak. The river runs. The grass rustles. The sun shines.
“Maybe then I’ll try to be a banker again.”
Behind us, the tribe of children play for the camera.
One holds up dad’s gun. And another lifts a heavy TV camera onto his shoulder. A different kind of weapon. It looks good on him.
The Star