I returned to Syria in the summer and found something new: the quiet miracle of ordinary life. On a July afternoon, I stood on the edge of al-Hatab Square in the old city of Aleppo, filming, transfixed.
A group of boys was kicking a soccer ball around the square. One kicked it out into the street, out of the frame, where it bounced off a parked car.
Another ball appeared immediately from the other side. They shouted, laughed, and kept playing.
It was an ordinary scene, but I couldn’t look away.The historic al-Hatab Square had been repaved a few years ago with broad, white slabs of limestone, ringed by a mix of gutted buildings and jarring white storefronts—the residue of nearly 14 years of war and the Assad regime’s failed attempts at reconstruction. For years, Syria had been defined by im…
المصدر: time
