Blogs from Maalula, South, Syria, Middle East

Retour au Paradis des rencontres Dès l'arrivée de Cécile, nouveau membre de notre équipe (courageuse!), et après un passage festif dans la famille de Louay à Maaloula, nous filons sur les routes syriennes, toujours aussi hospitalières aux auto-stoppeurs, vers notre bien aimé monastère Mar Moussa el Habashi. Nous connaissons bien l'ambiance de cet oasis de paix entre ciel et terre où se retrouvent des hommes et des femmes de bonne volonté issus de toute religions, confessions et spiritualités pour apprendre à se connaître et à s'aimer. Nous y retrouvons des vieilles connaissances (Nasser, Samir, Khalil, Usaam, Nathalie, Raphael, Dina ... et la communauté el'Khalil) et nous découvrons de nouveaux visages, de nouveaux parcours : nos futures "vieilles connaissances"! Dimitri, diacre melkite étudiant dans une université islamique, Sabrina, franco-algerienne musulmane poursuivant s... read more

Well last night was very interesting. Abdul had told us yesterday that there was a wedding party staying in the hotel. Well at about 10:30 last night, just as we had all gone to sleep the most amazing racket started up from somewhere. There were symbols, and horns and drums and shouting and it was so loud that it actually hurt our heads. The noise lasted for about ½ and hour and then stopped again. We thanked the peace and quiet gods and went back to sleep again. Only to have the noise start up again at 12am. This time it was even louder and I had had enough. So I got out of bed and stormed down stairs to the reception desk and proceeded to tell the front desk staff that they were to give ... read more

Wherever you go through Maloula you could hear a fable that tells a parable allegory composed by the creative imagination of the man. It was conveyed to us by generations, till it reached us in this splendour shape, and the remaining ruins are good proof of this area-mans will, and his ability to defy the time. The best example for this is the spoken language among the people of Maloula. You will be amazed for these utterances, and the language that is still used in common without any knowledge of rules of writing, or its alphabet. Its is amazing when you discover that: this language or as it is called (the language of Maloula) as one of the most ancient languages of history, was spread before the Islamic Conquest that helped the Arabic language to be ... read more