A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(2)
On Saturdays when Doaa was little, the old city market—or souk—would fill up with locals and visitors from across the border in Jordan, who came to buy high-quality produce at good prices, and to trade the tools and fruits of agriculture. Sitting on the main trade route to the Persian Gulf, Daraa attracted people from all over the region; people came together here or made a point of visiting as they passed through. At its heart, however, was a close-knit community of extended families and friendships that spanned generations.
Children in Daraa, as elsewhere in Syria, stayed with their families well into adulthood. Sons remained at home after marriage, bringing their wives into the family home to raise their children. Syrian households such as Doaa’s were packed with family members, several generations under the same roof, sharing a single home. When a growing family overflowed out of the rooms on the first story of their dwelling, another floor would be added and the house would extend upward.
At Doaa’s house, part of the ground floor belonged to her uncle Walid and aunt Ahlam and their four children. Next to him was Uncle Adnaan, with his family of six, and Doaa’s grandfather Mohamed and grandmother Fawziyaa had their own room. On the upper level, Uncle Nabil had a small room with his wife, Hanadi, and their three boys and two girls. Doaa’s family of eight shared the ground-floor room closest to the kitchen, the busiest and noisiest part of the house. All the main rooms were set around an open courtyard, typical of old Arab houses, where the children would dash in and out, coming together to play when school was out and between meals. The rooftop also offered space for the family to gather, and on hot summer nights, they would relax there until the early hours of the morning, the men smoking their water pipes, the women gossiping, all drinking sweet Syrian tea. On especially hot nights, the cool rooftop breeze would entice the family to roll out their mattresses and sleep under the stars.
The entire family—aunts, uncles, cousins—ate communal meals in the courtyard, seated on a carpet in a circle around steaming plates of food. At mealtimes, Doaa and her sisters ate ravenously, scooping up food with pieces of thin pita bread wrapped around their fingertips.
Doaa’s father cherished these moments with his family, for it was the only time during the day that he could spend with his daughters. As soon as the meal was over, and he had finished off the last dregs of his sugary tea, he would pedal his bike back to his barbershop to work until midnight.
The love, conflicts, joys, and sorrows of living with a large clan affected every part of Doaa’s daily life. And under the rooftop of this loving family, tensions were beginning to arise.
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By the time Doaa was born, her parents already had three daughters and were facing pressure from the family to have a son. In traditional, patriarchal Syrian society, boys were more valued than girls as people believed they would support the family, whereas daughters would marry and turn their attention to their husbands and in-laws. Shokri, Doaa’s father, was handsome, with curly dark hair. He had been a barber since the age of fourteen and had once worked abroad in Greece and Hungary. Shokri had had plans to return to Europe to find a job and a foreign wife, but after he met Hanaa, Doaa’s mother, his plans changed. Hanaa was just finishing high school when they met at a neighbor’s wedding. She was petite, had long, wavy dark hair, and striking green eyes. She and Shokri were instantly attracted to each other. She found him more worldly and self-confident than the other local guys, and she liked the way he dressed in bell-bottom jeans and played the oud, a string instrument that’s considered the ancestor of the guitar.
Shokri and Hanaa were married when Hanaa was only seventeen. Their first few years together were peaceful and full of love, but slowly things changed. The first time Hanaa overheard her mother-in-law, Fawziyaa, complain that Hanaa and Shokri had no son was after Hanaa gave birth to her third daughter. Hanaa was shocked when she heard Shokri’s relatives tell him that he should find himself a new wife to bear him a son. Despite having to fight against deeply ingrained prejudices and expectations, Shokri was proud of his growing daughters. However, his mother continued to criticize Hanaa and insisted that Shokri deserved sons. The family home, which had once been a sanctuary for Shokri and Hanaa, soon became a place of strife as some of Hanaa’s sisters-in-law joined Shokri’s mother in whispering and gossiping about her inability to bear sons.
When Doaa was born on July 9, 1995, Hanaa received the usual halfhearted congratulations and murmurs of “Next time, inshallah”—God willing—“it might be a boy” from Shokri’s family.
But when Hanaa looked at the solemn, earnest baby, she sensed something special about the little girl. When a well-respected and wealthy family friend visiting from out of town came by one day to see the new baby, she helped establish Doaa’s place in her family. The friend, unable to have her own children, had an acute feel for the family dynamics and sensed the pressure Hanaa was under to have a boy and decided to help her. When the family gathered in the kitchen to welcome their special guest, she took Doaa carefully in her arms and held her gently. She looked down into the tiny baby’s serious face, placed a finger on her forehead, and announced, “This one is special.” Referring to the meaning of the name Doaa, the friend added, “She is truly a prayer from God.” Before departing, the friend gave Hanaa ten thousand Syrian pounds—a small fortune—as a gift for Doaa. The rest of the family was astonished. The friend’s exotic status as a wealthy resident of the Gulf States commanded respect. After that, Shokri’s mother always insisted on holding Doaa, and for a time no more insults were hurled at Hanaa.