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Comment by idlewords | Hacker News Reader

The post is about a trip I took in June of 2014. Agreed that what's happening now is horrific. For starters, pretty much every place I describe has been bombed.

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In 2007 I got to visit a lot of family in Syria. My cousin took me from province to province while he was making sales calls for my grandfather's welding shop in Damascus.

In 2012 my cousin was shot in the head at a roadblock and died a few months later. My grandfather has fallen into a deep depression and the rest of my family has experienced a diaspora the likes of which we haven't felt since the 50s.

I'm not a religious person, but I thank probability every day that my family has Canadian citizenship and green cards and that I have an amazing job as a programmer. Even if I can't do anything about the place of my heritage, I've been able to buy a house in the US for my grandparents and have been able to donate to the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS Foundation) on a regular basis.

I have so many photos and journal entries from that time. I really need to get them online to show what Syria was like before all the shit hit the fan. Thank you so much for these writings. I hope they shed light on a humanity that gets robbed by conflict.

I can relate. My first Arabic teacher grew up in Syria in the 70's, and the last 40 years has been brutal emotionally. Both parents died as I grew up, and once her mother died (maybe after 2004?) and all the bureaucracy and bribes she was so disgusted she never went back. Years later, we were talking about Egypt and she said things like that would never happen in Syria, ever! And now look at the ironic state of things. Her sister still lives in Damascus. And when we talked recently, first time in years, and that came up, she almost cried. But it was out of sheer anger. People I meet do not even care about the emotional loss, but how they have watched their country implode so rapidly while everyone voluntarily fucks it up more.

Thanks, for the tip about SAMS. I assume this is them.

http://sams-usa.net/foundation/

I am trying to pool people together with some people I know here and the MENA region to do fundraising for the Jesuit relief fund (I know, I know, but they are very cool and have no religious stake; I have met Iraqi Lebanese and Syrian employees from all backgrounds and their dedication to crisis assistance, religion is not even on the radar) and want to tap the Syrian-American community to help fundraise.

Email address is in my profile. I would love to get people like yourself involved.

I thought so. We had an interesting chat about it and me writing about my time in the Gulf. When I saw the date I felt a little sick to my stomach. Haha. Glad to hear I was right and the dates were not reflecting your time there.

Would it be possible to make this clear at the top of the post?

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