Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly collection wherein NPR’s worldwide staff shares moments from their lives and work around the globe.
It was precisely per week after the Assad regime fell in Syria final December, and Damascus was euphoric.
My colleague and I got here throughout a bar within the heart of the town known as Sugar Man. A small house, with purple lights, neon indicators, a cowboy hat, colourful posters of American and Arab motion pictures and celebrities, and posters promoting U.S. cities. The bartenders had stylish haircuts and piercings. Individuals have been tattooed, modern. I would been instructed that a few of them have been younger Syrian activists who’d fled to Beirut through the Assad regime. Now they have been again dwelling partying.
Solely Arabic music performed: pop, patriotic songs — together with anti-Assad songs we heard everywhere in the metropolis — and the classics by legends like Fairuz and Umm Kulthum.
It was decidedly Syrian, Arab, proud — and free.
There have been fears, although: Would the Islamist teams that led the revolt in opposition to Assad shut down locations like this, confiscate alcohol, make the music cease?
These questions lingered in everybody’s minds. However not tonight.
Tonight was for dancing.
See extra pictures from around the globe:
- Greetings from Alishan, Taiwan, whose purple cypress forests provide timeless magnificence
- Greetings from Odesa, Ukraine, the place a Black Sea seaside gives respite from warfare
- Greetings from Shenyang, China, the place employees type AI information in ‘Severance’-like methods
- Greetings from Palmyra, Syria, with its once-grand resort named for a warrior queen
- Greetings from Mexico Metropolis, the place these canines trip a bus to and from college
- Greetings from the Galápagos Islands, the place the blue-footed booby reveals its colours
- Greetings from Afrin, Syria, the place Kurds danced their hearts out to rejoice spring
- Greetings from Dharamshala, India, the place these Tibetan children have been having the perfect time
