America killed 7 Syrian civilians Sunday.

I guess everyone has heard about the recent US incursion into Syria.

The whole thing makes me very sad, especially when I think about the children who were killed in the name of the "war on terror."

To me, that's just as sad as Muslims who blow themselves up in the name of religion. Why should regular people pay the price for someone else's ideology? -- be they American neocons or Muslim fundamentalists.

All I've been hearing are statements from politicians condemning the attack and the US saying this is a "warning to Syria."

I'm more interested in what the ordinary people living on the Iraqi border think. They're the ones who really matter in this tragic story. I'll try to go there and talk to them as soon as I get the chance.

On Friday, my housemates and I all fled home in the middle of the night.

The conditions under our landlord were becoming unbearable, and the final straw was when he hit my French housemate on Friday evening.

We had already talked about leaving because we’d figured out he was spying on us (and we were actually planning on looking at a new place that evening). But our landlord’s violent outburst made the decision much easier.

I wasn’t there to see the incident (I had stepped out to buy a blanket.) But there were plenty of witnesses.

As soon as I reached the walkway to the house, our landlord came up to me to tell me his side of the story. I guess he thought I’d join his team if I heard his story first.

When I entered the home, my housemates told me our landlord, while he was drunk as usual, had hit Bryce, a Parisian Arabic language student living with us.

Naturally, I believed my housemates.

Because Bryce is a beginner in Arabic, I accompanied him to the local police station to translate his complaint from French to Arabic.

We then returned to the house, along with three police officers.

By then, Eva, our German housemate from Nuremburg, had already moved out.

Our landlord, who works part time at his liquor store and full time as an informant, immediately offered the police some whiskey – which they didn’t accept.

At two points during the discussion, two of the police officers pulled me aside to ask me if I felt comfortable living with our landlord. No, definitely, no, I answered. Both times, my landlord followed us down the hall to try to listen to the conversation. Both times, the police waved him away.

After about 2 hours of sitting around the living room with the police and our landlord, the police finally asked Bryce what he wanted.

He responded, “I just want an apology.” No charges, no legal action, just an apology.

For our landlord, saying sorry was more painful than getting a visit from the police or having to return one month’s rent. He did apologize, but not genuinely.

Around midnight, after the police left, our landlord, in his obsessive record keeping, got out his notebook and started calling the intelligence. I could hear him giving them our names. But then when I heard him give my friends’ names, I couldn’t take it. (I was horrified to learn that he not only had files on us but also on our friends).

This scared me because a lot of my friends are Palestinians and Iraqis, minorities who don’t have the same rights as regular citizens.

I asked him to stop. But then he called another intelligence agent and asked for one of my friends to be interrogated.

The entire time, I was yelling at him and trying to get the phone out of his hand and pleading with him to stop.

I finally cornered him, and I said, “Just promise me, promise you won’t hurt my friends!”

He said, “You made me apologize like I was a child. You made a complaint about me. I’ll make a complaint about you.”

I responded, “What do you want? Do you want me to apologize?”

“No,” he said. “You can apologize to your friends when you’re all in the interrogation center.”

I kept on asking him, “What do you want from me?”

I asked, “Do you want to kill me?”

He said, “No. But now, wherever you travel in Syria, you’ll be followed (as if that’s not already the case), and your friends are going to prison.”

I continued pleading, “How much money will it take? I’ll give you anything, anything, whatever you want. Just don’t hurt my friends!”

He refused any offer of reconciliation.

As we were leaving, he promised I’d pay the price.

With the help of some friends, we were all able to get out of the house in one trip.

We went to the house we were going to look at that evening where one of our friends was living, we settled into some empty rooms, and we hoped the new landlord would accept us the next day.

We’d fled the Jewish Quarter Friday night, and Saturday morning we found ourselves to be living in a Palestinian neighborhood.

In the morning, Eva and I walked around the new neighborhood.

The Jewish Quarter, from where we’d fled, is largely empty and abandoned (gee, I wonder why, with such a nice neighbor as our landlord – a secular Christian who gives all faiths and all humans a bad name). By contrast, the Palestinian neighborhood (Al Amin Street) is lively and filled with open-air markets, craft shops and lots of foot traffic.

On Saturday evening, the manager of our new house came over (the actual owner lives in the Netherlands). He said we were welcome to stay in our new rooms, and he invited us to a party at his house, which is also in our new neighborhood.

He suggested, “We’ll start a new community.”

I like that idea.

On Thursday night, I brought two of my housemates to a Julia Butros concert at the Damascus Citadel.

All of the tickets were sold out, but I was told that if we hung out in front of the entrance we could buy tickets from scalpers.

When we got there, we found that no one was willing to sell their ($10) tickets.

I asked one of the guards if we could get in anyways.

To my surprise, he told me we could get in for free.

I waved for my friends to come over, and we got in, raising our fists in the air in victory.

They asked, "How did you do that?"

I responded, "I just asked."

When we got in, there were no seats available, so we climbed onto a media truck that was filming the show.

When that truck drove away, we climbed on top of a fire truck, and I think we had the best view in the house.

When Julia sang a fast song, I said, "I feel like dancing," so we danced on the fire truck.

After a few minutes, my German housemate Eva asked, "What did you say to the firemen to get us onto the truck?"

I shrugged and said, "I just asked if we could watch the show from their truck."

She responded, "I want to go everywhere with you from now on."

... That was the fun part of our evening... On the way to the concert, my French housemate informed me that our landlord has been spying on me, going through my belongings while I'm out during the day and bringing the secret police to my bedroom.

More to come...

I am a journalist living in Syria, but I have neither press accreditation nor residency.

Where do I begin?

When I first got here just over three months ago, I immediately registered at the Ministry of Information -- just as I'd promised I would when I applied for my visa.

There, they told me my press card would take several months to process, because the authorities have to do a "security study" on me. This means that all branches of the intelligence do interviews (interrogations) with me, cross check that information, then determine whether or not I'm a security risk.

My last press card application took a year and half to process. 

As far as I know, I'm the first non-Arab American to ever get a press card in Syria.

I'm also one of a very small minority of foreign journalists who entered the country as a journalist and not as a tourist.

I wanted to do things right, and now I'm starting to see how wrong that was.

Then there's my residency, a card that allows me to stay in Syria for an extended period.

Within about two weeks of being in Syria, I went to the immigration office and applied for an exit visa to go to Lebanon.

There, they told me I needed residency in order to get an exit visa.

When I tried to apply for residency, they told me I'd need a rental contract.

My landlady and I went all over Damascus trying to get an acceptable rental contract. In the end, we gave up, because it turned out we were living in an illegal settlement. The authorities don't grant residency to foreigners living outside of "official neighborhoods."

I then moved house, renting a room inside the walls of the Old City. I'm paying nearly double the rent, but at least I know I have a chance at residency.

My new landlord and I signed a new rental contract.

From there, I was told I had to get a letter from the US embassy confirming I am a resident in Damascus. So I went to the embassy, and I waited 2 hours and paid $30 for a stamped letter saying I live in Damascus.

From there, I was told to go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get a document confirming I entered Syria. (I thought that's what my passport was for, but nevermind).

Once I got to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they told me I needed to get a letter from the Ministry of Information saying I'm here as a journalist.

I then took the bus all the way across town to the Ministry of Information. There, I learned that because my press card hasn't arrived yet (see above), I can't apply for residency as a journalist.

From there, I took the bus to the University of Damascus language center. I know they sponsor residencies.

What else can I do? I have to get residency somehow. I'll become an Arabic language student again.

Sure, it might take up 4 hours of my day every morning.

But it will sure beat spending the exact same amount of time going all over Damascus, trying to do everything correctly, in a place where honesty isn't rewarded.

Where would you go if you were about to die? Syria is the final vacation for man I met a few minutes ago.

Shortly after I sat down to file articles at my regular eatery and Wifi spot, an elderly Frenchman walked up to me, asked me if I spoke French and then asked if I could help him order food.

I translated a few items on the menu for him, and he ordered a variety of mezze platters.

He said, "This is my second time to Syria. I love the food here."

I responded, "It's like France. You can come here just to eat."

He then said that he had terminal cancer, and he wanted to take one last vacation, so he came here.

I managed not to cry upon hearing his news. Instead, we chatted over hummus, baba ghanoush and muttubal about places he'd enjoyed seeing in Syria.

After he left, I tried to savor the moment, the restaurant (Al Kaseda Al Demashkieh) in an old Damascene house where I come almost every night, where I eat some of my favorite food, that plays old French and Arab songs, that has wifi and lets me keep in touch with friends all over the world.

I guess that was part of my idea of coming back to Syria. Life is short, and it's important to be in the place you love, doing what you love. For me, that means writing articles from the Middle East.

"Women have good opportunities," I've always told people when they've asked what it's like to be a young American woman in Syria.

But over the past couple of weeks, I've felt more stifled than I can ever remember.

Where do I begin?

The reason I had to move house so quickly was because the mayor of the district where I was living kept on putting off doing my residency paperwork. Instead, he would say, "You shouldn't just come by for paperwork. I want to spend time with you. We're friends, aren't we?" No, I quickly realized we're not friends, and I quickly fled to another neighborhood.

Now, there's my new landlord who scares away any potential male guests I might have.

Then there's one of my interviewees for a recent article. In the course of the interview, he kept on saying, "You're so beautiful." It was getting wierd, so I changed subject. He then said he wanted to marry me. I laughed it off, acting flattered, even though I found the whole thing creepy. He then called me several days later at 2:30 a.m. I sent him a text message asking him not to call me again. I would have been more aggressive in my rejection, but I feared that because he's wealthy, he might try to get me in trouble with the authorities -- something I can't afford considering I'm still working on my residency permit, thanks to the obnoxious mayor of my former district.

Then there's a government official I saw at his office several days ago. He told me he had two houses in Damascus, and I was welcome to visit him anytime. He also asked if I was married or had a boyfriend. He ideas about affairs of the heart were obviously influenced by his time in Paris. Can you say "liaisons dangereuses"?

Today, I had finally had it.

After a long day hard work, I was looking forward to swimming at the local pool, as I usually do. I arrived later than usual. But so what? Most of the men arrive much later than I usually leave -- 6 p.m. or so. When I arrived at 5:45, they said, "All you'll have time to do is take a shower."

I responded, "I don't accept that. We pay the same amount that the men do. But our pool is smaller, unheated and we get shorter hours! Shouldn't we have the same rights?"

I don't think they were expecting such a protest from me... But I did convince them to let me stay another half hour.

Incidentally, I'm currently working on an article about a businessman's attire and gadgets. At a meeting the other day with my editors, we went over the list... suit, tie, cufflinks, sunglasses, shoes, etc.

One of my editors asked, "What else would an executive need to have to complete his look?"

I said, "A woman?"

They laughed.

If only I were joking.

I'm sure most of you have heard about the two American journalists who were arrested in Syria earlier this week.

If not, here's a link to the story:

http://www.latimes.com/news...

Some people have emailed me to see if I'm OK.

I'm fine.

The fact is, these reporters entered Syria through a smugglers' crossing from Lebanon.

Does that make Syria wrong for arresting them?

That's not my place to judge, as I wasn't there.

What I do know is that anyone entering any country through an unofficial border crossing will get arrested by the local authorities if caught.

They weren't arrested because they were American or because Syria is a "rogue state."

They were detained for no more than one week and then set free precisely because of their nationality.

I was reading one of the Syrian state-run papers the other day (something I don't normally do, but I think I was waiting for an appointment and read whatever was available).

At any rate, there was an article on the front page about how many journalists covering Iraq have died since the war began.

Throughout the article, they used the word "martyred" for those journalists who have died covering the war.

At first, I thought the word was strange, because until then I'd only seen "martyred" used for Palestinians who died fighting for their cause in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

But after a few minutes, I thought:

Ya, I like that. Journalists are martyrs when they die on the job. We fight for what we believe in -- freedom of speech, freedom of the press, human rights. That makes the bravest of us martyrs.

Do some people's lives have more value than others? After the recent bombing, that's a question I'm now asking myself.

About ten days after the explosion here in Damascus, nothing seems different at all.

There are more tourists than ever in the Old City, visiting the Roman ruins and old Damascene houses.

The other day, I overheard one tourist, a senior citizen with a Texas-sounding accent, laugh as she assured her friend on a cell phone conversation that she was fine, no reason to worry after the explosion.

For the most part, I'm glad that life is going on as normal, that people aren't shaken with fear.

But at the same time, I can't help but wonder: If the incident had happened in a nice neighborhood with foreigners and wealthy Syrians, every one of those victims would have a story.

As it is, we know nothing about these 17 victims. There's even some dispute about the casualty count and the time of the explosion.

Even when I visited the neighborhood the day of the bombing, the neighbors didn't seem too fazed either.

A few days ago, I learned from a local journalist that the perpetrator was a suicide bomber, obviously someone who doesn't value his own life.

I was taking a bus from Damascus to Homs, when I noticed a white Suburban GM, the kind used to make the long trip through the desert from Baghdad to the Syrian capital.

As I looked out the window to gaze at the Iraqi license plate and the large suitcases on the roof, I thought to myself, “The poor Iraqis. More of them are fleeing their country and heading for Syria.”

A minute later, down the road, I saw a sign that pointed to Baghdad. The Iraqi taxi then made the turn toward the Baghdad exit.

To my relief, I realized they were going back home.

This made me wonder if, like I’d been reading in Western media this past year, the situation in Iraq was improving.

But to my disappointment, when I brought up the subject with people in Damascus, speaking to both Iraqi s and Syrians, as well as UN representatives, they all told me the same thing: The Iraqis who are returning home have no other place to go. If they’re in Syria, it’s because they’re waiting for an immigration visa to a Western country, and if they’re going back to Iraq it’s because they have to sell the rest of their belongings or they were unsuccessful in renewing their residence permits in Syria.

It makes me sad to think that five years into the war in Iraq there’s still a refugee crisis, and I find it equally sad that for the past two years this large segment of Iraq’s population is almost forgotten in the evening news and in the morning newspapers.

We hear about rebuilding the country and reconciliation. But how can a large war torn country be rebuilt without its most talented citizens – the ones who had the money and know-how to leave the country to seek a better life during the violence?

 On a recent visit to a monastery, I met an Iraqi woman from Mosul.

I immediately knew her nationality when I saw the pendent on her necklace of an Iraqi map, a popular item Iraqis buy to symbolize their hope for the unity of their country.

When I introduced myself, I learned that Huda (the Mosul native) and her family had been living in Syria for the past two years, and before that they were in Baghdad. This meant they had lived through most of the war in the Iraqi capital.

But her concern no longer seemed to be about national unity. All she could take about was getting her family to America. Specifically, she talked about her dreams of settling in San Francisco.

As I am from San Francisco, she wanted to know all about my hometown. She wanted to know if the rent there is expensive, if the clothes are expensive, if it’s hard to get a job. Yes, yes and yes, I told her.

Even my warnings of a more expensive and complicated life than Syria didn’t seem to dissuade her.

Instead, she invited out to dinner to celebrate, once the family got their visas to the United States. “As soon as we get word from the embassy, we’ll all go to Jeneh,” a popular restaurant on the outskirts of Damascus that incidentally means “heaven”.

I might just be the only one in Syria who is disappointed to see Iraqis immigrating to the West. I’d like to see them return to help their country. It seems that neither the Syrians nor the Iraqis want the Iraqis here.

When the war first began in 2003, these refugees were welcomed with open arms by both the Syrian government and its citizens.

Now, most of the Syrians seem to blame the Iraqi refugees for an increase in crime, inflation and other social ills. They say the wealthy Iraqis have caused a spike in real estate prices, while the poor ones have brought prostitution and AIDS with them. As a result, Iraqis are now finding it more difficult to establish residency in Syria, a place most Iraqis hope is a temporary stop-over anyways.

A few days ago, I was visiting a Palestinian friend in hilly a neighborhood called Muhajereen, meaning immigrants in Arabic. As we sat on the balcony overlooking central Damascus, she began telling me about the problems the huge influx of Iraqi refugees has caused in Syria.

“When they came here, the merchants only wanted to sell to Iraqis, and some of them also brought diseases with them. It’s good the government has stopped taking in so many Iraqis,” she said.

“But where else can they go?” I asked. “It’s like they don’t have a country.”

Not looking at me, but at the nighttime view of Damascus, the city where she grew up, she said with a sad tone in her voice, “That’s right. The Iraqis are now like the Palestinians.”

Sept. 29, 2008

Yesterday, I had a guest over at my place, a Palestinian I met just over a month ago.

We haven’t seen much of each other all month because of the Ramadan (Muslim holy month) schedule.

Yesterday was our chance to catch up, or so I thought.

Shortly after he arrived, the police called and asked him to come in the following day for questioning.

I don’t know how the police knew where he was, but somehow they knew.

Today, he sent me a text message, saying, “They want me to distance myself from you.”

That’s it. I now have one less friend.