Damascus. Old Town.

Narrow, devious alleys of squalid houses bowing their decrepit wooden balconies toward each other. Their blackened facades sit sunk in their own shadow under the mercilessly glaring sun, reflecting nothing but my own inenubilable mood.

The walls plastered with Nasrullah, smiling avuncularly.

That in Aleppo, once...

We decide to take a walk round the Souk. Approaching the place, from around the corner the wheezing sound of a brutally lashed whip cuts through the air. "Oh-oh", I think, "-someone's wife didn't wash her husbands briefs white enough". But no, it was just a textile maker cleaning a pile of fleeces fresh from the sheep. Inside the market place we then have a glass of fresh orange juice each, and looking around the place, being handed our glasses by a stressed ten-year-old, are happy to constate that child exploitation at least still is in full swing in Syria.