2022/10/18
Homs – Beit Al-Agha
A warm applause, a perfect lighting shed on the frame, the audience, and the guests, and every musician standing behind his instrument, while everyone standing in front of them… Many colors, laughter and tears, hugs exchanged, and immense feelings filling the whole sky-like space that covers the place… The whole team stands on the stage, smiling a smile of achievement, pride, and love, 1,2,3… Snap… It was the last scene of that event, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Homs – An old Arabic house

After three years of restoring this place and preparing it to be a safe, free, and creative space for humans of all categories and ages… The scenes filled with love like that were repeated and renewed again and again with the same love but even stronger.

Your first time entering the place will surely amaze you, and if the place got the chance to speak about itself, it would say:

Hello… I am Harmony. I am 70 humans, 7 faces, and 16 tears old… My stones are black and old, wet by the rain in winter, and tears in farewells and travel, loud laughter in times of achievements and success. My doors are made out of dreams of the youth and their sweat, the top of my wall is lined by their hands, eyes, and vision, the windows are tailored to overlook the outside courtyard.. and the whole world.

In the courtyard you see a lot of green leaves that climbs my black stones, and the lemon tree that only lord knows how long it’s been there… but it been here for a long long time indeed, and it does not fail to give its flowers and fruit in every season filling the place with the scent of blossoms. Opposite to the lemon tree you see the grapevines one, I can almost swear that it is the most resistant tree in the city. It resisted all the years of abandonment in this place. It resisted oblivion, coldness, and remained covering the wall, hugging it’s stones with its distinctive geometric leaves. It resisted the war that uprooted many humans and trees. Except for the grapevine tree, and some humans… Near that latter you find a pink rose flower, orphaned, lonely and dry; but that’s how it was. While now, it found family in all the green leaves surrounding it… there was no place for orphanhood or loneliness in that courtyard, everyone here loves you. Unconditionally.

You can see art on the rooms’ doorsteps, doorknobs, tables, and everything placed in the corners… Even in the kitchen, There is a lot of love and warmth in the kitchen.

In every corner of the place there is a memory, a laughter, and a secret. My children found a home in me for their secrets, laughter, and tears. Everyone here considers me the literal meaning of the space as wide as the sky where nothing stands between them, freedom, and safety.

The war disappointed me and dimmed a part of my soul when it took sixteen of my children away from me… the ones who built me and quenched my thirst and dryness in the days of heavy abandonment… but they are with me… Everyone who left remains inside of me, carved on my walls for now and ever.  You can see them on the walls of the painting room, sculpture room, office, and cafe. In every color, line and word. At the kitchen door and in the of the grapevine tree and Melissa gardening bed. In the ceiling of the office and its wood. Among the carefully arranged books… 

You can see their dreams and wishes in every one of my corners… They gave me a lot of their time, thought and love… They loved me deeply and I loved them further more. I also witnessed a lot of arguments, problems, and contradictory opinions. But love was always present in the place gathering all that and taming it to reach limitless agreement and truth… The truth and only the truth is the color of all that is made, accomplished, and presented to the light.

I saw the light when one of them turned me from fantasy to reality, and from a dream to a truth. And you don’t know how much it costs a human to dream in this city… It costs a fine share of one’s life. I became the truth that was shaped by many ages and dreams. I feel that I am that voice that connects everyone with the world. That I am the eye that sees what escapes the eyes of others. That I am the safety sought by those who lost it… But I don’t know… Why am I all that?

I call for humanity and the path I walk is paved with peace for everyone. I love humans and embrace them with all their differences… My light is orange. You can inhale the morning inside me when the smell of coffee rises and the lemon birds announce that the morning has come… And in the evening, the noise of everyone becomes somehow your calmness, in a way that no one knows how! How can a human feel calm amid the noise of many others?

I have almost completed four years of my age… The children intend to paint a new face for me. One that I see the light through, and the world sees me through it. I narrate the stories of the people that were dimmed by the war, sickness, death, and life. I try to breathe life into those stories and their owners. I want the universe to know my children, their dreams, and to hear their voices, silence, and words. To be a place for everyone, a place for love and peace.

The road was difficult. Many around me mocked the idea, and others listened to it but knew its difficult. In the cold winter nights, the children gathered and worked on my walls until they became red as they were painted with the blood of my children hands, the blood that was shed from the intensity of fatigue and coldness. I tried hard to make the place warm to relieve them of their tiredness but… They overcame me, overcame the war and despair as they made the place warmer than I could ever imagine… They made the place a symbol of life. A symbol of love and safety.

12/5/2019
Homs – The same old Arabic house After almost seven months…

It was the moment to see the light. The moment of truth while tension filled the air. Eyes were full of tears between the awe of opening and the happiness of accomplishment. Parents of these children sitting in every corner, their eyes following their movements and hearing their trembling voices… The moment of countdown was witnessed by my walls as they witnessed all the effort given and sweat… 3… 2… 1 And the spark of opening ignited as their hearts ignited along with it and their tears came down sparkling… That moment was a moment of real transformation inside me along with each of them… I transformed from an abandoned house to the one which is most alive… I witnessed their transformation in that moment from children to youth. They jumped over the years of age in a moment. They achieved the impossible and healed a wound out of many wounds scarred on the skin of this city… That day could not be ordinary for anyone. It was an extraordinary day… For us, and the whole city indeed…

Since that day, visitors kept coming around the clock in a way that no one could imagine.
Me, my walls, and my children did not expect this number of visitors, This feeling of life, praising. and faith in us, our ambitions, and dreams…
Yes, that moment carried many transformations… The views of society then turned from “What are you doing?” to “congratulations on this spirit… We are with you and we’re eager for more and more”.

We did it together…
We turned the question marks to greetings, the dust of war into colors, music, and love.

We made a safe space from our sweat and the blood of our hands… We made the truth!

Our truth, that we are the youth that death fails to reach no matter how hard life gets.