A couple of days here is hardly enough. As well as Damascus, we also visited Maalula, the only remaining Aramaic speaking centre in the world (so the guidebook tells us). There, in the chapel of St Sergius, a kindly custodian prayed the Lord's Prayer for us in that ancient language. You can just imagine ... and I thought of you all at the time. Then, our return to Damascus on Palm Sunday morning gave us time to watch and hear the fabulously festive parades of marching bands, drummers, candles, olive sprigs, children in new clothes, parents squeezed into their Sunday best, balloon men, fairy-floss and chick-pea vendors, coloured chickens - all under a fantastically blue sky. And of course, my camera battery had died, so you'll have to make do with more photos not of the parade, or of Maalula or St Thecla's miraculous passage through the rocks or her creepy (and faintly comic) interment site!
No comments:
Post a Comment