One problem with traveling is there a few of those chances to knock out another blog entry--I'm going to try to post an entry more often, though perhaps without the length of my first couple of entries. Once I'm in Egypt, I'll work on rounding out some of the stories and adding some that I meant to post weeks ago.

I'm writing from the Syrian city of Aleppo, about a hour's drive from the Turkish border.

The city is dominated by a citadal, and under it span out miles of the ancient bazaars. Beyond the old city, drab concrete apartment building circle the inner city, and beyond these another city of new apartment brilliantly faced in yellow granite.

From the top of the citadal, which I climbed yesterday, you can see the entire city filling the entire valley. I was sitting at the cafe with this overlook when amuezzain began the call for prayer from a nearby mosque. Then came another call from another mosque, and another, and another, and another, until the whole city swelled with a cacaphony of voices--not so much competing as each calling out to his own square.

Below, in the Umayyad mosque, a low, flat structure from early in Islamic history, I was struck by the quiet and serenity of the place. Children played in the large courtyard, and, as often happened, a child asked me to take his picture. Then the father came out with a baby in his arms and two other kids, and hand signed for me to take a picture of them. Sometimes, in Turkey, what would follow is a request that I mail then a copy of the picture when I returned. There was none of that. One of the children asked that another picture be taken. And the mother, sitting in the shade with her back against a column and wearing a chador, sent one of her children with a slice of apple for me. Then a second. Then a third. Then a forth. She touched her heart to me. I touched my heart to her.

Aleppo is a large and cosmopolitan city, and if you like the qualities of a large, loud, exciting city and the blight that comes with every large city I have ever visited, then you would like, maybe love Aleppo.

Many women dress in the chador, the black garment covering head to toe, some, a few, even with the veil covering even the eyes. Some dress in a very western way, albeit revealing less flesh than is splatters across American malls, but otherwise hard to disguish from young American woman. Many dress between these poles, and it all seems very natural. I've been to a few talks in which the chador was demonstrated for the American audience. How oppressive it all seemed. But, here, I don't sense these women feel oppressed. Yesterday, I saw a young couple crossing the street. The man had on jeans and a red shirt, the woman a black chador opened at her face. Her frame was long and graceful. Her arm wrapped around his, and they walked tightly. They looked happy, affectionate, in love.

You'll see poking under the hem of the chador jeans and the most stylish high heels available. Before my trip, I would have thought such a sight a hint of decension. But here, the chador and heels harmonize.

So I'm left baffled why all my life our country as treated Syrians as the enemy.