By Meredith BirkettJaphet Weeks, a 31-year-old American freelance video journalist, just returned from a weeklong trip to Damascus, where he found a suprising level of quiet and normalcy in a country wracked by civil war.(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-120926-syria-damascus-mb06.photoblog900.JPG)Japhet WeeksA spice merchant in Damascus's old city.
Weeks wrote in an email to NBCNews.com on Wednesday:
While fighting continues in the suburbs -- and of course most recently bombs went off in the center today -- I was surprised by how regular Damascenes seem to be trying to get on with their lives. The markets are crowded. Vegetable stands are overflowing with fresh produce. People continue to get married with lavish celebrations. Children are out playing in the streets.
Still, signs of the ongoing conflict are everywhere: military checkpoints are frequent, there is an increased number of displaced and mostly poor families, smoke rises from fire fights between government soldiers and rebels in the capital's suburbs.
(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-120926-syria-damascus-mb02.photoblog900.JPG)Japhet WeeksImages of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and his father, Hafez, hang at an unmanned checkpoint in Damascus.
NBCNews
Thats an uneasy calm i must tell...a kind of silence that make one uncomfortable.