![]() ![]() ![]() It didn’t matter that my medical experience was confined to the words in my textbooks. It didn’t matter that I was eighteen years old. Having spent one year at pharmacy school, I was the equivalent if a seasoned doctor, and after their last pharmacist was buried under the rubble of his home, there was no other choice. Even the custodial staff were promoted to nurses. But even without doctors, the bombs didn’t stop, and with the Zaytouna Hospital standing on its last legs, they needed every helping hand they could get. With the military deliberately targeting doctors, they became as scarce as laughter. The dictatorship responded by unleashing hell. And not in the way I thought it would.Ī year ago, after the Arab Spring sparked across the region, Syria grabbed the hope awakening in the masses and called for freedom. Ziad made me stand in for is stuck in my mind on a loop.įor seventeen years, Homs raised me and cultivated my dreams: Graduate from university with a high GPA, secure a great position at the Zaytouna Hospital as their pharmacist, and finally be able to travel outside of Syria and see the world.īut only one of those dreams has come true. By now it’s probably encoded in my DNA.Īnd today, the echo of the oscillating saw from the amputation Dr. No matter how many times I wash my hands, our martyrs’ blood seeps beneath my skin, into my cells. For every life I can’t save during my shift, one more drop of blood becomes a part of me. I’m acutely aware of the dried spots of blood that have managed to creep under my lab coat’s sleeves. Sweet- smelling daisies.”Īs I head home, the breeze turns cold and I pull my hijab tight around my neck. The sun hangs low in the sky, beginning the process of bidding us farewell, the colors slowly changing from orange to a heavy blue. Misery reigns strong in the dead, heavy branches and rubble, thwarted only by the hope in people’s hearts. Spring, the symbol of new life, does not extend to worn- out Syria. The sun has been slowly melting away the remains of winter, but the cold is still here. Gray buildings hollowed and decaying as the elements try to finish what the military’s bombs started. I don’t recoil, used to the horror, but it amplifies the anguish in my heart.Ĭracked road, the asphalt reduced to rubble. Outside the supermarket a desolate picture greets me. The owner, a bald old man in his sixties, gives me a sympathetic smile before returning my change. From whatever he was able to withdraw before that fateful day. When the aisles prove to be truly empty, I trudge to the counter to pay for the lemons and bread with Baba’s savings. Stories teach empathy and if I could be a part of teaching readers that then I would have done my job,” she says. I want them to close the book with a newfound sense of ‘I want to change the world’. That despite everything, Salama finds hope between the loud moments. It’s something I tried very hard to show in Lemon Trees. “I want them to know that Syrians are more than their pain and suffering. There is love and hope to be discovered within the pages of this book, but there's also a purposeful of action. I wanted to pay an homage to that city,” she says. “Homs is known as the birthplace of the Syrian Revolution. The story takes place in Homs, which was a purposeful decision on the part of Katouh. To them I say, you are not who they made you to be,” she says. I wrote this book for everyone but in particular for Muslim girls and boys who never saw themselves in anything. To write a Muslim hijabi girl who lives outside the box made from consistent negative stereotypes the media put her in. Not just for potential readers, but for me as well. “I didn’t know how much I needed to write this book until I did. Katouh admits that writing the book was a raw and emotional experience. ![]()
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