Dear Deeply Readers,

Welcome to the archives of Syria Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on May 15, 2018, and transitioned some of our coverage to Peacebuilding Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Syrian conflict. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors contributors.

We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].

BROWSE THE SYRIA DEEPLY ARCHIVES

My Syrian Diary: Part 3

Marah lives in a city under siege. She was 15 years old when the uprising began. This is the third in her series of memoirs of living in the midst of Syria’s war.

Written by Marah Published on Read time Approx. 2 minutes

As part of a collaboration between Syria Deeply and Rookie, we’re publishing the memoirs of a teenage girl living in the midst of Syria’s war. Marah, as she’s chosen to be known, lives in a city under siege. She was 15 years old when the uprising began. This is the third in her series of articles.

In my city, guys and girls have undergone a radical change. Everything has changed: their opinions, their aspirations, the way they talk, their expressions and even the way they look.

Before, we used to have great conversations. We loved music from the West as well as local music, and we would race to listen to the newest albums. We loved movies of all kinds and in all languages, especially the comedies. We were interested in fashion and design.

We were attracted to anything that was new. We lived a wonderful life. We made adolescent mistakes.

Now we have turned into old women. Our conversations are all about our daily suffering. Our conversations are now all about food, electricity, water and firewood. There is no cell phone coverage and no television. We are deprived of our teenage pastimes.

Shopping was one of my favorite activities. We used to go window shopping after school. We used to get excited about a colorful purse or shiny shoes. Now we get that excited about a rare treat, a dessert – even just fruit. Can you believe it?! We never expected this to happen!

Even the boys have changed. We used to see them around school, carrying flowers and wrapped presents, wearing their nicest clothes. Their eyes were filled with love, happiness and hope. But now, the street around the school is empty because all the guys are out fighting on the front lines. When we happen to see them, they usually have shaggy hair and dusty shoes, carrying rifles instead of roses. If you look at their faces, all you see is worry and frustration. Because of our horrible reality, they have lost their hope for the future.

We have been deprived of fully living this period of our lives. Everything has turned upside down. Everyone is depressed. Sometimes we laugh and cry at the same moment. How did this damned war do this to us?

I feel sorry for myself and for all my fellow Syrian youth. I hope that the current situation changes so that our souls and dreams might awaken. I’m afraid we will regret living this period without our rites of passage, not living youth as it is meant to be lived. Will the war impact us for the rest of our lives? How will we make up for what we’ve lost? Everything is unknown.

Republish this article

Our mission is to empower stakeholders and the wider public with high quality information, insights, and analysis on critical global issues. To help achieve this, we encourage you to republish the text of any article that contains a Republish button on your own news outlet.

By copying the HTML below, you agree to adhere to our republishing guidelines.

By copying the HTML below, you agree to adhere to our republishing guidelines. Click to expand

  1. In republishing any of our articles:

    Ensure that you include a line of our HTML tracking code on every article you republish. This is a lightweight, efficient way for us to see the number of page views of each specific article published on our partners’ websites. This does not affect page layout, nor does it provide any information about your users, other web pages on your site, or any further data. By copying and pasting the HTML code in the box below, the tracking code is automatically included.

    If, for any reason, you do not copy the code prepared for you, you must paste this code snippet into the end of the article in your CMS: 

    <img src="http://ping.newsdeeply.com/pixel.gif?key=98797&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsdeeply.com%2Fsyria%2Farticles%2F2014%2F05%2F01%2Fmy-syrian-diary-part-3" alt="" />

  2. Adhere to the guidelines below:
    • Edit our stories only to reflect references to time (e.g. "today" to "yesterday"), location (e.g. "New York" to "here") or editorial style; do not edit the wording of our articles.
    • Include all the links within the story.
    • Credit our authors and partner institutions — ideally in the byline. We prefer “Author Name, Institution”
    • Note at the top and/or bottom of the story that it originally appeared on Syria Deeply. This note should include a direct link to the original article and a sentence that offers the reader the opportunity to join the Syria’s mailing list. Our recommended example is:
      • This should read : “This article originally appeared on Syria Deeply. You can find the original here. For important news about the war in Syria, you can sign up to the Syria email list.”
    • Do not republish a photo without our written permission. Some sources don't allow their images to be republished without permission.
    • Do not translate a story into another language without our written permission.
    • We often republish pieces from our partners. If you want to republish a partner’s story, you must credit the original partner and include a “via News Deeply” link.
    • Note that News Deeply considers the publication date to be the date marked on the story, and is not responsible for any content that you choose to repost.
    • After republication on the partner website, if you make an accompanying post on social media referencing the republished article, you must include the relevant Deeply social media handle in such post. For example, (i) for Twitter posts this means adding the appropriate @Deeply tag such as @SyriaDeeply, @WaterDeeply, or @WomensGirlsHub and (ii) for Facebook this means tagging the appropriate Deeply page in your Facebook post.
    • News Deeply material may not to be provided, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, to third parties or affiliates for redistribution through those entities, unless you have received prior written approval from News Deeply.
    • You may not automatically or systematically republish any material from our sites; all stories must be chosen individually for republishing.
    • You may not sell our content or republish it for commercial purposes without our prior written consent.
    • We reserve the right to request that any partner ceases republication of our content, including but not limited to if the guidelines listed above not being followed.
    • If you have any questions or concerns please contact [email protected]

Suggest your story or issue.

Send

Share Your Story.

Have a story idea? Interested in adding your voice to our growing community?

Learn more