It felt such a privilege to visit the relatives of very good friends of ours in their village which has in the past several months been liberated from IS after two and a half years under the black flag. It was very sobering driving through bombed out villages (bombed by coalition airstrikes). The people their have been though such trauma. Not only did they have IS living amongst them but they had the coalition fighters above them on the mountains with constant fighting going on between the two and the village caught in the middle. They couldn't even safely go into their olive groves which is their livelihood and way of life from fear of being shot at. It was interesting seeing how many pick-ups we past stacked high with families and all their worldly goods as they made the journey home to their villages, 3 years after having fled.
We loved getting to know the family who were so kind and generous.
They speak a different dialect so communication was a little more of a challenge than normal:
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| L introduced loom bands to the children. |
This (what was a) 3-storey house next to the family we visited was hit by an airstrike and flattened leaving 8 killed inside. IS would hide out around homes, not letting families leave then when the planes came they would escape leaving families killed:
The family we visited showed us the bullet holes in their gate:
We explored their huge vegetable patch, picking vegetables for lunch and enjoying fresh, delicious watermelon:
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