WaLaHa

There are no white doctor’s coats that fit Mohammed Asaf.

At just 12-years-old, he’s been working in Aleppo’s busy and bloody Dar al-Shifa clinic for four months.

“In the beginning, when I saw blood, I would shiver and be frightened,” he said. “But now, I see blood like water.”

Inside the clinic, the wounded, many of them children, lie wherever there’s space, some screaming out in pain. Mohammed’s 11-year-old friend, Youssef Mohamed, works alongside him, tenderly caring for a rebel fighter.

Before the war, Aleppo had 5,000 medical workers. Today, that number has dwindled. Facilities rely on the help of kids like Mohammed and Youssef to care for the wounded in Syria’s most populous city.

None of the children should be there, but two years of civil strife have left few innocents.

Outside the clinic, between bombardments, children play, jumping rope and shooting marbles, often just feet from spent shells.

Electricity, food and water are scarce. An Islamic charity whose contributors include the al Qaeda-linked group Jabhat al-Nusra has stepped in to fill the void and win hearts and minds. It distributes bread and clothes, and has also slaughtered goats, a rare luxury.

Inside the Dar al-Shifa clinic, Mohammed runs around getting supplies and caring for patients including a comatose little girl who is a victim of the day-in, day-out fighting in the streets and bombing from the air.

Three days after video of a smiling Youssef was filmed, he was brought into his own clinic, dead from shrapnel wounds.

Seventy thousand people have now died in this war. Even if children like Mohammed survive it, his childhood is lost forever.

To the potheads who took 1 of the 4 free patio chairs I posted on CL
You two girls were amped up about the 4 free patio chairs that I posted on CL. You came over, wafting the aroma of the sticky-icky as you walked by, and sat in the chairs and decided that they were the chairs for you. My husband and I proceeded to pick them up to carry them out front when we were informed that you were driving a Honda Civic. Insisting that you could fit one chair in and then come back for the rest, you squeezed about 4 inches of the chair into the car as the passenger held on tight to the 90% of the chair that was dangling on the outside. Many months have since passed and we have yet to see you stoners again. In my mind, there are 4 likely reasons as to why we have not seen you girls again:

1) You simply forgot where you got the chair and why you even wanted it in the first place and have been mesmerized by an Abbazabba wrapper ever since.

2) You forgot that they were free and are currently piled (along with 3 or 4 friends) on the single chair, passing the dutch and laughing about how you got away with a free chair.

3) On your way home, you forgot where you lived and are still driving around with that damn chair dangling out the window. In which case, am willing to wait a little longer for you to find your way home because I’m certain that once you do, you’ll come back for the rest.

4) You smoked the chair.

Either way, it is quite annoying having 3 chairs and I have found that it is much harder giving away a set of 3 than a set of 4. Admittedly, it will be hard to re-post these chairs because every time I see them I think of the two of you and wonder just what exactly became of that lone chair. I hope that whatever you did with it, it was well enjoyed.

Godspeed, you crazy potheads.

A pair of large black and white birds was running on top of the water yesterday. Side by side long necks extended the birds ran wings held high(not flapping)across Canyon Lake, then dove down for a few seconds. When they surfaced they faced each other and danced together. Beak to beak, they danced on top of the water with small twigs in their beaks. Found out later this was the Western Grebe dramatic, choreographed courtship display.