This Is What It Was Like To Visit Syria Before The War

Share Tweet We had our visas but we were nervous. We had not yet been okayed to enter Syria and our Turkish van and driver had returned to Turkey. The minutes dragged as we tried to glimpse Meli, our Turkish guide, through gaps in the shaded windows of the Syrian border station. Would they be more responsive to a Muslim guide from Turkey than to American heathens? Might they send us back? Jail us? We hovered in the sunny, treeless parking lot, trying not to look too American.