Syria: Love is in Stuttgart · Global Voices
Yazan Badran

Forget politics, Obama or the economic crisis. The new buzz in the Syrian blogosphere is about love.
Mariyah, a Syrian blogger from Damascus, has been playing with the hearts of her readers with the most delicate series of posts about the story of Ghassan and Alexandra.
It all starts on one cold evening in the winter of 1955 in Stuttgart, Germany:
There was something to be said for poise. As the other women became increasingly loud, a petite, fair skinned woman sat quietly watching and smiling. She was clearly enjoying the entertainment but seemed shy and reserved – too much so to become involved in the conversation. Her large, blue eyes glistened with intelligence and her diminutive features gave her a look of a porcelain doll. Her auburn hair glistened red as the light from the fireplace threw an amber glow around her. Ghassan observed that she was well dressed but not ostentatious. When she did speak, her voice was quiet – he couldn’t hear it from his table. Ghassan found, as the evening wore on, that he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
We are never explicitly told, but we do sense that Ghassan and Alexandra are actually, Mariyah‘s father and mother, which makes the story all the more compelling.
“Guten tag. Can I help you sir?” she cooed from beside him. “Something for the pretty lady?”
Ghassan could not help but look surprised. Had his facial expressions reflected his thoughts of Alexandra to the extent an old woman, a stranger, could recognize? He had intended to buy flowers but only as a way to further his study of this woman whom he now believed far wiser than he could have imagined.
“Yes, yes of course. What do you suggest?” Ghassan attempted to speak as smoothly as he could muster.
“Red, dear, accented with a touch of purple. And, of course, blue to highlight her eyes.” The woman replied easily.
Ghassan was flabbergasted. “How? How did you know?”
Mariyah‘s beautiful writing, along with her most timely story breaks has captured the imagination of the readers, leaving them asking for more after each part.
She even decided to better set the mood with some music from those rosy days of the Ghassan and Alexandra's winter of 1955.
You can find all the published parts here. We are now at Part 5, and waiting, patiently, for part 6!