After what seemed like ages, their mother suddenly burst through the door. Though she had been only minutes away, it had taken her over an hour in a taxi to get through the checkpoints and back to the house. She looked exhausted, and worry filled her eyes as they darted from Ayat and the grandchildren to Hamudi, then to Doaa, Saja, and Nawara, assuring herself that everyone was safe. Hamudi ran to her and she knelt and gathered him into her chest as the rest of the girls swarmed around them, throwing their arms around their mother. “It looks like doomsday outside. Where’s Shokri?” Hanaa asked breathlessly, scanning the room and noticing her husband’s absence.
The family dreaded the worst. What if Shokri had been picked up in the ensuing chaos outside and was thrown in jail? For hours the family waited, peering through the front window, trying to see as far down the street as they could. Doaa tried to convince herself that her father was just delayed at checkpoints as her mother had been, but worry nagged at her. Finally, the girls glimpsed him through the window, hunched over and hurriedly pushing his bike toward the house. His usually immaculate clothes were rumpled and his dark hair was damp with sweat. Hanaa rushed to open the door for him. Once inside, he looked around the room just as Hanaa had done, counting everyone inside, relieved to see his entire family safe. The family gathered around him as he told them about the soldiers he had seen around town in key positions, prepared to attack at a moment’s notice. He glanced at Ayat and her children. “It’s too dangerous for you to go home. You’ll have to stay the night.”
As the sky darkened outside, Doaa went to switch on a lamp to brighten the room, but nothing happened. She tried two more lamps before realizing that the electricity had been cut off. Hanaa then went to the kitchen to make some tea, but only a few drops of water dripped from the spout; running water had also been shut off. Confused, she returned to the living room and gathered Hamudi into her lap as Doaa, Saja, and Nawara stared out the windows. They watched apprehensively as the soldiers outside seemed to settle in for a long stay, leaning against the tanks parked right outside the door. The family slowly began to realize that this situation could be more permanent than they had anticipated.
Shokri turned on their battery-operated radio and tuned in the news to learn more.
Daraa is under siege, the broadcaster announced. The army has been sent to root out the terrorists who are trying to destroy the country.
A cloud settled over the family as this news sank in and they began to wonder how this would affect their daily lives.
Later that night as the rest of the family went to sleep, Doaa lay awake, unable to ignore the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. She lay as still as she could and listened to the sounds of Saja and Nawara breathing deeply next to her, as the laughter and shouts of the soldiers echoed outside. Finally, she drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened at 4:30 a.m. by the alarm she had set to wake her for morning prayers. She reached out toward the clock, and just as her fingers pressed down on the button to shut off the alarm, the few lights that had been on when the electricity was cut flickered back on. The electricity must have been turned on again just at that moment when her alarm rang. Disoriented, Doaa sat on her bed for a moment, trying to gather her wits about her, then suddenly she heard screams and the rattle of gunfire in the street. Jolted alert by these disturbing sounds, Doaa dashed to the front window to find people running in the streets and the tanks moving. Ayat joined her at the window, and soon the whole family was gathered around, watching in terror as the security forces began to smash into people’s houses. Men and boys as young as eleven were being rounded up in the street and forced to put their arms behind their backs and to walk with their heads bowed. The soldiers shoved them into cars, shouting at them that they were terrorists.
Shaken by what they saw, Doaa’s family decided to turn to the Quran for comfort. They forced themselves away from the windows and gathered in the living room, trying to read their morning prayers together, as it dawned on them all that the siege would not end soon.
Later that morning, Hanaa began to plan how the family would get by on what she had in the kitchen—some leftover bits of cheese, yogurt, and salad in the refrigerator, along with a few things she kept in the cupboard: jam, pickles, olives, and some canned vegetables. She found a bag of rice, but remembered that there was no water to cook it with. On top of that, Ayat and her children still couldn’t go home, so the little food they did have would have to stretch to feed three more people. After taking stock, Hanaa quickly decided that the family would have to make do with only one small midday meal until they were able to leave the house again to gather more food.