Essay on The Story of Zouka, a Woman with Courage

My Guardian It was a fall morning in Aleppo, Syria in 1979. At 4:00 A.M. the prayer horns were ringing loudly in the streets as they did everyday. A mother lay in bed wide -awake all night, and jumped at the first hymn of prayer. She had been so accustomed to hearing it every day of her life, as her home in Aleppo was the only place she had ever known. Only this time it felt different. This time the speakers seemed to be playing louder than she had ever heard them before. It was no normal morning. The humming in her ear did not faze her, it only reminded her that it had to be the last time she’d ever hear it again. No longer could she wake up to the sound that, to her, symbolized the repression of her entire gender. A new life had to†¦show more content†¦They would scream, yell, argue, and frustrate each other on a daily basis. Yet at the end of the day, they would always care and love one another. The Toubbas lived together in a household where rage and serenity coincided in perfect harmony. Although it might seem dysfunctional, such a combination was able to thrive even considering the world around them. There was a very interesting dynamic between the members of the house. The maid was the closest person to the children in the family. This was primarily because each child felt an emotional disconnect when it came to their mother, and the father worked long hours during weekdays, which didn’t allow him too much time to foster a relationship with his two young children. In the upstairs portion of the house in which the Toubba family resided, there were three bedrooms that remained interconnected a long hallway. At the end of the hallway, there was Asim and Zouka’s bedroom. Then, near the beginning of the hallway was Karim’s room, and Lana’s room lay directly in the middle of her younger brother and parents’ room. As usual, Hitzvah was the first one to wake. She’d make sure the house was ready for everyone before their day started. Her morning routine was to prepare breakfast, set the table, ready Asim’s coffee, and get the tea pot boiling two minutes before the clock hit six so that Zouka would receive her daily dose of chamomile in stride as she turned the corner from the hallway to the