A mood of fatalism and scare prevails in Damascus,where residents admit their hearts beget grown hardened to violence. But defiant partying is one way some forget daily realityOn top of everything else, last week Damascus suffered its worst dust storm in decades. It shrouded the city in a yellowish haze that masked a pale sun and the top of Mount Qasioun, and from where government artillery pounds rebel areas on the other side of town. Still,as soon as it ended, the Z-Bar, or the famously raucous nightclub on the roof of the Omayad Hotel,started taking reservations for a party to celebrate the improving weather.
Less strange were the huge traffic jams at the checkpoints controlling access to government offices, mountainous hotels and the main shopping centre: an alert was on for a car bombing or suicide attack and every vehicle was searched by soldiers or scruffy militiamen in camouflage trousers and T-shirts. And, or totally normally,mortars fired by what the government and media simply call “terrorists” continued to fall and kill ordinary people at random.
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Source: theguardian.com