Syria's Beehive Houses
You can see "Beehive" houses in northern Syria, west and east of Aleppo and along the Euphrates River. Small houses made of mud brick and shaped like beehives. Tour leader, Deidre, always took photos of the villagers and brought them back for distribution. Talk about a welcome when they spotted our Explore group! Think about promises you may have made to a person in a third world country about "sending their picture to them." If you promised, send it! It may be the only photograph they'll ever have of themself or their family.
A small, true, photography story. Sue, Explore tour leader in Cambodia, was handing out photographs from her previous visit in this village when one woman burst into tears. Her child had died since Sue's last visit and now she had the one-and-only photograph to remember him. If that doesn't inspire you to send photographs, nothing will.
The houses are usually clustered into villages but a family may own quite a few beehive houses. One for his family, some for animals, a kitchen beehive, granary beehive, and on and on.
We visited two beehive villages and one "wealthy" man had an entire complex interconnected by mud-brick walls...
There is a single, dark opening into the house and it was amazing once in to see all the brightly colored quilts used for sleeping, stacked neatly on shelves...View image... during the daytime. The woman of this house was proud to show off the inside of her big beehive house with its combined kitchen/sleeping area. She did not have to go into a smaller, separate beehive to do her cooking...no siree! Every house was kept spotlessly clean (wish I could say the same about my home). The thick mud-brick walls keeps them warm in the winter, cool in the summer and repairs are simple. Mix up some new mud and slather on.
Most women wore long dresses of in shades of red/magenta and had at least one gold tooth - a status symbol. They instantly ran to make everyone tea while oohing and aahing over Deidre's photos. And then proudly posed for still more photographs..
I understand that many of these villages now have electricity and televisions. Good for them. Bad for us photographers. Still, try to visit one of these unique Beehive villages and send back their photos!
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