Among destroyed streets’ corners, he planted a nursery

SILVA MOSTAFA/ ALEPPO

The citizen Mohammed al-Jassem is 58 years old from the village of Tel Susian; a village in the eastern countryside of Aleppo city. He is married and has four children. He lives in Bedin neighborhood in Aleppo.

Bedin neighborhood as the rest of the eastern neighborhoods took its share of the destruction in the result of the battles erupted among the conflicting parties in Aleppo that turned the residential buildings into blocks of destruction and piles of rubble.

However, while strolling through the streets of Bedin neighborhood, the visitor's attention is drawn to a side street with a small orchard decorated with all kinds of roses and plants. This is what distinguishes Mohammed Jassem from the rest.

Mohammed established his nursery five years ago and named it Om al-Zehour (Mother of Flowers) whose space is ​​about 50 square meters. He planted dozens of types of flowers, plants, vegetables and fruit including fish mouth, varicose veins, night fragrance, narcissus, and vegetables; parsley, mint, eggplant, squash, tomato, fig, pomegranate, cucumber, pepper, apricot, watermelon.

From the womb of pain, he created life, and covered his streets’ corners with joy

Mohammed Jassem, the old man who created a new life from the womb of the pain. Five years ago, the idea of ​​agriculture began to creep up and he sought to carry out what was going on in his mind. The sight of the destruction that is surrounded to his street did not please him and hurt him, and that pushed him to turn his street and arches into a nursery similar to a small orchard with dozens of species of flowers and plantations.

Mohammed Jassem said, "In the period of the suffocating siege on the eastern neighborhoods, I used to help everyone who came to me and gave him the vegetables and fruit that I used to harvest from my little orchard. That orchard relieved the burden of the siege on me and many families in the neighborhood. I got the seeds of the plants from my relatives and friends."

It is also remarkable that Mohammed Jassem spends most of his time enjoying the various colors of the nursery that covered the destruction located in every corner, and listening to the ancient Aleppean and Kurdish songs to harmonize the soul with music and plants.

His passion for his homeland made him repel the fires of war

Mohammed said that his love for his homeland covers everything that he has, and he is famous for his saying among his relatives and family, "The homeland is not a handful of dust to take with you. The homeland remains." Muhammad added, "Despite the difficulties, I resisted and repelled. I did not want to get out of my country and neighborhood in spite of the threats of mercenaries to me more than once by killing me if I did not obey their orders, but I refused all that and I resisted until the liberation of our neighborhoods. "

Mohammed sent a massage to everyone who left the country saying, "The homeland is not a word, but it is the spirit. It is not a handful of dust that goes out and returns after tomorrow.  When we say the homeland, we have to stay between its folds, so that I appeal to everyone who went out of their country to return because the homeland needs its people to be built a hand in hand again.

D.H

ANHA