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By Jay Attiyah
A town that has been blessed in many ways, engraved its foot in the pages of history. Resistant people that built everything they have from nothing but
.heart and soul, sacrificing their lives to defeat their country starting with the Ottoman Empire and French occupations to this day
Our grandparents had to hide grain to have a loaf bread, for everyone in town to share a hot meal. You have to admire the intelligence of the old farmers when they decided to divide the common shared properties among the town’s families in an even and fair way, other towns are currently using the same system that our grandparents used nearly fifty years ago
I'm sure you all remember when we used to knock at the neighbors doors late at night to get a mix of different fruit or borrow loaves of bread from each other when guests came unexpectedly from another town or stay over, because shops used to close early. We did this just to live up to our own standard of generosity. And we all remember when the town recruited young men to defend the Badwin’s attacks on our properties. All the men that I know did this courageous thing wanting to defend the land with their own lives
Most of us remember when other towns used to send their students to study in Fairouzah, of course, churches played a role in setting up the high school, decades ahead of neighboring villages. The town was, and is, to this day, the only town in Syria to actually pay to have electricity in town which began in the early 70's
Setting up a clinic in a small town was a great task, but our grandparents did it with their hard work. No doubt they had differences, but they still managed to put that little town and it's kid's benefits ahead of their own differences. The town produced a good crew of educated men that worked in farms and studied, because they realized to be educated, is the only way to
advance. And they played a big role in teaching throughout Syria, that town produced many students that were competing for first placements in all Syria for many years, and then, the idea of immigration started
A Sadadi Wiseman once told me," Fairouzan people out smarted us twice, the first time when they immigrated west toward the city and second when they immigrated to the Americas, 50 years ahead of everyone’s vision." Reality proves that we are leaders and successful people anywhere we go, we adapt to any new systems faster than anyone
When a Jordanian man met my Grandpa in the old Hollywood church in the 80's, he asked him, " what kind of work do AHALI FAIROUZAH do in Syria, to have all this money and succeed in the United States?" My Grandfathers response was, "We are all farmers and the success that you see here, it is all produced in the US. Our town, still small, still has dirt roads and old
houses made from LIBIN (adobe bricks) but our kids come here and work very hard." The other man responded, "You mean they don’t bring anything with
them from Fairouzah?" The response to that was, proudly, " We bring our respect and our love for one another."
The first generation worked very , very hard to establish what we all have right now. They invented their own internal policies to solve our problems within our own arbitrations, a system we still use today. Passionately helping newcomers , welcoming them to their houses in addition to the financial support, teaching the new rules in the new world. After they started making a good living, they thought they wanted to give their kids what they did not have. The new generation that was born here have had their share of problems, yes , but let’s always look at the bright side.
First we
learned from our own mistakes, second, since Fairouzah still in our hearts, we decided to keep in touch with the town and have our kids see at first hands it is like to be A FAIROUZAN, third, in all reality, look at all of our accomplishments, we have doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, authors, lots of graduates in business and math, computer technicians. We even have a space tech programmers. No other town can claim these accomplishments yet. I would like all of us to remember our roots and look at the capital we have produced. Motivate the new comers and the new generations to be proud and encourage them to do better, and overcome differences we may face together like our grandparents did in the past. Encourage them to do more because they have the support and
opportunities their parents did not have
No matter where you live, and if you have any FAIROUZAN roots ,
" " IT IS WRITTIN ON YOUR HEART SOMEWHERE, FAWARZAY ALL THE WAY,
be proud
منقول من موقع الجمعيه الفيروزه الاميريكيه FAA
الإثنين مارس 19, 2012 12:26 pm
