Filming qanats
Filming
and living in the Syrian
From
1997 until the beginning of 2002 I lived in
It
was during one of these trips that our research assistant
After
the first visit, Robert, my husband who is hydrogeologist,
and me spent a lot of our time out in Little Waterfall. We developed a friendly
relationship with the villagers and in the weekends we liked to go out of the
busy city of
Mohammed Khayr checking out the tunnel The village from above Our
trophy, a Byzantine oillamp !
The project of cleaning the water tunnel of Little Waterfall
was developed whenMohammed Khayr, main character of the film, pointed out to me
that he and hisfamily wanted to clean out the tunnel. But they did not have the
financialmeans. His father was the one that first showed us the blocked
airshafts.Afterwards we made a trans-sect through the tunnel and saw the
problems thatwere evident.
After
several meetings with the village elders and preparing the plan for cleaning,
we translated their workplan in language that was suitable for international
donors. And together with ICARDA, we managed to raise enough funds to actually help
Mohammed Khayr andhis family to start up the renovation. When it was secured,
the villagers appointed Mohammed Khayr to be the team leader.
When
we started to do the development work in the
The
house itself was made of mudbrick and located next to a sheep bin, I had
sometimes nice company ofsheepnoses peeking through the small airholes. The
house was an old house, inLittle Waterfall when someone leaves or dies, people
do not re-use the housebut leave it empty until the winds and rains take the
mud and the house iseroded.
Living
in this villagewithout electricity, running water or sanitation facilities it
meant going backto basics. My house was located on the slopes of the hills and
a bit far thewater outlet of the tunnel. This meant that every morning and
evening I had
Another
issue was going tothe toilet. The villagers usually walk up in the valley or
women go and sitwith the sheep in their bin. Sometimes, old houses are
designated areas. So oneof my first tasks when I arrived was building a toilet
for myself in an abandonedmudbrick house.
Having
solved the basics, itwas a wonderful experience to have been able to share the daily lives of
these families for so long. We usuallyshared morning and evening meals with
neighbours and I learned a lot on how tomilk sheep, prepare butter, make bread
in a traditional oven and simply sitwith the women and talk about life.
Basically, the villagers became sort offamily and we will hopefully keep in
touch for many more years.
The
making of Tunnel Vision took several years from the cleaning in the summer of
2000, through to thenational survey of these tunnels in