The morning is clear, uncomfortably hot. A couple of miles before the Lebanese border, at a checkpoint on the Syrian side northwest of Damascus, a bus sits on the shimmering blacktop, its nervous passengers waiting beside it. Syrian border guards are searching the vehicle for contraband – foreign currency, in particular.
Nazir Jaser hands his dark-blue passport to an armed man in an olive-green uniform. His stomach churns as the guard leafs through page after page of visas from Italy, Thailand, Russia, Tunisia, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkey – a compact and colorful record of the 26-year-old sprinter’s five years as the on-again, off-again captain of the Syrian national cycling team.
Jaser has made this trip plenty of times. The airport in Damascus, Syria’s capital, has been mostly closed to civilians since protests in the winter of 2011 disintegrated into a grinding, four-year civil war. Syrian athletes leaving the country usually have to travel by bus, team car, or taxi across the border with Lebanon to reach the airport in Beirut and then on to international competitions.
Today, the last day of August 2015, Jaser is holding a letter from the national cycling federation granting him a few weeks off to visit his mother in Beirut.
The guard glances over the letter and pokes through Jaser’s backpack, which contains a smartphone, flashlight, sandals, a few changes of clothes. With him are a handful of teammates and some of their relatives. His life savings are tucked away underneath the clothing of one of his travelling companions – a woman, who is less likely to be frisked by the Muslim officers.
After an agonising moment, the guard hands Jaser the documents and bag and waves him back on the bus. As it pulls away toward Beirut, Jaser turns his head for one last look east over the sunbaked desert toward home.
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