Georgia resident waited nearly 10 hours to hear his family survived earthquake
By Sawyer Buccy
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ATLANTA, Georgia (WANF) — Pain felt halfway around the world is palpable right here in our Georgia community.
When you hear about the earthquake that claimed more than 3,400 lives in Turkey and Syria, you might not think about what it is like to get calls from your siblings as they sit in another country in the cold pouring rain for hours watching the world shake and all they know crumbling apart.
”My sisters and all of their kids in the street. Most of them were in their pajamas…everyone was panicking. We were too, there is nothing we can do overseas,” said Ahmad Alzoukani owner of Mint Coffeehouse.
Many families in Atlanta have been on edge waiting to hear that their loved ones survived the earthquakes.
When you hear about the earthquake, you don’t know what it is like to wait for 10 hours just to hear that your parents survived.
When you hear about the earthquake, you don’t know what it means to lose everything when you live in Syria, when you grew up as an observer of war.
”If they lose their home, that is it. That is the only thing they have,” said Alzoukani.
Ahmad does know these realities. They are his.
“I lived my entire childhood and the beginning of my youth age in Damascus,” said Alzoukani.
Ahmad is a Syrian refugee, who came to the United States because of war, a little over 5 years ago. Last spring he opened his own business called Mint Coffeehouse.
It is thriving.
”You need to survive yourself first, so it wasn’t an easy decision to leave but I had to do it,” said Alzoukani.
When news breaks of an earthquake of this magnitude, numbers are thrown at us to show us just how vast the damage is. The people living the terror know the numbers are at the surface, and underneath the surface are people; mothers, fathers, children, educators, precious lives, and last conversations.
”In Syria, there is no opportunity for you to change anything. My sister has two daughters and a son. The four of them work just to provide food. You don’t have the chance to dream,” said Alzoukani.
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