Waterwheel at Hama Syria
Hama, Syria 2010
Teen-aged boys horse around on one of the waterwheels of Hama, Syria. No baton waving official came to remonstrate with them, no bystander warned them that they might come to harm, no one took the parents to court charging them with child endangerment. Apparently there is freedom in Syria after all.
These old waterwheels are called norias. There is a bucket at the end of each spoke that lifts the water from the Orontes river and dumps it into an adjacent aqueduct. These are said to date from the 12th or 13th century. As they turn, the wood groans from the stress. It’s a sound you’ve never heard before.