When I think of happier days in Syria, nothing brings a bigger smile to my face than memories of the Halab Hash House Harriers.
I first ran a Hash House Harrier event on the east coast of Malaysia in 1978. I was in a little village and saw signs with HHH so I followed them and soon found a group of Brits, Malays and others loosening up. They invited me to join them on their run. It was the most chaotic run I had ever done. There was no set path. We followed ‘droppings’ of the hares. When we found the droppings, someone would shout ‘On, On, On’ and all others would follow. But the hares would be sneaky and lead us into deadends or ‘onbacks’. I ended up winning that ‘race’ as I thought it was a competition but for all my efforts I was presented a cold beer and asked to sing a song.
I had forgotten about Hash House Harriers until one day a group of us ICARDA ex-pats were kicking back on the beach in Arzuz, Turkey in April 1992 and somehow the topic of the Hash Hash Harriers was brought up. John ‘Big Bird’ Peacock shared his stores of hashing in India while I recounted my story in Malaysia. Soon we were all excited and laying the groundwork for the Halab Hash House Harriers.
The first thing we did upon returning to ICARDA was to enlist Ben Wedeman as Hash Scribe. He could put a spin on anything and sell it to the masses. Ben wrote a piece in the ICARDA newsletter to promote the first run on 8 May 1992.
On the day, John Peacock, Marnie Leybourne and I served as the inaugural hares and laid the first course in the Byzantine dead cities near Bab Al-Hawa.
After the course was ready, John and I opened the first of many beers of the day and waited. We had no idea if anyone would come as it has been a cool and drizzly day. We waited and then drank some more beer and then we waited some more. Finally off in the distance I could see a big white ICARDA bus coming up the hill followed by a string of cars. On On On, we yelled. Soon, there were kids and dads and moms and Indians and Syrians and Brits and Germans and even Americans piling out of the bus and out of their cars. More than 50 people showed up for our first Hash!
On! On!
Hash 1 – Bab al-Hawa – 8 May 1992
Hash 2 – Afrin River – 23 May 1992
Hash 3 – Ain Dara, 20 June 1992
Hash 7 – Cyrhus – 7 November 1992
The Halab Hash House Harriers held Hash 7 on 7 November 1992 at the Greek, and later, Roman, ruins of Cyrhus in northern Syria near the Afrin River.
