deborah amos, thanks for joining us. there were reports today of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of protestors in the streets around syria. what was it like where you've been. >> well there are actually competing demonstrations here in the capitol you may be able to hear there was a mass rally of support for president bashar al-assad, this country is far from unified there were huge protest, opposition people say the biggest yet after 15 weeks of protests, in particular in the city of hama. they say there were 200,000 people in the streets there. the security police and the army have withdrawn three weeks ago from the city of hama. so they can do whatever they want there. and they do. we talked to a man tonight who said that the young people clean the streets after the protest even picking up the cigarette butts, so hama is essentially running it self. we were also for the first time ever taken to a protest by our government escort. they tokus ao suburb a of damascus, small suburb called barza and they a