I wrote this in the wee hours of Wednesday night. And I'm just now posting it.
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Last night was the closest I’ve come to terrorism.
Around 10 pm, May 23, a huge bomb went off in the middle of the souk of Aley. Two nights before, a bomb went off in Verdun, about 10 minutes from where I live now, and the night before, next to the ABC Shopping Mall in Ashrafiyeh. Those first two are in the most popular shopping places in Beirut. All of them went off at night. About two people died. In Aley, there were about eight injuries. No deaths.
When I was watching the news, I couldn’t make out where the building was. For at least five minutes, all I saw was the chaos. There was a sea of people in the street; the camera was jerking around all over the place. Mohamad heard from the news (Do you know how frustrating it is to need a translation of the local news?) that it was at the beginning of the souk, next to the bank. “Thank God. It’s more empty at that end, and that’s not where my friends are.”
But then when the camera got back far enough for me to make out the buildings, I saw that it was Loulwa’s building. The shop right next to her Roastery was totally blown away. But the sign on her shop was there. This isn’t at the end of the souk; it’s smack dab in the middle.
The street was filled with people, and it was night. Rola later told me that the glass was blown out of all those shops.
“When was it?”
“Around 10. Loulwa would have closed the shop by then.”
Of course, I had called the shop, before I knew that the bomb went off in that building, and no one answered. I called her niece, because she was my student last year, and for some reason, it is one of two students’ phone numbers that I have in my phone. But that line was constantly busy.
“Who was injured?”
“We’ll know tomorrow.”
Loulwa has worked in that shop for 15 years. She never goes anywhere. Always she would commend me on my “bravery.” “Here’s this foreigner who from the first day is taking the bus, the serveece, the van, going here and there, always by herself.”
She won’t go into Beirut because she’s scared. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1975, she went to New York and lived in an apartment on Riverside Drive for most of the time.
But now she passes her days in the Roastery in front of the TV watching the world go by. She says she wishes she was stronger and more courageous to try different things and go different places and be independent. But when she was in New York, she stayed home all day, and in her village of Aley, she’s in the shop all day. Completely comfortable and safe.
The world has turned upside-down.
This is terrorism. Crowded, shopping places in Beirut. . . whatever. My friend in Chouifat earlier that evening had told me. “Just stay in, Jane. Don’t go around. I want to see you guys in Beirut, but I won’t be coming into Beirut.”
Who wants to commit terrorism in Lebanon?
It’s clear they want to strike fear, and again kill the tourist industry. Aley’s whole economy revolves around the two summer months when tourists from the Gulf rent houses in the mountains. The beautiful view overlooking Beirut and the Mediterranean, the nice shopping, and the cool weather double the population of Aley. And being an Arab country, people who are veiled and wear Arab dress feel more comfortable here than in Europe, America, or other places.
Last summer, it was those Gulf tourists who were the first to clear out when Israel started bombing. For some reason, they were way more quick about the whole thing. I remember seeing them packing up their cars in the middle of the night, right after the airport was bombed.
Of course, that was the same day my dad told me on the phone, “Get your bag packed now. Be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.” And I was getting e-mails, like the funny one from my brother. “Leave. And if they block the roads and you can’t find a car—-just run!” I think he was trying to be funny.
Either way, I was like, “I’m staying here. My friends are here. Even if they’re bombing everywhere else, Aley is safe.” And Aley was safe, throughout last summer’s war.
But no one was safe from the terrorism. The Israeli/US terrorism kept people from moving. It kept my friends running into their basements in the Bekaa Valley when the bombs just got “too close.” It kept my students thinking that they would die at any moment. It made my friends hopeless. When I would call from the U.S., there were a couple weeks where all I heard on the line was pure desperation.
So who would want to terrorize Lebanon?
On Sunday, the Lebanese military started clamping down on the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al Bard and members of Fatah Islam who had robbed a bank, in order to get weapons for the impending violence. That’s been the talk now (actually all year) that weapons are coming into the country. From the moment I stepped back onto Lebanese soil in September, the conventional wisdom was “They’re waiting for the summer.”
Who? Who’s waiting? Israel? Syria? The U.S.--to expand their occupation of the Middle East and start carrying through on their plans to start WWIII with Iran?
Fatah Islam said they had 300 bombs throughout the country, and they would start igniting one a day, which is what’s been happening this week. If you ask a person from Aley, just guess what they’ll say? Oh come on, even if it’s bad weather, it’s always the same culprit—-Syria. Everything bad that happens is the Syrian’s attempt to prevent the international tribunal on the murder of Rafik Hariri from carrying out its mission. Why? It will find the whole Syrian establishment guilty.
Parents are already calling the school about leaving the country. One of my students was absent yesterday fixing his visa at the U.S. Embassy. An American who works for an NGO has been told to leave. Another teacher (who already was having visa problems) is leaving tomorrow.
A thought briefly crossed my mind about the state of my stuff. How fast can I get it packed up? Is my computer backed up?
But I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not even freaked out. Or maybe it hasn’t set in yet. But I’m going to play hooky from school today and go up to Aley. I want to see everyone.
