The Days Add Up Stuck
May 8th-May 10th, 2008
I lay entangled within Nadim’s arms and legs. I had already read as much as I could online talked to as many people that I could about what was happening and the clarity was as confused as the gunshots around me. They sprang out from every direction, as RPG’s raged in the distance. It was so unclear as to what was happening and who was being targeted. Sleep was also impossible, so I lay awake letting the noises wash over me, counting Nadim’s breaths.
I began to think of all the things I had still “planned” on doing, and that John Lennon quote sank in deeply as I finally began to understand the meaning of it. Life is what happens when a war disrupts your plans and shocks you back into reality. I was going to get my first tattoo here, I was going to live in the Chouf for a month on the Eco- Village, volunteering with Nadim. I just received my Loan check- I was going to get presents for people, and bring spices home. My biggest sadness is not spending more time with my Tata’s sister, the light of her life, hearing the song of her voice.
Sometime in the night, lightening filled the sky, and the saturated clouds released the pent up pain and frustration, as my body released in its cyclical monthly patterns. I began anew on the eve of war. At 5am, twelve hours after the shooting began, the world around me quieted, whimpering now and then with shooting always more shooting. My eyes finally fell back into my dreams and my ears closed off the sounds around me. I kept waking, wondering if it would still be too late to get back to Hamra, my neighborhood- my friend Muhanad’s words stuck to the insides of my head, “I love Hamra at dawn just dripping with life, and at midnight when I’m drunk and stumble home; her arms welcome me. But in the afternoon Hamra, man, she alienates me with the incessant beeping and the running into people.” – and when her roads are set with checkpoints that won’t let you pass.
As it turned out the roads back to my place were blocked with militia -men, as Hezbollah had taken over in the night. The death toll reported on every news channel and newspapers were only 10 or 11 people, the injured was 30. You would have thought from the sounds at night there were hundreds just in Zarif, where I was.
But this was a day ago and already there have been clashes between Druze and Shia raising the death toll to 30 people. The language coming from either party does not look promising – whilst March 14, represented by Fouad Siniora, at this point, is calling the take over an act of terrorism, Hezbollah says they won’t let up until the government engages in dialogue with them. And, on top of that Israel was quoted in a NY Times article, for the sake of including Israel in conversation about Lebanon’s possible civil war- because we remember how well that went twenty years ago, as saying that they are patrolling the northern borders but do not ‘want to add fuel to the fire.’ But will they keep their word? I mean if Hezbollah is actually in control of Lebanon, will Israel not say something along the lines of “For the sake of national security…”
Neither side seems to be letting up, and everyone else is caught in between. It is absolutely ridiculous, that the government has ignored the problem this long; where was the foresight? Most people that I have talked with, in Lebanon, saw something like this coming; why didn’t the government? And, is Hezbollah making a mistake in these actions- could this ineffectually bring us closer to a war with Israel?
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