mariam m - my mother
Ramroumeh,
I loved hearing your voice more than usual this time. I was wearing your perfume. You know how I am with smells. They are vehicles that carry me to pesudo-realities. You were with me, hearing your voice and smelling your scent. I needed only to kiss you..hug you..my hungry arms wer burning in pain...But what is this pain compared to that of Im Hassan's; one of 16 people who loged,nay, took shelter in the last house of the row of houses distributed in our street in the mountains.
I went to visit with them in the evening after your call. Over a cup of coffee that they insisted to prepare on the one-eyed cooker they managed to find.
They were all around me telling me about their house in the village. About the orchard of peaches, the vine trees that they made sure to have all the varieties that the soil in that area can grow. They elaborated much about the flowers. The Aunt’s eyes filled with proud tears as she counted all the perinials and annuals her many pots were flooded with."people would stop and enjoy looking at my flowers she said in a hissing voice as if she moved there physically and became too far to be heard...
But still, the strongest illicitor of my sympathy was Im Hassan's dream. "You know what I dreamt last night?" She said fixing her head scarf, never losing eye contact. She managed to steel me away from the other commentors,
"I dreamt I was there, in the house Biddayaá (in The Vllage; a figure of speech a lebanese uses to say he is talking about his own village he does not need to say its name, It means: my own home town, but in one word). I could tell she was like me, living a pseudo-reality very well!
"I was there, sweeping its floor, cleaning its windows, watering the plants. I even cooked stuffed squash and vine leaves. ( I know you will like that one reem). "I smelled it" she said sniffing with her nostrils. "I said who says we are still away? here we are back to our house and land. I was very happy, very happy, then I woke up to find myself here!"
She said the last word rolling her very sad eyes around the place. A shabby house battered like an old tomato by the Israilies in 1982 (the year you were born Reem). It belongs to a Kuwaiti family that was not interested to repair it, unlike the rest of the street of which one belonged to my sister and her family where we are staying. It has a door like plane of unfinished wood at its main entrance. The holes on both sides that were once country style windows are covered now with sheets of plastic to give some privacy and shelter to whoever occupies the rooms in the first floor. The space where we were sitting is actually a strip of dirt linked to a flight of stairs of best stones that can be afforede by a rich owner.
On our left five or six strips of rope stretched heavily loaded with all kinds of colored clothes like flags. Flags that nowadays reveals that the inhabitants are Nazeheen, internal refugees.
Those proud Nazeheen came all the way from one of the furthest villages. It took them three days to arrive here sleeping in their van on the road. Their youngest is two years old. The son of a guard in the army. The eldest is the aunt Munira who loves her flowers, 70 years unmarried limping woman.
Ramroumteh,
I could not finish my letter to you yesterday. I was supposed to goaround in Alay (the next town over) to where the Nazeheen are with your Aunt Latifi and Im Hassan that I told you about. They went to try to enlighten them of sanitary measurements they need to follow to keep disease away. But this did not happen. I received a call from a friend of mine in Beirut and your Aunt Laila that there is great need for cotton covers for the bare sponge mattresses theNazeheen there are using. The heat and moist together with lack of washing hasencouraged Scabies to flourish. Lice has formed another front to fight on...
I simply came back from the gas station where I managed to secure a couple of gallons to spare for the shortage everybody is expecting. I left those at home and rushed to Im Hassan to cancel my appointememnt with her. Luckily, in Beirut, we found a textile shop which Auntie Fadia directed me to. She also is providing for a school of 300 people!
I managed to buy two meters of cloth for each mattress. i found enough tocover 56 of them. Elderly ladies needed some Kuftans as they came withnothing except the clothes that were on them when they managed to escapetheir bombarded areas. I found some 40 of them in a shop. Trials to findsome more failed. They are disappearing form the shelves. The roads toSyria are all hit. The last one was hit this morning so bad that all trips stopped.
Anyway, we managed to get those neccessary items to their destination only to wake up this morning to more bad news and catastrophic scenes. I was getting ready to go for a cup of coffee in Verdun Beirut near our house.
I missed the days of peace. I picked up the phone to call Aunt Fadia to ask her to meet me there like the days before this war! (it seems like months ago not just over two weeks!)
I was infront of Aljazeera screen which was on mute at the moments and I read the subtitles..."Another massacre in Qana...20 children at least underrubble.."" by the time I felt my tears rolling down my cheeks the numberjumbed to 30 then 40. Now they talk of 55 casualties...I couln't lastlong infront of the screen.
Tears were replaced by great great anger.. It resonated with the furious comments coming out of all the people at once who gathered infront of the UN Esqua building in central Beirut.
Too bad the UN is a tool for the Americans it seems. None of the resolutions agaunst Israel were ever implimented. And when it comes to a resolution directed towards the non-Israelis in the area, wars are wedged...and normal life destroyed...People are very bitter and angry. To think that with morecasualties and losses ordinary people are going to turn againstNasrallah, is a phantom myth. They become more supportive and more defensive of him as Israel continues to massacre us. Israel and America for that matter( no one differentiate between the two now!) is losing the public opinion war very quickly.
A peace between Israel and Lebanon is becoming more and more remote to establish.I am going to and fro between the two screens. The tv and the computer.Things today are escalating with the pictures coming from Qana whererescuers are pulling out one body after another. Even at the café where Papa meets his friends on Sundays news was coming continuously.
He just came in. I was surprised that he already heard of Qana's massacre, of the refusal to meet Condaliza Rice declared by Sinioura, and of the UN Esquademonstrations tha fueled up after people saw more pictures of the massacre...I can imagine them jumping up from infront of their tv or radio sets and spontaneously rushing to the nearest link to the outsideworld community: The Escwa building...
Word of mouth has become a very effective tool these days especially when electricity is out and some communiction means and cell phone towers are being bombed..the primitive ways and the resort to instincts can still work for people in crisis..
I’ll stop here for now. my heart is loaded oscillating between grief,insecurity and anger. All are strong leaving me too weak to make anydecision!!Love you the world. hang on..mama
I loved hearing your voice more than usual this time. I was wearing your perfume. You know how I am with smells. They are vehicles that carry me to pesudo-realities. You were with me, hearing your voice and smelling your scent. I needed only to kiss you..hug you..my hungry arms wer burning in pain...But what is this pain compared to that of Im Hassan's; one of 16 people who loged,nay, took shelter in the last house of the row of houses distributed in our street in the mountains.
I went to visit with them in the evening after your call. Over a cup of coffee that they insisted to prepare on the one-eyed cooker they managed to find.
They were all around me telling me about their house in the village. About the orchard of peaches, the vine trees that they made sure to have all the varieties that the soil in that area can grow. They elaborated much about the flowers. The Aunt’s eyes filled with proud tears as she counted all the perinials and annuals her many pots were flooded with."people would stop and enjoy looking at my flowers she said in a hissing voice as if she moved there physically and became too far to be heard...
But still, the strongest illicitor of my sympathy was Im Hassan's dream. "You know what I dreamt last night?" She said fixing her head scarf, never losing eye contact. She managed to steel me away from the other commentors,
"I dreamt I was there, in the house Biddayaá (in The Vllage; a figure of speech a lebanese uses to say he is talking about his own village he does not need to say its name, It means: my own home town, but in one word). I could tell she was like me, living a pseudo-reality very well!
"I was there, sweeping its floor, cleaning its windows, watering the plants. I even cooked stuffed squash and vine leaves. ( I know you will like that one reem). "I smelled it" she said sniffing with her nostrils. "I said who says we are still away? here we are back to our house and land. I was very happy, very happy, then I woke up to find myself here!"
She said the last word rolling her very sad eyes around the place. A shabby house battered like an old tomato by the Israilies in 1982 (the year you were born Reem). It belongs to a Kuwaiti family that was not interested to repair it, unlike the rest of the street of which one belonged to my sister and her family where we are staying. It has a door like plane of unfinished wood at its main entrance. The holes on both sides that were once country style windows are covered now with sheets of plastic to give some privacy and shelter to whoever occupies the rooms in the first floor. The space where we were sitting is actually a strip of dirt linked to a flight of stairs of best stones that can be afforede by a rich owner.
On our left five or six strips of rope stretched heavily loaded with all kinds of colored clothes like flags. Flags that nowadays reveals that the inhabitants are Nazeheen, internal refugees.
Those proud Nazeheen came all the way from one of the furthest villages. It took them three days to arrive here sleeping in their van on the road. Their youngest is two years old. The son of a guard in the army. The eldest is the aunt Munira who loves her flowers, 70 years unmarried limping woman.
Ramroumteh,
I could not finish my letter to you yesterday. I was supposed to goaround in Alay (the next town over) to where the Nazeheen are with your Aunt Latifi and Im Hassan that I told you about. They went to try to enlighten them of sanitary measurements they need to follow to keep disease away. But this did not happen. I received a call from a friend of mine in Beirut and your Aunt Laila that there is great need for cotton covers for the bare sponge mattresses theNazeheen there are using. The heat and moist together with lack of washing hasencouraged Scabies to flourish. Lice has formed another front to fight on...
I simply came back from the gas station where I managed to secure a couple of gallons to spare for the shortage everybody is expecting. I left those at home and rushed to Im Hassan to cancel my appointememnt with her. Luckily, in Beirut, we found a textile shop which Auntie Fadia directed me to. She also is providing for a school of 300 people!
I managed to buy two meters of cloth for each mattress. i found enough tocover 56 of them. Elderly ladies needed some Kuftans as they came withnothing except the clothes that were on them when they managed to escapetheir bombarded areas. I found some 40 of them in a shop. Trials to findsome more failed. They are disappearing form the shelves. The roads toSyria are all hit. The last one was hit this morning so bad that all trips stopped.
Anyway, we managed to get those neccessary items to their destination only to wake up this morning to more bad news and catastrophic scenes. I was getting ready to go for a cup of coffee in Verdun Beirut near our house.
I missed the days of peace. I picked up the phone to call Aunt Fadia to ask her to meet me there like the days before this war! (it seems like months ago not just over two weeks!)
I was infront of Aljazeera screen which was on mute at the moments and I read the subtitles..."Another massacre in Qana...20 children at least underrubble.."" by the time I felt my tears rolling down my cheeks the numberjumbed to 30 then 40. Now they talk of 55 casualties...I couln't lastlong infront of the screen.
Tears were replaced by great great anger.. It resonated with the furious comments coming out of all the people at once who gathered infront of the UN Esqua building in central Beirut.
Too bad the UN is a tool for the Americans it seems. None of the resolutions agaunst Israel were ever implimented. And when it comes to a resolution directed towards the non-Israelis in the area, wars are wedged...and normal life destroyed...People are very bitter and angry. To think that with morecasualties and losses ordinary people are going to turn againstNasrallah, is a phantom myth. They become more supportive and more defensive of him as Israel continues to massacre us. Israel and America for that matter( no one differentiate between the two now!) is losing the public opinion war very quickly.
A peace between Israel and Lebanon is becoming more and more remote to establish.I am going to and fro between the two screens. The tv and the computer.Things today are escalating with the pictures coming from Qana whererescuers are pulling out one body after another. Even at the café where Papa meets his friends on Sundays news was coming continuously.
He just came in. I was surprised that he already heard of Qana's massacre, of the refusal to meet Condaliza Rice declared by Sinioura, and of the UN Esquademonstrations tha fueled up after people saw more pictures of the massacre...I can imagine them jumping up from infront of their tv or radio sets and spontaneously rushing to the nearest link to the outsideworld community: The Escwa building...
Word of mouth has become a very effective tool these days especially when electricity is out and some communiction means and cell phone towers are being bombed..the primitive ways and the resort to instincts can still work for people in crisis..
I’ll stop here for now. my heart is loaded oscillating between grief,insecurity and anger. All are strong leaving me too weak to make anydecision!!Love you the world. hang on..mama
posted by Reem at 2:10 AM
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