Escape from Lebanon

Kingston Whig-Standard (Ontario)
July 25, 2006 Tuesday

By Carmen Abrajian

My brother, Mark, his girlfriend, Tala and I flew to Lebanon on July
6. Beirut had been rebuilt and was, according to all accounts, safe
now and beautiful. There were to be many cultural events, and even
concerts with some North American bands, and it was said that the
Beirut of the past had been reborn.

I checked carefully to make sure there were no warnings about
problems in the region and decided that now was the time to go. My
grandparents were bedridden in a Beirut nursing home and would
not live much longer, and I really wanted to see them again. I was
not told that I should register at the Canadian Embassy. In fact,
I had never heard of that, and we blithely went off on our journey,
expecting the time of our lives.

I enjoyed seeing my relatives again. It had been a few years since
I had visited Lebanon.

On July 11, I went with my aunt to the village of Anjar in the Bekaa
Valley, where my father was born. The next day, the Israelis bombed
the airport in Beirut, and my brother and his girlfriend joined us
in Anjar. No one was very concerned because the Bekaa Valley had
always been safe, even during the Lebanese civil war. We assumed the
military action was a small skirmish that would last a day or two;
some prisoners would be exchanged and life would go back to normal.
Tala’s 15-year-old sister, Rona, stayed in Beirut with her grandmother
and her aunt.

By the next day, the bombing had intensified and the roads and ports
were being bombed. Even my relatives who had lived through the civil
war and had been saying, "Don’t worry, it will all be over soon,"
were becoming concerned. Their words changed and became, "Don’t
worry, you’re safe here." We received word that Tala’s sister’s
neighbourhood in Beirut was being bombed and that she had fled to
the mountains. By now, the bombing had reached the area around Anjar,
a Christian Armenian village in the mountains east of Beirut.

The bombing was terrifying. So far, the Israelis had not bombed
the houses in Anjar, but they had bombed the road from the village
and the whole surrounding area. All night and into the morning, we
could hear the sound of planes, then silence, and then a boom that
shattered windows and shook the walls. We could not just hear the
bombs, which were deafening and like nothing I have ever heard before,
but we could feel them. The rumble and crash shook my whole body.

We all became nervous and tense. The slightest thing would have me
in tears, and night after night we could not sleep. The village next
to ours, a 10-minute drive away, was being bombed and was impossible
to reach. The road to the Syrian border had been bombed many times,
and all of the bridges in Lebanon and the road to Beirut had been
destroyed. Our little village was completely isolated.

To make matters worse, there is no bank in Anjar, we had no way to
get to one and our money was running low. Food prices had doubled,
then tripled, and now a bag of oranges cost $48 US. The supply of
meat ran out. The bakery had closed, so we had no bread and no way of
obtaining flour, rice or other staples. Gasoline was being rationed
to those brave enough to venture to the gas station on the edge of
town. We realized that the longer we stayed, the harder it would be
to leave, and our relatives would be hard-pressed to feed themselves,
let alone us.

My brother, Mark, had been trying to contact the Canadian Embassy
in Beirut four or five times a day for five days, with no success.
Luckily, at the first sign of trouble, my mother in Canada had
registered us with the embassy. She received a confirmation for Mark,
Tala and Rona, but no mention of me. She re-registered me but still
received no acknowledgment.

We still had sporadic electricity and heard on the news that Canadians
were to be evacuated in three or four days from Beirut. Could we wait
that long? Could we get to Beirut? The answer to both questions was
no. The road to Beirut had been destroyed. The road to the nearest town
was being monitored and any van on the road was being shelled. The
road to Syria, a mere 20-minute drive away, had been bombed many
times. Workers would fill in the craters and it would be bombed again.

The only respite from the roar of bombs, the flash of explosions and
the bright lights of the fires that were ignited everywhere was in the
early afternoons. I was very afraid that a bomb would hit Anjar, and
we were discussing walking through the mountains to the Syrian border.

Finally, we heard that the road to Damascus, Syria, had been reopened
temporarily, and my brother decided that we should risk the trip. We
tried to hire a taxi, but the taxi drivers wanted between $178 and $200
US per person for the trip. That was completely beyond our means. Not
only could we not get to a bank but the banks were closed in our
area anyway and the ATMs were empty. A friend of a friend offered
to drive us for considerably less money, and less than an hour after
our decision to leave had been made, we were on the road. It was more
than 44 degrees Celsius; five of us and our luggage were packed into
a small car that, like almost all cars in Lebanon, was without air
conditioning. The driver drove as quickly as he could, although the
road was jammed with cars and people heading for the border.

We eventually arrived, safe and sound, to a scene of chaos at the
border. Women and men were pushing, shoving, arguing and yelling.
Women with babies in strollers were using the strollers as weapons
to batter and shove anyone in their way. The desperation to leave
was only too evident.

Women and men were sent to different rooms to get their visas. A Syrian
visa for Canadians and British nationals cost $56 US, but for Americans
it cost $16 US. We had spent about $400 US and we were almost broke.

The first restaurant we found at Damascus airport was out of food,
and we had a long wait for a flight. No one seemed to know when we
could get a flight out, but seven hours later we were on our way home
via Germany.

I am very glad to be home and appreciate much more the safe society
we have here. I do feel irrationally guilty about leaving friends and
relatives in Lebanon behind, although I know that I could be of more
assistance here than there. Tala’s sister, Rona, is still waiting in
Beirut to be evacuated. My two American friends and their parents are
still in Anjar. Another Canadian girlfriend and her fiancé are unable
to leave, as are a family of five in the village next to Anjar who
are from Kingston.

Whatever the reason for this war, and no matter who is the instigator,
the people of Lebanon are the innocent victims. They are guilty only
of having a new and weak government that has not yet acquired the
strength to deal with Hezbollah. It is tragic that a city that was
so beautiful and that had been rebuilt with such love and dedication
should be destroyed. Israel and Hezbollah have to share the blame,
but Lebanon and her innocent civilians are the victims.

Carmen Abrajian lives on Howe Island.

GRAPHIC: Carmen Abrajian (left),her mother Janet and her brother
Mark enjoy better days with Mark’s girlfriend, Tala el-Bakri, on Howe
Island. Carmen, Mark and Tala found themselves stranded in Lebanon amid
the current warfare until they managed to get out via Damascus, Syria.

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