hit hard versus devastated

Saddiqine, South Lebanon
Originally uploaded by marcynewman.

This week my trip to South Lebanan taught me the difference between a village that was hit hard compared to a village that was devastated. Civilian Resistance in Lebanon visited some new villages this week (well, new to me) and thus we drove through new villages as well. Most of the main highways and roads are still under construction and forbidden to drive on because bridges remain in two pieces in several places. But some of the big craters in the roads have been not only filled up but also paved over a bit. People are working so diligently and quickly. (Note to FEMA: you might want to visit Lebanon and observe how a country actually makes sure its citizens are taken care of after a disaster, whether natural or man-made).

After we passed through Sur (Tyre) we drove towards Qana, the site of a devastating massacre in 1996 and again this year, both at the hands of the Israelis. This is not a village that was hit too hard, though the number of people who died was high. But just a few minutes down the road from Qana is Saddiqine which is on the verge of not existing. Unlike the other villages we visited last time, which all had a great deal of demolished and partially demolished buildings and homes, this village was leveled as you can see from the rubble in the photograph above. Much of the rubble has been and is being cleared away every day so I'm sure it looks better than it did even a week ago. It is unbelievable to see how quickly and easily Israeli occupation forces can wipe out a community without giving it a moment's thought. This village was home to one family who, upon trying to leave, was wiped out sans one; one of the daughters had had one of the highest tawjihi (final matriculation exam) scores in Lebanon, but she never lived to find out. The village has too much devastation for small groups like ours to support in any real way; it has been adopted, I believe, by one of the Gulf countries to help it rebuild. But that's only after all the rubble gets cleared away.

Our main work for the day was meeting with people in the village of Zebqine, which was hit quite hard. Our work there was primarily to help build a bakery because it is too hard for deliveries of bread to come all the way from Sur because of the road damage. We found a space that we want to rehabilitate and one of the people from the village will bake the bread and the municipality will help us to distribute the bread to each of the village's families every day. Of course, our work was also to educate the municipality about the boycott of Israel and we will be holding a meeting to present our plan of particular targeted companies (Nestle, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi, Phillip Morris) in the coming weeks. We also worked on our proposal for school twinning with schools in Beirut and the north. This program should be fantastic as it connects children across Lebanon and helps them to learn about the different contexts in which they live while buidling relationships among the children.

We ended the day with more activities for the children of Sila'a. We did more fingerpainting and storytelling along with games such as potato sack races and musical chairs.

Of course, it is Ramadan so our activities had to end earlier than usual. We ended our evening in the village of Houla, which is about 5 kilomters from the Israeli border, where we had a fabulous iftar. From our friend's home we could see the lights of El Manara, a Lebanese village that is now under Israel's control. In fact, much of the village of Houla itself is under Israeli occupation as well, including some of the lands that belonged to my friend's grandfather. My friend's home itself was bombed by the Israelis in this war and there is a large crater in her family's upstairs roof in what used to be a kitchen.

I know that much of the news of Lebanon, and Ghaza for that matter, has faded from U.S. media altogether. While it may seem to the rest of the world that things are back to normal because UNIFIL forces are here things are far from normal in the South. In the past week UNIFIL troops from France and Ghana continued the pattern of acting passively and allowing Israel to do what it wishes. This includes re-drawing the border to take over more Lebanese villages and land, and, of course, water. Israelis are already laying pipes to confiscate Lebanese water and no one--neither here nor in the international community--seem to be doing or saying anything about it. The cease fire is not working and something must be done before they complete their new occupation and theft.

Salam--