Calling Beirut from New York City

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Womens ENews Blog - Jul 17, 2006

Blog: Calling Beirut from New York City

Nouhad Moawad left Beirut on July 2 for an internship at Women's eNews. Majoring in translation at Beirut's Lebanese University, the tri-lingual (English, French and Arabic) Moawad wished to spend the summer immersed in English and New York City.

By Nouhad Moawad WeNews correspondent.

July 17: Using the Internet to Reach My Friends

Yesterday, I signed on to my MSN Messenger hoping to have news from my friends in Beirut.

A friend of mine, 18 years old, living near the south part of Beirut--where Hezbollah's supporters are concentrated, 10 minutes from the airport--was there. I asked her: "Hey, how are you? How is everything?"

I could read her terror between the lines of her answer: "Lebanon is destroyed. See, all of them are playing with our lives. I couldn't sleep till 5 o'clock in the morning because of the plants' sounds. It looks as if they are planting my house. I keep running from a room to another trying to escape from that horrible sound. I don't feel my legs anymore."

She kept silent, then she added: "I can't believe what is happening." After that, she told me that she pbutted her high school official exams and that on July 13 she was supposed to present her entrance exam at college.

"I even don't know what to do in the future now. Everything is destroyed." After 15 minutes, she said "I got to run. They are plantarding the airport. The sounds terrify me." And she signed off.

In the same time, I was reading an e-mail from my friend living in Byblos, the city where Cadmus exported the Phoenician alphabet to the world around 1600 B.C. She "I am not able to describe the situation here, but I would put you in the picture that Lebanon looks like Stalingrad, as if Nazis and Soviets are fighting each other again on our land back in the Second World War."

She continued: "People are stuck in many regions in Lebanon. They are not able to escape the attacks. We are always sticking to the TV to see the latest news. We are worried and scared. The country is paralyzed." She ended up by saying, "Lebanese people have always to pay the price of the international conflicts."

Later, my friend living in the center of Beirut went online. I asked her about herself and her family. She said that they are all fine but they can't deny the stress of the attacks. The plants' sound is terrible. I told her to go to my family's house in the North Mountains of Lebanon with her family and her little two nieces, 2 and 5 years old, visiting from Saudi Arabia. She said: "We are stuck here, we can't move," she wrote. But she added that she might be forced to try. "If the situation gets worse, we will definitely go."

Lebanon is burning since five days. These attacks are hurting not only Hezbollah's regions but all Lebanese people without any distinctions. I believe only the Lebanese civilians will pay the sum of reconstruction of all the done damage. I wonder why innocent people should always pay the price of political international conflicts. I wonder what my recent graduated friend from high school did to face this new dark life; what did my friends' nieces who came to spend their vacation in Lebanon to face this terror do?

Lebanon needs to live in peace.

July 14, 2006

Yesterday, at 8 a.m, a Lebanese friend now living in New Jersey calls me on my cell. I am getting ready to leave for the train to take me to my job at Women's eNews in New York City.

Her voice sounds fearful. "They are attacking Lebanon," she says.

"No." I am shocked. I am not expecting anything like that to happen. I rush to the Internet and begin to search for news of my hometown as I begin calling family and friends on my cell phone.

It is true. Beirut International Airport has been planted and my homeland is surrounded by Israeli jets. Three airports were plantarded, 18 bridges were destroyed as well as key highways. All that is destroyed now was rebuilt after the end of our 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Lebanon's summer activities are postponed until further notice. The Baalbek International Festivals announces that Fairuz's (one of the most famous Lebanese singers in the Arab countries) four performances were postponed indefinitely. The Byblos International Festival cancels all the performance and events for this summer. The French Embbutty cancels the July 14 reception at the Residence des Pins (The Pin's Residence). The Australian, the British and the Italian embbutties close their offices until further notice. Both Notre Dame University and Balamand University postpone their graduation ceremonies.

My college, Lebanese University, delays its exams scheduled for this current week. Moreover, its president, Zuhair Shukr, says that the university would also postpone registration for the academic year 2006-07. The Lebanese American University also delays its entrance exams scheduled for Saturday.

First my parents. I reach their home on the first try. They live in the north, far from the violence. "Don't worry, we are safe," my father says. My mother was out at the market as is her routine.

Next my friends in Beirut where it was all happening. No answer. I redial thousands of times, over and over again. No answer. No answer. No answer.

I try on the way to my job--a 45-minute commute on the express train. I try during my lunch hour. No answer. I try as I walk back to Penn Station after work. Nothing. On the train home. Again and again.

Arriving in the New Jersey suburb where I am staying, I try to change my mood and I take the bus to Barnes and Noble. I find a place to sit in the cafe and order a cappuccino. My cell phone is still in my hand, however. And I try again and again.

At about 7 p.m., I catch a college friend coming back from her evening job in a Beirut hotel. She tells me, her voice full of energy and good cheer, "Don't worry. We are all fine. It is so far away from us." Then she asks me if I was enjoying New York. "I am enjoying, but I am worried about you," I say.

Then I lose contact.

I reach another friend, a psychoanalyst. I wake her up. After all, it is 1 a.m. in Beirut by the time I reach her. "I won't lie to you," she says. "The situation is bad." She adds, though, that she went to work that day. She asks me about my work. She is fine, she rebuttures me. "Don't spend money on calling me."

It is a very sad situation in that region with non-stop wars. My family and friends are continuing their lives by going to work and trying to keep hope. They were supporting me instead of me supporting them. It is a secret that it can't be understood until you live in Lebanon. And maybe this is why Lebanon still exists.

Nouhad Moawad is the Arabic site intern at Women's eNews. She will add to this blog throughout her internship at Women's eNews, scheduled to be completed on September 5.

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