Stories from the field: Abou Jihad from Tebbeneh

I have been working in the development sector for the past two years. And each person who works in the field understands exactly what I am about to say. It is a job like any other, but mixed with a bunch of different feelings which can keep you awake for nights. You meet all kinds of people, the ones that you don’t usually meet in downtown Beirut, Gemmayze, Verdun or Hamra… You meet forgotten people, isolated, scared to live and waiting to die. I have tried for so long to keep all what I have seen and still seeing to myself without sharing, avoiding to be seen as someone who gets the attention by showing the pain of others. But when I have started seeing that our society has lost its humanity, its compassion and is constantly looking for better appearances; when discussions during happy hour are mean and focused on shopping, events, gossips, etc.,  I was pushed towards writing those real stories (even though words can describe briefly the difficult reality)., hoping that maybe hearts can be filled with more and more kindness and compassion because sometimes a person in need wants to hear a kind word more than having some brief financial assistance…

Abou Jihad in Tebbeneh after last conflict and clashes. His house got burned down due to the clashes. He lives “right under God” as he said, on the 7th floor. He was planning the wedding of his daughter and bought her all her needs to move to her new house but everything was burned. When I first met him, I asked him “how are you doing?” and he said: “thank you for asking! everyone comes here asking ‘what happened to your house’ but nobody asked me ‘what happened to you, are you ok?’ so thank you for asking! I am not ok!” His house overviews Tebbeneh and he kept asking: “why did they shoot my house? Were they trying to shoot the sky? Were they mad at God? Why the 7th floor? What should i do? The worst thing that could happen is seeing fires burning all your efforts and years…”

Picture taken by Fakhan Merehbi, Tebbeneh 2015