Finally we could afford to live in the house of our dreams.
The family house was located outside the center of Homs, large and spacious.
After years of hard work as a teacher, my husband had saved up enough money to renovate it.
I was glad, finally our children would have enough space to grow up happy.
I used to spend days with my sisters thinking about the furniture and the parties that we could have organized in that house.
The whole family would have been together, we would have all fitted in.
I still remember the marble countertop in the kitchen, it was shiny and new.
I could have kneaded bread and cooked all the food I wanted in that beautiful kitchen.
Everything was ready, all that was missing were the appliances, the beds and the upholstery.
I remember that long discussion with my husband.
That month he wanted to spend the money we had planned to spend on the furniture to buy a small car, as ours had suddenly broken down.
He insisted on spending the money for the car, I was angry because I wanted the washing machine, beds and carpets.
I wanted to move out as soon as possible.
After a long discussion, he won.
He had bought a car, small and ugly.
Every day I looked at it and it made me angry, that damn car had delayed the life I dreamed of in that house.
A few weeks later, that damn car became our home and our only way out.
LEBANON-SYRIA
News
Lebanon: Com. Pope John XXIII, "Let the international community intervene immediately"
“A real Syrian hunt is underway” says Capannini, Project Manager for Lebanon.
“We express s the utmost concern over the recent events of racism against Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We ask that the international community intervene before the situation precipitates with even more serious violence and with the serious risk that it can spread to other cities ». This is what Giovanni Paolo Ramonda, President of the Pope John XXIII Community declares, regarding the expulsion of 1,400 Syrian refugees from the city of Bcharre, in northern Lebanon. An escalation that began last week, following the murder of a Lebanese citizen by a Syrian citizen, which led the municipality of Bcharre, under pressure from popular uprisings, to expel the entire Syrian community.
Monthly Report - September 2020
CURRENT SITUATION
SYRIA-LEBANON
In Syria, the Syrian Government attacked Idlib, thus interrupting the ceasefire which had started with the pandemic. No casualty has been reported so far. Syria is experiencing a harsh economic crisis, with extremely high inflation rates, which has been worsened by the pandemic, with non-official sources reporting a high and worrying rate of cases. Poverty is another enemy killing almost as much as war.
In Lebanon, the situation has been quite tense on different grounds throughout the whole month of September. On September 10th a second huge fire broke out in the port in Beirut. Firefighters could bring it under control in a few hours, but panic spread among the citizens, who are still shocked after the explosion on August 4th. A third fire broke out on September 15th in downtown Beirut. Moreover, in mid-September the Lebanese Army had to fight against a terrorist group in Beddawi, near the city of Tripoli.
A pervasive sense of uncertainty is haunting the Lebanese as well as the Syrians. A clear sign of this uncertainty is the increasing number of people who are boarding smugglers’ boats to reach Cyprus. Some of these boats were detected by the Lebanese Navy and UNIFIL, so people, both Syrians and Lebanese, were forced to go back to Lebanon.
Journal from Beirut 2 - August 2020
Numb:
Beirut seems enveloped in a gray torpor, and with it those who live it.
The first few days we struggle to recognize the city, which is usually very hectic and chaotic.
The streets are empty and full of glasses on the ground, even in areas very far from the explosion.
People try to smile, but the weariness they drag on is perceivable.
And it infects us.
We do not make any particular efforts during the day, but when we return home in the evening we always feel so tired and we do not understand the reason why.
“We go around and see the signs of death, we smell her. Let's pretend that this is all normal, but it is not”.
Journal from Beirut - August 2020
In the last few days we have been in Beirut, as volunteers for Operazione Colomba. We are working alongside young people who gathered in solidarity networks in order to bring food, medicines, and assistance to those who have been left alone in the reconstruction process.
Let’s support them!
“This area was the blossom of the city, a blossom in the heart of Beirut. And now, look at it…”
Those are the words of a man from Tripoli who is not seeing his family since one year, since he moved down to Beirut to work in the construction site where he also lives.
The site was right in front of the place where we met him; now he’s sitting next to a small coffee shop and stares at the building. It is still standing but it is quite damaged and nobody knows when the works will start again.