Farah's Allocution: Hurricane Irene: A Country At War

As I type this many of my friends are without power, internet, running water, and a whole slew of amenities that come with electricity. Some of my friends even had their homes completely destroyed and will never be able to go back to the way life used to be. I hope this blog post finds them well.

Just about a week ago one of my eldest cousins, Yazane (Yez-AAn), moved from Beirut, Lebanon to Cambridge, MA to obtain his Masters in Urban Planning from Harvard. He was in orientation when hurricane Irene hit. Two days after the hurricane, I called Yazane to say hello and to see how well he faired during the hurricane. He said he was well and that, “he was still waiting for the hurricane to hit.” Haha, obviously it wasn’t that bad.

I mentioned to my cousin about the lack of electricity and how we would be without power for about a week and how so many homes had been destroyed. You know what my cousin said to me. He said, “well, at least you’re not at war.”

Holy shit! What do you say to that that? What the hell was I supposed to say to him?

This is what most of the buildings look like after war.

I think a lot of people felt like we were at war with Mother Nature.

My cousin’s wife, Lama (Lem-aa), once told me about how she watched the apartment building she grew up in, get blown up during the war. The apartment building was leveled.

When I called my dad to tell him about how we were without electricity, he said well, “we’ve been without consistent electricity for 30 years.” What the hell was I supposed to say to that?

While I will always argue that Lebanon is one of these most beautiful places on earth, it has been hit really hard by war. Buildings are still destroyed and the electricity is never predictable. I have been stuck in an elevator, jolted on escalators and taken plenty of cold showers in the dark.

But reconstruction, is ever present in Lebanon.