Fleeing Lebanon

Israel recently began bombing Lebanon in a vicious war with the country’s Hezbollah guerrillas.

At her home Tuesday, Haddad recalled living in a Christian neighbourhood in north Beruit, where residents felt the tremors from bombings miles away.

“I was in a building that overlooked other cities on which bombs were falling from airplanes flying low. They were like small atomic bombs and, three seconds after, you would hear the explosion, and the entire building I was in, which was miles away, would shake,” said Haddad.

Whenever the bombings stopped, Haddad would become uneasy, wondering where would be the next target. When she arrived in TT, Haddad felt relieved but when the first plane flew over her house, she got the same fearful feeling she had in Lebanon, all over again.

“I’m still fearful. When I hear the planes flying over the house, I get scared,” she admitted. Haddad recounted how she ended up living in Lebanon and her attempts to flee the war-ravaged land she had come to love as a second home.

Her father, Ghandi, is a Lebanese citizen who came to live in TT 40 years ago and married Indra, a Trinidadian. After high school, Haddad decided to go back to the land of her father’s birth to study communications at a Lebanese/American university. She is also an American citizen. “We had the occasional bomb, nothing much to worry about,” Haddad recalled about her stay in Lebanon over the last three years.

“Hezbollah is a violent group known for starting unwanted things.” But after war broke out in the country recently, she was forced to re-arrange her life. “After the war started, I realised I could no longer attend university in Lebanon and I had to go and get my transcripts. I had to drive through streets where I used to pass by for icecream, or where I would go to clubs. But it all gone. Nothing was left.”

Her father had gone to Lebanon at the end of June to have open heart surgery, and to see her but when they were being evacuated, the two of them did not leave together. “It was hard to leave him. The night before Israel started bombing Lebanon, he came out of the hospital. But, thank God, he recovered quickly. And I later learnt that when he entered the evacuation tent at the British embassy, he got medical treatment.”

She left Lebanon, without her dad, on the overcrowded American ship, Orient Queen, last Wednesday and described the experience as bitter sweet. Her father left on a British warship, Destroyer, and they were to meet in Cyrpus.

“I shared a cabin with three Lebanese/American girls and we were comfortable. But I saw them tanning in the sun on the deck and wondered. I was being separated from my second home and people I had grown to love. I was going to safety but I felt pain because I was leaving the people of Lebanon behind to endure suffering from the war.” Haddad had another scare on her way back, she couldn’t locate her father. “When I reached Cyprus, I couldn’t find my dad anywhere. I wanted to know if he was alright but had no means of communication with him.” From Cyrpus, she reached London at 9 pm Thursday and still couldn’t locate her father.

“I had my dad’s roaming cell, and my mom, Indra, back in Trinidad, had been communicating with me. She freaked out when I told her I couldn’t find my father.” Haddad made it through the night and Friday morning booked a flight to Trinidad.

“Then, my mom called and said my dad had just reached London from Cyprus. We left together for Trinidad and reached home Friday night,” she said. For Ghandi Haddad, it was the second time he was running from a war in Lebanon. Ghandi, 55, still weak from his open heart surgery, boarded the Destroyer, which left Lebanon for Cyprus last Tuesday evening.

Asked how two wars have changed his outlook on life, Ghandi, a Christian, said, “Life is nice. Just being away from the war is nice. Sweet Trinidad. They have so much trouble here. They don’t know how sweet it is.” But Ghandi, too, now feels fearful whenever he hears an airplane flying over his house in East Trinidad.

Indra, his wife, was in Trinidad when the war broke out but also went through a terrible ordeal. She sought help to get them evacuated. “I wrote a letter to the Ministry of External (Foreign) Affairs, contacted the US State Department, and the British Embassy,” Indra recounted. “I was very scared for my husband and my daughter. I was scared she might get hit from a bomb going to the embassy or the university. But God answers prayers,” Indra said.