Adventures Of Bee مغامرات النحلة الجبارة

The phone starts ringing....beeeeb, beeep, beeep..mom picks up, and the first thing I hear is a background of explosions and shots salvos, very near, as if in my ear....

So mom, how's it going around you...she's worried, the fighting is very near, and she has a small bag ready, so she could flee her beloved home in Ras el Nabe3 as soon as there's a truce, and roads open...

But where to? most roads are blocakded with rubble, sand, burning tires, waste bins, anything and everything that happened to be on the bulldozers' way.

Another call, and another and another, to dad, Shadi, Yasminati, Youssef, Yehya and Omar, Arek, Maya, Zoubib and many SMSs, chat sessions, and Facebook notes, to lots of friends whose homes are in the eye of the clashes...almost harrassed some, to the point that Shadi wrote to me in our last chat "we're all fine, Basma!"

Since May 7, my eyes are beaming like spotlights at TVs, at the office, at home, at Danielle's house, as we all zapped from station to station in a feverish race to know more...the atmosphere in which I am functioning is maddeningly bipolar: from the stress and anxiousness of following news to the peaceful feel on the streets of Nicosia, especially on a Sunday.

Relaaax Bassouma relax, I tell myself...

But the tension has been rising ever since. And the tears roll, on their own.  You see, when one is abroad, events, watched though screens, get more and more aggravated as one cannot evaluate the gravity and extent of a situation from afar.

The dance of death is continuously switching theaters, from Beirut, to the North, to Mount Lebanon, without any perspective of apeasment. More cheap deaths, pillaging, destruction of property - private and public - in addition to the clashes with rifles and light and heavy artillery, caused the scene on Lebanese streets to merge into abhorring war memories.  The terrifying militiamen have risen again, those wielders of death, whose macabre exploits in previous wars forged our blackened history with fire and blood.

Memories have become a reality again, driving the last nail in the coffin of my dreams of a decent life, in a respectable country capable of economic, civil and cultural progress.

And it all seems, for my external eye and memory, so unreal, like cinematic images from hundreds of lousy movies about the Lebanese war. I see it, hear it all, but it looks like my mind, and conscience are refusing to absorb the truth of it...

Before these dark days, I have lived through 2 major wars, being born in 1976. Along with my family we have suffered the abominations of hiding, crammed in shelters, bread and fuel and milk shortages, stark darkness, destruction, check points, fleeing in the dead of night, continuously changing homes... And those oppressing sounds, like the dissonant tingling of broken glass, offensive roars of military engines, loud tense shouts of armed men at your building's corner, even entrance, and that dreadful jingle of news flashes on Voice of Lebanon. All these images, and their emotions, have been rekindled in my soul again.

As for the summer 2006 war, as tough as it was, it bore, and yielded less pain. It was Israel, a historic foreign foe bombing us, besides what triggered the attack. Some areas remained safe, so the refugees from bombed areas could find shelter, food and treatment...one of these areas was Beirut.

Now, without the regional political background of it all, it's the Lebanese themselves destroying not only their capital, but their entire country. This is the wound that the current internal War - a pure, blatant, outrageous war - has opened, a wound unlikely to heal anytime soon.

And I can't wait to go to Beirut. Opening the airport road, any road, is enough for me. I can't stand being away when my city is being torn apart...cannot explain it, but the same absurd feeling was eating me up during the 2006 war on Lebanon, when I had to leave for 10 days for work reasons.

Meanwhile, right now, the recurrent crunches in my guts suggest it would be wise if I grab something to eat. Actually, I will treat myself to a succulent meal, and will raise my glass to you all, and to that crazy crazy country we all love, and sometimes hate, to the core of our souls.