09/26/2006

Zeynab, who is nine months pregnant, lives with her mother, husband, and two children in Doghdariye, a town about one hour east of Tyre in southern Lebanon. Doghdariye was heavily bombed throughout the latest conflict, but her house was relatively spared. Her house has a big hole in the roof and part of the back bedroom torn out. About five days after the ceasefire, Refugees International met her and her family sitting on the porch of their house. She served us coffee and told us the story of her family.

“We stayed for the first week of the bombing and then we fled for Beirut. All of the other villagers had left earlier. We stayed for extra time because it was hard to convince my mother to leave behind her animals and her home. She knows that we depend on the money she makes from selling eggs and milk so she wanted to watch after her cows. My husband was injured in an accident a few years ago and is blind, so my mother and I have to support the family. The neighbors left as soon as the bombing started. This town is a place where many people spend the summer – both Muslims and Christians live here. We are Christians but we get along with our neighbors.

“When the Israelis bombed the gas station and the butcher shop behind my house, we finally convinced her to leave and we all went to Beirut. There we stayed with neighbors, who had a house in Beirut. After a few weeks, we moved into a friend’s house. We came back on Tuesday [August 22] as soon as the ceasefire was announced.

This is our land! We have grown tobacco and had animals here for generations. When we returned, we saw that the tobacco was dead and we could not harvest it. The Syrians who normally do migrant labor had fled and weren’t coming back. The fields are filled with cluster bombs; I’m afraid to go in the field myself. One of my mother’s sheep died and all the chickens are gone but she did find two cows. They were very skinny and traumatized. “

We were interrupted in our conversation by a woman dressed head to toe in a long flowing black gown who came up to the front porch. She politely asked for directions to a house in the village and Zeinab answered her. “She’s from the women’s arm of Hezbollah,” she told us. “The house that she is looking for is a Christian house.” We asked her if she would take assistance from Hezbollah since her family was Christian.

“The Council of the South came by to do an assessment but they only looked at the house, not the garden. The garden is how we survive!!! We need someone to help us make money – not one Christian house was targeted but we can not make money now. I don’t know anyone at Hezbollah to call but if they came by here to ask us if we need help, I would take their money because we need to make money. We have lost $40 million lira worth of tobacco (U$25 000). We need the government of Lebanon to help us and they can do this if other countries help them.”

Her mother interjected angrily, “I used to make 35,000 a day selling milk and eggs but all our animals are dead! If no one helps us with the tobacco then we are doomed. There is no one to help us!” Zeynab smiled at her. “My husband is blind but our problems are the cluster bombs. A young child like my son – I can’t let him in the garden. He is very cheeky --- he follows me everywhere.”