Who are the people in our neighborhood?


Our neighborhood is different than most in Lebanon.  Generally speaking in Lebanon neighborhoods classify people…by faith, socio-economic levels, and cultural backgrounds or ethnicities.  Ours classifies too, but only by socioeconomic level.  Unlike most, we are surrounded by Muslims and Christians, both orthodox and evangelical.  We live on the outskirts, in a building that would probably be classified as gentrification.   We’ve been told that 80% of our neighborhood was foreign born, primarily moving in as refugees.  

 

The buildings bear the marks of the civil war decades ago.  Other areas around Beirut were hard hit too, but many of them have been rebuilt.  Nabaa hasn’t had that luxury.  The walls bear the marks of bombs long gone with no repairs in sight.   It isn’t just war that has quickly aged the area.  The winds blowing through have been so strong that they’ve literally pulled the screws holding our curtains out of the wall and shredded the fabrics.

 

Some of our friends showed us pictures of a dust storm that came through a few years ago.  We missed it, but have certainly seen what the weather is capable of.  The storm that came through a couple of weeks ago wasn’t as strong as Michael (though the strong winds come through on a regular basis). 

As much as the buildings and people have been battered and beaten by the harsh realities, we have seen a warmness and resiliency among the people we've met.

What happens though when the home you’re in is made of tarps already?  What do you do when you barely have enough for necessities?  There was snow on the ground but not enough fuel for the furnace.  The family we visited wasn’t running any heat during the day in order to conserve their supply of firewood.  We brought food boxes, blankets and toys for each of the families in the camp, but I wonder how long it will last.  

 

We passed out food boxes, blankets and toys to one of the camps after the storm and I wondered how much of a difference it would make.  Something is better than nothing, but the needs are so great.

 

This is the view from our kitchen showing the range of living spaces around us.  

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