Two Days Later I Landed on Lebanese Soil..

When I took the midnight flight to Syria on Wednesday 15 August 2006, I didn't quite know what to expect. I was to reach Damascus at 4:00 am and stranger as I was, I had a vague plan of how to get to the Lebanese borders. I had never done that before. I told my sister over the phone that there was no need to alarm my mother and father by informing them of my expedition beforehand. We had agreed that unless I didn't reach or call by the evening of the 16th, only then she should be worried.

We landed, and marching out into the airport building with my very small bag and cameras, the passengers would turn towards me with astonishment at my Lebanese accent, thinking that I must be crazy to venture to Lebanon only 48 hours after Israelis stopped bombing every moving vehicle on the road, every bridge and every international road (both roads to Syrian borders across the Bekaa valley and up north had been bombed several times). I had 4000 Syrian pound for the trip home.

Coming from Dubai International Airport, the Damascus airport seemed a wreck. A very old building, with no modern facilities. The passport checkpoint formed a narrow passage into another room. At the furthest end were two sideways paths out to Damascus! I approached a desk in the corner where it said: "Taxis to Beirut". With luck I encountered a Lebanese couple coming from Germany. We shared the car.

Her name was Majida. Her child eyed me curiously while clinging to her black clothes. We rarely spoke, but I learned that the small family was able to flee Lebanon the second week of the attack with the aid of their German passports. They, had to come back however, because some members of their family had been killed in the bombings and they wanted to attend the funeral.

Majida and I looked out of the window to watch the burnt car at the bottom of the bombshell crater at Jdaydet Yabous, right after Al Masnaa border checkpoint. She hugged her boy and burried his face in her bossom to distract him from watching. The second crater forced us to take the opposite car lane. Then the Sawfar bridge.. We had reached a distance of thirty minutes away from Beirut when the bridge that once stood bery high above the valley appeared, struck in half. People stood at the edge of the road and took pictures. The mighty bridge seemed defeated, like a fleeing snake in the bushes below.

I reached home at 8:05 am.

2:40 pm we set to the suburb. We had four cameras, masks and a guide to lead us into the areas guarded by Hizbollah members. The sight was petrifying, the smell was that of death...