They Destroyed our City and Made us Clean Up the Pieces

A week has passed since the Beirut explosion and my mind takes me back to the dizzying array of events that have taken place over the past seven days. It was just passed 5pm on Tuesday 4th August when I finished a work meeting in Gemmayzeh. I left the office and started making my way down towards Riwaq, my husband’s café/bar and our second home, at the end of Mar Mikhael. I walked past my nail salon and remembered that a friend had told me she had a nail appointment there at 5pm, so naturally I went in to say hello. We chatted a bit and agreed that she’d come meet me at Riwaq for a drink after she finished getting her nails done. The partial lock down of the previous week had forced everything to shut over the weekend, meaning people were itching for a mid-week drink to regain a temporary sense of normalcy.

I love the walk from Gemmayzeh to the end of Mar Mikhael. Even in the unbearable August heat I usually prefer to walk it rather than get into a shared taxi and risk getting stuck in unnecessary rush-hour traffic. I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked up and down Armenia Street in my lifetime, but I know it amounts to at least a handful of times each day. The beautiful colored heritage buildings always have me looking upwards and taking photos, making me feel like a tourist in my own city even when I’m headed on some of the most mundane daily life missions. I inevitably walk past or run into someone I know, given that the bars, restaurants and cafes I usually frequent, as well as my work, are all located on this one precious strip. And yet, I never get bored of this seemingly monotonous journey. I actually look forward to it. Even in recent months, with the slow devastation caused by the crippling economic crisis sweeping the country forcing many beloved outlets and businesses en route to close, this walk would nevertheless remind me why I love this city so much and find it hard to fathom leaving and restarting elsewhere.

After another such journey last Tuesday, I reached Riwaq at around 5.30pm. I was planning on calling one of my best friends from Beirut who herself had emigrated to Montreal three years ago. But as so happens, I got distracted saying hello to friends and staff, chitchatting about our day, and sipping on an espresso martini I had ordered specifically for the energy boost I needed for my salsa class at 7pm.

Then, a couple of guys sitting by the entrance of the bar started showing me and others a video on their phone of a fire taking place at the port of Beirut and saying something about an explosion, to which I responded with furrowed eyebrows and a generally perplexed expression. I asked them what they meant, if they were carrying out some sort of controlled explosion for whatever reason. No one really understood what was going on, but the tension in the air was building, and it was palpable.

The next half an hour is an amalgamation of blurry flashbacks. I remember hearing the words ‘bomb’, ‘planes’ ‘Israel’ flying around and my heart began to race furiously. I remember the entire glass façade of Riwaq exploding into smithereens, sending shards of glass flying in all directions. I remember the deafening sound of the blast and feeling the tremor that I thought would send the ceiling crumbling down over our heads. I was standing by the bar near the stairs, when my husband Hussein grabbed me and pushed me towards them, and in a panic urged all of us to head downstairs for cover. At this point we thought a bomb had literally been dropped on top of us. The sound was so loud and the damage so enormous that it felt we had been at the epicenter of the attack. There were fears that there would be recurring attacks so we were urged to stay downstairs.

As I looked around at the bloody faces, bodies, floors and walls, and the debris that lay cataclysmically in a place once so familiar but now no longer recognizable, my eyes widened in shock and I started frantically looking for my phone so I could call for help. I found it under the glass debris on the stairs, the same stairs I had slipped on while trying desperately to reach safety downstairs. I called my boss in a plea for help, since his office is nearby, only to find out that he was in the exact same state of shock and pandemonium that we were in. I then started receiving phone calls and messages from friends, and that’s when it hit me that the whole area had experienced the same targeted bomb-like effect. I called my parents and broke the news to them in a panic. I wanted to get to a hospital because blood was flowing and I could see others also losing a lot of blood. Hussein immediately started helping those around him, splashing water on our wounds and removing shards of glass from the deepest ones. He removed glass from a wound at the back of my leg, but I was so numb to the pain that I felt nothing. He himself was losing a lot of blood, I remember him saying that his mind was starting to race and that he was seeing white spots and getting dizzy. He was about to faint and was sat down and made to smell alcohol to bring him back to consciousness. There were people crying and screaming for help, while others, including myself, panicked in silent shock.

We finally made our way upstairs and I began documenting the scenes of horror around me with my phone. The space that is our home, our haven, our community, had become a site of blood and carnage. I soon realized that getting to the hospital would be impossible. Ambulances were driving up and down in panic mode, stuck in a traffic of vehicles frantically trying to get people to safety. There were people in their hundreds if not thousands running around, some clutching onto their IV bags, others with bloodied clothes and shell-shocked gazes, others with first aid kits attending to the wounded, others on their phones speaking to loved ones.

Hussein and I sat down and had our wounds treated to by an off-duty nurse who came to Riwaq to attend to the wounded there. By this point, news of an explosion caused by ammonium nitrate had started circulating, and it became clear that there wouldn’t be a second bomb or attack. We spoke to our flatmate who had been at home at the time of the explosion. She reassured us that she and our cats were safe, but sent us heart-breaking photos of the destruction our home had endured. But at this point, material damage mattered nothing in comparison to the need to ensure everyone we knew was alive and safe. We were glued to our phones, reaching out to people and trying to respond to those reaching out to us. The number of messages and phone calls pouring in was overwhelming.

Eventually a friend of ours came and said he would take us to his family home up in the mountains and get us treated at a hospital outside of Beirut. I went with him and his brothers to pick up his girlfriend from her home. She and her mother were miraculously unharmed, but their house had also sustained immeasurable damage. Darkness had befallen the city as I waited for them in the car, numb and motionless, staring wide-eyed at the nightmarish scenes of people scrambling for safety in a devastated city. I needed to pee and could no longer hold it in, so I was helped out of the car and welcomed by a Bangladeshi woman into the home she shares with a group of others next to where we were parked. The woman held me up as I used the bathroom, since the wound on the back of my thigh made it too painful to sit. Their tight-knit, one-room apartment was in the basement and, with no glass windows, had sustained minor damage, with only the electrical wires dangling hazardously from the ceiling. The thought of so many people living so inhumanely added further ire to the overwhelming state of anger and desperation I found myself in.

Getting out of the city was in itself a nightmare. We had to drive past Geitawi Hospital which was overflowing with injured patients and their loved ones. I had to force myself to drown out the sounds of people wailing and screaming, and suppress the anxiety of being separated from my husband and our cats. Cars were honking all around us and people were running around frantically and panic-stricken. The city was at once rushing at lightning speed and motionless at a trance-like standstill. I could not yet comprehend the magnitude of what had happened, but I was starting to come to terms with how lucky I was to be alive.

We finally reached the hospital in Aley, where the scene was one of managed commotion, a world apart from the manic scenes we witnessed outside the hospital in Beirut. I was swiftly attended to by a nurse and doctor, who injected local anaesthetic and stitched up the numerous wounds in different parts of my body — 25 stitches in total. It was the first time I’d ever received stitches and I remember thinking how I didn’t want to have scars of this awful nightmare etched on my body forever. I kept calling out for my husband, repeating “where are you?” in desperation, scared at the thought of him not arriving safely in one piece. He finally made it about half an hour after me. He had gone back to the house to check up on our cats, who were traumatized but alive, and to grab some of our valuables, since the front door was no longer locking properly. He was placed in the room next to me and the doctor who had stitched me up swiftly moved on to work on his wounds, one of which was very deep and still filled with pieces of glass. Our friend went searching for tetanus shots at five different pharmacies but to no avail as the medication had already been scarce in Lebanon for months. We were taken to his family home in a small village near Sawfar and went to bed, but, despite the exhaustion, sleep was a luxury we simply could not enjoy. The shock of what we had just lived through kept us awake until dawn, when we finally managed to steal a couple of hours of crater-deep sleep.

We spent day one after the blast in a daze. We were in a time warp where nothing made sense except for the love and affection we were receiving from friends and family far and wide. Our flatmate brought us our cats, Minnie and Lola, who immediately retreated to under the bed in a state of agonized trauma. The thought of having them safe with us was comforting. Our friend’s sister managed to find the tetanus shots we needed, so we went to a nearby pharmacy to get them done. The drive through the tree-lined mountain roads helped transport us momentarily to another world, one far away from the horror and carnage that was enveloping Beirut.

That night I managed to steal three hours’ sleep, but an overwhelming sense of adrenaline woke me up at the crack of dawn with a pit in my stomach as the anticipation of heading back down to Beirut and facing the devastation head-on started building up. We left our cats up in the mountains and started driving down to the city. I was on the phone to my sister when I started panicking and having difficulty breathing. Hussein stopped the car on the side of the road and helped me regulate my breathing and got me water. I managed to calm down a bit and we continued on our way back to our devastated city. As we entered Beirut and made our way closer to our neighborhood, the level of destruction properly hit me. Not one building had been spared. The sound of shattering glass was the soundtrack, the sight of volunteers clearing rubble was the visual, the shells of windowless buildings was the backdrop.

The traffic was intense, and with every added moment waiting to approach our house, the anticipation and anxiety grew unbearable. I got out of the car minutes before reaching the house and did the last few hundred meters on foot. Tears started pouring down my face as the destruction of our street hit me like a hammer to the chest. A group of volunteers from the street followed me up the stairs and made their way into the house, clearing debris and glass like machines on a mission. I started picking up photos, postcards and other items of sentimental value from amongst the debris in an attempt to salvage as much as possible from the subsequent clear up. As friends started arriving to help out with the cleaning or to deliver food and drink, my heart swelled with an avalanche of contradictory emotions. Who knew you could feel so much love and tenderness at a time of so much anger and heartbreak?

The following days were a whirlwind. Dividing time between working on the house, dealing with engineers coming to assess the structural stability of the building, taking breaks to speak to loved ones both near and far, offering help to friends who’d also been injured and rendered homeless. Physically our wounds were healing well but I was exhausted and in pain. It took several showers to clear the dried blood off the scattered cuts all over my body and remove all the tiny shards of glass from my hair. I only remembered to brush my teeth when they started getting so sore that I had to clench my jaw to lessen the pain. I didn’t go to the bathroom for four days. Perhaps it was because my body knew that the wound on the back of my thigh simply made it too painful for me to sit on the toilet, or maybe it was because I had barely eaten since the time of the explosion — most people I know have barely had any appetite. Emotionally and mentally, the wounds run much deeper. I feel heartbroken but also moved by how much support, care and love we’ve received from friends as well as from strangers. One day a group of young volunteers from Saida came by to help clean our apartment. Friends were in and out checking up on us, making sure we were OK. One afternoon we were standing on the street beneath our apartment when a woman stopped in her car and pointed towards Hussein and I. We went over to her car and she told us she recognized us from a photograph of ours she’d found under the rubble in her apartment. She brought us the photo and indeed it was a photo of us enjoying fresh coconut juice with a friend during a trip in Brazil in 2015. How surreal to think of all the personal belongings buried in piles of debris and trash, maybe never to be found again.

Our minds have been full of contradictory thoughts, racing past one another in manic disarray. Lucky and grateful to be alive, but guilty for all those who didn’t make it. Happy to have friends temporarily taking us in, but sad to not be able to sleep and wake up in our own home. Imagining what our future could possibly hold for us if we stayed, but also anxious at what our futures might look like if we left. Devastated by how many homes, businesses and cultural heritage sites have been destroyed, yet grateful that the other half of the city at least was spared. The senselessness of our thoughts mirror the senselessness of the tragedy we’ve been living through.

On day three I made my way back down to Armenia Street, which is a mere 5 minute walk from our home. But this time the walk I usually take between Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael could not have been more different. This time I did not feel like a tourist in my own city. This time I did not smile every time I looked up. This time I did not take nice photos or stop to play with the street cats. Instead, my heart sank with every step, with every sight that no longer matched the memory of the street that had been so distinctly etched into my mind from all those walks over the years. The sight of the Airbnb apartments I manage broke my heart. It wasn’t just the material damage of those beautiful buildings that left me reeling. It was the idea that my main source of work and professional dedication over the past two and a half years had been so intrinsically linked to the immense love I feel for this city. A love so strong that I received indescribable pleasure from sharing it with guests visiting from all over the world and giving them a taste of what our vibrant, exciting, cosmopolitan Mediterranean city had to offer. Will we ever be able to welcome people back to Beirut again? Will we ever feel welcome in our own city again? Will we ever feel safe and happy here again? Will our friends and loved ones be able to rebuild and start over? Or will many simply give up, retreat, leave? What will win this time, the people’s resilience or their defeat?

These questions of meek desperation are accompanied by an immense sense of rage and fury. Rage at a ruling elite that is greedy, corrupt and criminal beyond all plausible comprehension. Rage at the competing political parties that care more about the size of their slice of the power pie than they do about the spilt blood of their own people. Rage at a system that puts the wealth and power of the top one percent above the wellbeing and dignity of all those propping up what’s left of this godforsaken country. Rage at all the countries fighting their covert wars by proxy at the expense of ordinary people struggling just to make ends meet. Rage at the economic war waged by unmitigated capitalism, rage at the cheapness of human life, rage at the racism that serves to divide and conquer, rage at the men whose fear of losing grip on power causes them to attack with such force and fury that they send military thugs to beat up protesters rather than to help with an emergency response to the largest non-nuclear explosion in modern history.

As we walk the streets of our destroyed city in the aftermath of this tragedy, we look on incredulously as the people carry brooms and clean, while the men in uniform carry guns and watch. We will never ever forget that the state destroyed our city, destroyed our homes, destroyed our hearts, and then made us clean up the pieces. We will never forget and we will never forgive. We will get our revenge.

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