Remembering

One day so looong ago when I was about seven years old we woke up at 7:00ish am to a loud sound comeing from faraway, or so it seemed. All of the neighbours in our building were standing at their balconies, guessing what that sound was. Some one said it was probably thunder, someone else said it might be a hurricane; others said it is an earthquake, and so on. It as a nice sunny October/November day so most of their guesses did not make sense. While everyone was guessing what is going on, a bee stung me! It was so painful! This was the first and the last time I have been stung by a bee! I didn’t do anything to that bee, why did it have to commit a suicide and sting me! I was just standing there minding my own business and listening to all the neighbours talking and worried about the mysterious sound! I would have never guessed it, even thinking back at it, this is not how I would imagine the sounds!

We soon found out what that sound was. It was the sound of war. It was my first experience of war. Although we did live in Lebanon during the worst part of the war, we did not experience much of it since we lived in Tripoli far away from Beirut.

My parents decided that it would be best to leave our place since our building was right in the middle. Mama told us to go to our rooms and pack clothes, just throw everything in these bags she yelled. Back then clothing was not my first priority! I went to my room and collected my favourite doll and her accessories. I had lots of clothes and hair accessories for my doll. My mom’s friends were learning to sew and they practiced by making clothes for my dollies. My uncle had recently bought me some plastic doll furniture; I could not leave those behind!

You can imagine the look on mama’s face when I came out of my room after a while with just my doll and her stuff! I didn’t even pack a pair of PJ! Dah! I was yelled at and mama had to go to my room and pack my essentials while shaking her head at my habal. I had to fight my parents to let me take my doll and her stuff. Eventually I was allowed to take her with me, but only enough of her stuff to fit into a shoebox! Phew I would have been worried sick about her if I had to leave her behind. My parents would have never heard the end of it! They were smart to give in. So on that day I left my home with my family and dolly for the sake of our safety. Good thing we left when we did, a days later our building was hit numerous times and left in flames. The important thing though, is that we were all safe, including my doll!