A Bird Without Wings In The Big Jungle – 1/2

PS: This post is long, which is why I’ve divided it into 2 posts, but will be published at the same time.

I hope you will enjoy 🙂

Part 1 – The Lonely Bird

A lonely child, sobbing and crying with no one there to wipe their tears, feeling that this world is too big, too cruel, and too dark. The people are feral in a very big jungle, looking for prey, roaring, growling, and howling.

I lived with these feelings for years; I always felt like a bird with no wings, I had no one to look after me, no one to understand me, to take care of me.

The reasons are not important; there is no one to blame. I was just describing this feeling, and I was a miserable child who tried hard to belong, to fit, and to cherish life despite everything.

I mentioned the war before and I mentioned that we were displaced and left everything behind! At the time, I only wanted my dolls! I had many dolls, and I was afraid to break them I took very good care of them. (Check flashback posts.)
Flashback 1
Flashback 2

I was a proud little child with a strong personality; anyone could tell that at the time, despite how little I was, my mother used to design and sew special clothes for me and my brothers. She was talented, and she wanted us to be special.
My mother used to give my clothes to the less fortunate after I wore them 2 times max.

Palm Sunday: I was frowning because my head hurts after they did my hear curly, I was pissed, haha (from the few pictures I have because most of them stayed in the house upon displacement)

One day I was wearing special clothes and living in a perfect house, like a princess; we even had electric blankets, a collection of gold lighters, and many other things that I hardly remember!

The next day, we wake up, we leave everything behind, and we don’t take even a straw because, as my father said, we will be back; it will be for a short time.
The next day, we’re poor, displaced, and have nothing at all!
The next day, we have to take clothes from the more fortunate…
The next day, we are refugees in our own country! Paying for a shitty house in a shitty place, even though you don’t suppose to pay! But the war is on and everyone is applying their own rules now. If you have a gun or Kalashnikov, you can do whatever you want!  

From Al Jabal war

Christians Displacement from Al Jabal (My father took us before the displacement to a safe place)

We lived in a place that doesn’t have the minimal requirements for human beings, from a big bed and a big house to sleeping on the floor or a sofa as rigid as the floor!
The rats are the only domestic animals we’re allowed to have, and, oh, the mice as well! Instead of counting sheep, I used to count the mice walking in front of me on this piece of metal on the wall that separates us from the small shop of candies, chocolate, and chips we visit daily! I wonder what he has in this cabinet above the shop, which is the one behind the metal bar. I needed to keep my mind distracted; I couldn’t sleep! And I was like: Lucky mice!

The sanitary sewer manhole covers are underneath the beds in the only bedroom we have! What a perfect location!

So each time they’re blocked, which is every now and then since we live on the ground floor and we receive the entire neighbors’ shit, we need to dismantle the beds and move everything outside so they can unblock them. It was a great adventure, and it smells great!

The rats used to come out of the toilet, a seatless toilet with just a hole in the floor—a lamentable “hole” type of toilet. You enter the toilet and you stay terrified that a rat might come out. No wonder we had constipation 😂😂

The douche was a luxury back then; it doesn’t exist We use a small bowl to take a shower.

Lamentable “Hole” Type of toilet

But despite that, we always tried to be children, to play and be happy. We used the empty metal milk containers with spoons as a drummer, and we used the extra wood pieces thown by the sawmill to build toys. We didn’t have many toys, so we were creative. We even made kites and flew them in the crowded streets of Beirut.
We even remember many things and we laugh, like when we caught my little brother, who was born there in Beirut, chasing a rat! He thought it’s a cat 😂😂 It’s good we left before he grew up; otherwise, we would have had a wide collection!

Google images: Kite Flying, Sour

Google images: Kite Flying, Sour

Google images

Obviously, we were not used to living in such a place, especially for the fact that after the displacement immediately, we moved to a healthy area, a good place that I love so much: Brummana in Mount Lebanon, but again, we had to leave because of the Syrian shrapnel and bombs!
After they received the blessings to enter Lebanon under the pretext of stopping the war, the Syrians bombarded different areas in order to invade and conquer them! Many were killed in the process.

Brummana

Brummana

I still remember when they told me that Maguy has died! I was a little child, and she was a young woman. The bomb removed her head (sorry for this ugly picture) but I still imagine it until now. This sweet girl, who was so kind and loving, is now headless! 😟

I had nightmares! I was a very sensitive child and each word used to be as a knife in my heart!
If my brothers make jokes, if my mother or my father are a bit firm if something happens… I’m so sensitive and when they mock me, I just abstain from revealing what I feel, so I was alone. When I used to hear the very low military airplanes flying, I used to cry and be terrified. I thought that we were going to die. My brothers used to laugh because there were Lebanese airplanes doing some military exercises, and even though my mother told me, I was always afraid. The voice is still in my head. I used to close my ears and cry out loud. I thought I was going to die.

Image from Google

Until this date, whenever I hear an airplane voice, I have bad dreams, but I always face my fears; I don’t let them beat me, and I don’t tell anyone about them either.

In Brummana, instead of playing with dolls, I was playing with the shrapnel we used to find every day in our closet, all over the house, and outside on the balcony. I always wondered how they were inside our house and closet while we were still alive!

They were black or silver; each one has a different shape and form. I used to collect them as a reminder that “you missed us bastards,” we’re alive, and you’re useless!

Shrapnel

Shrapnel

We always tried to have a normal childhood; our parents did their best, but they were suffering too.

I probably blamed them at some point while growing up, but not anymore. I’m reconciled with myself, and I’m grateful for everything I went through, even when they didn’t know how to deal with me as a sensitive child. I don’t blame anyone anymore; I’m good.

Leaving Brummana was a disaster for us; we were always sick, pale, and sad, so the solution was an internal school because there was nothing else to be done.

My mother asked us, and we said okay, no problem. She said you’ll come home each weekend, not like other children who stay months and maybe years.

She wanted to save us from this place; she was already depressed and started to take antidepressant medications.

My first year in the internal school was hell for me. It was a very very far school; my brothers were in another area (where I was supposed to be, but my papers were wrongly approved for another place).
It wasn’t easy to be accepted because our parents are still alive; they usually put orphans in internal schools, so my parents had a hard time getting this approved. We needed “wasta,” or nepotism, to be dragged away from our parents; we needed to beg so we could be placed in an internal school away from home. The bitter truth and the irony!

I was away from home with strangers, mostly unkind strangers. I was afraid, sad, and miserable. And they couldn’t bring me home each weekend as promised because I wasn’t supposed to go there that far and we had no car.

The weather was great and convenient to my physical health, but the behavior and environment weren’t convenient for my mental health.
Kfardebian is where I was; it’s a beautiful place but it’s not home. Healthy and beautiful nature, but cold and rude people!

Stay tuned for part 2. It will be published shortly!
Click here for part 2.

Your thoughts and opinions are always welcome.

Huguette Antoun, April 10th 2019