ainebel : Message: The Unfinished Vacation Trip

ainebel : Message: The Unfinished Vacation Trip: "The Unfinished Vacation Trip By: Chabel Barakat* Christien (9 years) Etian (7 years) Charbel (5 years) and Maria (2 years) had an early farewell party at their school in Mississauga last Friday as their grandma who lives back home in Lebanon insisted they come and visit her for the summer. Their father, Noel, is a Canadian of Lebanese decent married to Janice, a Canadian from Stoney Creek. Janice visited Lebanon for the first time in the summer of 1996. In 1998, the couple chose to marry and go back to Lebanon to live for a while with Noel’s mom in his hometown Ain-Ebel. Noel, who studied Fitness and Recreation Leadership at the Humber College, started working as a sports teacher at St Joseph Secondary School in the village. He introduced a new concept in sport and taught the children about the importance of stretching their muscles before and after all activities. He also helped form different levels of soccer, basketball and volleyball teams. All the kids loved Noel and became involved in sport teams. Every day after school, the soccer field and the adjacent basketball or volleyball fields used to be full of kids of all ages. Parents started to come and practice different types of sports and everybody was happy to share in this new spirit of achievement Noel had added to the village’s kids. For two years sports and fitness became the goal of the entire village, one of those kids was the late Mississauga Hero Trooper Marc Diab. Noel was not involved in politics, Janice found a job with the United Nations and they were soon blessed with their first child, Christien. But in May 2000 the Israelis, who used to occupy a strip along the borders of Lebanon, decided to pull their troops out without an agreement with Lebanon. Under the Syrian hegemony, the Lebanese government refused to assume responsibility for the area. As a result, UNIFIL prepared approximately 9000 troops for deployment in the area in fear of what the terrorist organization Hezbollah would do in the absence of a responsible authority. At the time of the Israeli withdrawal, Hizbollah's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah proclaimed in a televised speech that he would “enter their bed rooms and kill them...� In such an unpredictable situation Noel took his new family to Israel and from there flew back to Canada. Today, after nine years, Noel thought that it might be a good idea to send his kids to Lebanon to meet their family, especially their grandma, and to spend some time in the country their father loved. He couldn’t leave because he is a contractor who waits for the good weather to make his living, so Janice had to go by herself with the kids. The whole family was waiting for them and the kids were so excited to see their grandma and all of their aunts and uncles. Their friends at school wished them all the best and their teachers were happy for them to go even before the end of the school year. The elections in Lebanon went with no problems giving the family more confidence that they had made the right decision. The flight was a bit difficult for Janice and four kids but finally she made it to Beirut Airport on Monday June 08 after 18 hrs of travel from Toronto via Paris. Everybody was excited but they knew that they have to wait to finish all the paperwork before being able to meet the family. Apparently they had to get a visa at the Airport because they all had Canadian passports so they waited in line but the officer refused to give Janice a visa to enter Lebanon claiming that Noel had flew from Israel back in 2000. In 1982 the Israelis have claimed that 700,000 Lebanese entered Israel between July and October of the same year. “Eged� the famous Israeli bus company had set a special line between Ben Gurion Airport and the port city of Sidon. If the Lebanese government is trying to punish every one who entered Israel, then half of the Lebanese population will be in jail and mainly the Shiites who form the majority of South Lebanon. The Lebanese government can not claim anything against the Southern Lebanese people because it was absent for 25 years. If anything, it is the people of South Lebanon who should sue the government for not being by their side to protect them, not the other way around. The Canadian Embassy was powerless in convincing the Lebanese Airport Authority to facilitate the conditions of the family. The Lebanese “stuff� at the airport did not even provide the family with drinking water or a place to rest after their long day of travel nor were they allowed meet the family that was at the Airport waiting to welcome them. 12 hours later, the kids and their mother had to fly back at 2:00 am to Paris where the French police also investigated why they were not allowed to enter Lebanon. With this poor family finally back home to Mississauga, we wonder if the government in Lebanon will ever be responsible enough to ensure the practice of human rights on Lebanese territories. Or should the international community, that issued a series of resolutions about Lebanon, continue to put more pressures until things are truly fixed?"