طلعنا على الضو

You already know that my younger brother Walid is now living with me in Dubai; it’s amazing how we two get along so well. When I lived with my elder brother (he is two years younger than me but don’t tell anybody ok, he’s married with a kid now!!); when I lived with him, we used to fight like cats and dogs. Not that we didn’t get along, nor I loved him less than I love Walid, no, but maybe we were too close to indulge each others, or maybe I was still young then? I don’t know.

Don’t get me wrong, Walid and I still have our small fights, it’s not easy to share the house with a man, even if it’s your brother. Now the biggest fight lasted for good 10 minutes including the 5 minutes I stopped talking, but still, it was a conjugal fight. Last week we argued over DVDs, he insisted on making me watch scarface, claiming that it is a must see. I watched a few scenes. Unfortunately it was at the end of the movie and it was very violent and too tragic to my taste. I exploded at him for not warning me beforehand. It was so bloody violent and I hated it. Few days later he made me watch “A Bronx Tale” and I had the same argument with him; although the movie was not violent; the testosterone dose was quite high, the story was old and the plot was so predictable…

To make it up for me, coz he realized that “girls” do not like this kinda movies, he got me a chick flick (what women want) and a Fairouz K7 since I complained about the rock music that invaded my car! It was Natourit El Mfati7. I’m not a big Fairouz fan, the only Fairouz albums I got are the Ziad El Rahbani ones. I don’t know what was he thinking, but I really appreciated it.
The highlight of the album (and the reason why I’m writing this post) is the Freedom’s song “tla3na 3ala eddaou”. Walid says that this was a popular song during the March 14 protests against Syria. I know nothing about that since I was in Dubai. I haven’t heard this song for long time, very long time, since I was in the primary school.

I was 5 or 6 years old, not sure, I can’t tell from the photos. It was at the end of the scholar year and we participated in the school’s activities. I remember I paid 5 Lebanese Pounds for the dress. It was made of “jonfeiss”(sorry I don’t know what it is called in English). I don’t recall the rehearsals or even the evening itself; I guess it was not an evening, it was during the day, since the pictures we got after the event were during the day. I only remember a lot of black fabric, I guess it was the backstage. I also remember that I was not a great dancer. We danced to the “freedom”. I never understood why we were wearing those lame dresses; neither did I understand the meaning of the song. I loved the words though: we went out to the light, to the wind to the sun to the freedom. I enjoyed the idea of changing names and changing the color of our eyes, WOW, change the color of my eyes, how can I do that? Water coloring? What color would I choose? Would black suit me? I don’t like blue, I’ll go for green, if I have to color my eyes I’ll choose green, that what suits me the most….

I never participated in any activity after that, every year there was a reason to cancel the year-end festivities, every year there was a reason not to do extra curriculum activities. I paid twice to join guitar, and once to do acrobat, never attended more than a class. It was so frustrating growing up during the war. You stick to the basics, you cannot indulge in activities that risk your safety, and you cannot go out in a sortie every weekend.

I become an adult very quickly, I was less than ten years when mama asked me (or ordered me) to play dump, she made me wear old cloths and asked me to pretend that I’m retarded. I was tall and about to reach puberty. Militants broke in our house and asked for help, mama prepared dinner and I don’t know what else, I can’t forget her face, she was so scared that they would rape me, we heard a lot of those stories you know. That’s how I learned what rape is….

As a teenager I had a very small margin of freedom, and being the rebel I always was, I put up big fights with mama, “ma belle geoliere” I hated being a girl, why the hell my brother could go out whenever he wants and goes wherever he wants and I can’t??? Well, now I know.

Although we had some moments of relative peace, growing up in West Beirut was rather challenging. When the war came to an end, I was already 17 years old, and I joined USJ, it was on a “khat tamess” and it was the first year moving between west and east Beirut was allowed, but still I had the full support of mama, and eventually baba. It wasn’t being a girl that made my parent so paranoid about my safety; it was being a girl during the civil war….

It’s awful people it’s awful, the war is awful, I don’t want my kids to grow up in a war. I don’t have any, and after what is happening I don’t think I will ever have any, but my friends and relatives have and I don’t want them to live the way we lived. Stop this non-sense NOW. I don’t care corruption or no corruption, I don’t care who’s right and who’s wrong, I don’t care about any cause but my kids’ cause, I don’t want Lea, Lyn, Dana, Farah and Dima to live another war. They don’t know how bad it is, I do…