Caithness aid worker shares stories from Lebanon after ‘terrible war’
Wick man Chris McIvor, who has travelled the globe working in the aid sector, currently for HelpAge International, reflects on the human impact of war
Meshmesh is a village in the Lebanese mountains, a 90-minute drive from the capital Beirut. An hour in that direction a side-road takes a turn upwards from the busy northern highway to ascend to the hills that overlook the coastal plain below.
The change is dramatic. One minute you are surrounded by high-rise buildings and a succession of hotels and billboards advertising the latest unaffordable car and holiday resort. The next you are in a cloud-covered region of deep valleys, groves of olive and lemon trees, wandering goats and sleepy villages.
The climate changes just as abruptly into something more like northern Scotland in spring rather than the Middle East entering its hot and humid summer.
In this idyllic landscape dotted with Christian chapels, Muslim mosques, statues of Lebanese saints and the virgin Mary, as well as an imposing monastery dedicated to the 5th century founder of the Maronite church who preached peace and tolerance, it is difficult to imagine that it has been impacted by the terrible war that recently affected the country.
In Beirut just down the coast you can find suburbs of the city which were impacted by bombs and which still retain the ruins of destroyed buildings and shattered homes.
At the height of the war, which only ended in November last year, several hundred thousand people were internally displaced, living for months in schools, makeshift shelters and the houses of whatever relatives they could find to host them.
But while the physical evidence of destruction is absent in these mountain villages, many of them as you enter have large billboards on the sides of the road displaying pictures of the recently deceased, with flags and flowers scattered around them to honour their memory.
Indeed the medical clinic I am visiting today was set up last year not for the local residents primarily but to cater for the influx of several hundred displaced Lebanese who had fled the fighting to find refuge in these mountains.
There is hardly anyone that did not lose a relative, friend or colleague in the 18 months of fighting or that does not know someone who did.
One of my travelling companions had her house destroyed, flattened by an explosion that hit a target nearby. With resources scarce, with no insurance cover, with a country that has been on the edge of bankruptcy for several years, there is little help she can expect in rebuilding the home she has lost.
Once again I ask a question that has intrigued me in many of the countries I have visited over my years of working in the charity sector: “How do you cope? What allows you to keep going?”
These questions have a personal dimension too. I have frequently wondered how I myself would fare if I were a victim of war, conflict, famine, floods or drought. Would I be as resilient as the people I have spoken to?
The answers I have received are invariably mixed, with some challenging whether the word “cope” is appropriate to describe the resigned desperation many feel when their lives have been turned upside down.
Recent research among older people in Lebanon, for example, showed that a majority were suffering from stress and depression with an increasing incidence of high blood pressure, anxiety, sleeplessness and dependence on medication. I agree that this can hardly be described as “coping”.
Others claim that the commonality of suffering makes one’s own situation more tolerable. The fact that there is someone in an even worse situation shifts preoccupation with one’s personal circumstances into a concern for others.
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Many Lebanese families, I have been told, opened up their homes to strangers during the height of the displacement or volunteered their time in schools and refugee shelters to assist those who had fled the fighting. Common adversity frequently brings out the best in people.
Another strategy is to limit one’s time horizons. The future becomes shorter and shorter so that people end up thinking in terms of days rather than weeks, months or years ahead. During the worst of the fighting, preoccupation with finding food, shelter, water, medicines and other basics meant that many people had no time to worry about next year, claimed my Lebanese colleague. “It is when you allow yourself to think further ahead that you worry the most.”
For many people in situations of adversity, faith clearly helps. I was struck by the number of religious establishments that decorate the villages of the Lebanese mountains; numerous churches, chapels, mosques and shrines with evidence of their being much frequented and occupying a more central position in the life of their communities than in countries which are perhaps more fortunate.
“Our religion teaches us that we are on earth to be tested. We might wish for things to be easier and different but god is waiting for us to prove our worth. Giving up and throwing our hands in the air are signs we have failed.”
When the causes of a disaster are to do with the actions of others rather than acts of god or nature, the answer to my question about coping has often been different. Pride and a determination not to be seen to surrender one’s dignity in front of those who may have inflicted hardship seems to give some people an inner strength not to give in.
Last year I had the privilege of meeting older refugees in Ukraine who, like their Lebanese counterparts, had been displaced by the war that had overtaken them. One elderly gentleman whose house had been destroyed, who had lost members of his family and who had no community now to help him in his old age claimed that resignation and hopelessness would only embolden those who had forced him to flee.
“Many of us will not let those who have tried to destroy our lives defeat our spirit. I do not want our enemy to have the satisfaction of that victory.”