We had just finished entertaining some young people at the main house and only the team was inside when it occurred. Had we any glass in the windows it would have all been blown out. As it was, my back was against the window, leaning on thin plastic, when a sudden noise and flash of light filled the room. The plastic slapped violently at my back. It is all a blur now, but I do recall my team members running outside (out the very door from which the flash occurred) to investigate. I wasn’t as bold. I stayed indoors. Perhaps I had seen too many films, but I imagined this was a ploy to get us outside and then mow us down with an Uzi. Gunshot and bombs were not uncommon in this place, but never so close. After a few moments when the guns didn’t sound, I peeked my head around the door and gingerly walked onto the porch. The villagers were running towards our home. It was then that we realised the noise and flash were in our front garden and not the centre of the village as some team members had suspected. Yes, our garden and the small wall that surrounded our home was the target. Who would want to harm or frighten us?

News of the US Marine bombing in Beirut filled the shortwave radio in 1983. Though we were not all Americans on the team, everyone was considered to be so. British, South African, American…we were all the same– we were American. With such animosity and fear, anything foreign was held in question.

Our village was Maronite Christian. The church services there were held in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus. Like the Latin services of the Catholic church, nobody really understood the majority of what was being said. They came partly out of devotion and partly to remember the dead. Before we had arrived, everyone who could not escape was taken to the church, opposite our home, and massacred by Palestinian terrorists. They were the innocent victims caught in one of the many Middle East conflicts that unfortunately, decades later, still exists. Their village just happened to get in the way. We had nothing to hide. We were only there to help the victims recover from the terror and bloodshed. Our only purpose was to offer hope and bring some slight relief to their suffering. We lived on the outskirts of Aishea; in fact the men of our team lived in the last house on the way out. Perhaps the explosion wasn’t an anti-American statement at all. Maybe it was purely because we lived on the edge of the village. It might have been that we were caught in the middle of Muslim and Christian hatred.

By the time we arrived in Lebanon we had all lived in Israel for some time and consequently spoke Hebrew. Was this considered suspicious by the local villagers? Probably. The Israeli tanks would barrel past our doors and on several occasions would stop to check on us to make sure we were safe. We would offer them coffee and biscuits and chat away in Hebrew. The soldiers could never figure out why we were there. None of them wanted to be there. Why would anybody in their right minds choose a place like this? Did the Israeli soldiers hold us in suspicion? If not, they were at least confused by our presence.

We had many friends in Aishea, especially amongst the younger generation. However, it was assumed we weren’t always welcomed by some of the older, more wise in the village. There were of course, exceptions to every rule — Jidde and Sitte (Arabic for grandmother and grandfather). I don’t recall their real names, for this is all we ever called them. They embraced us like their own grandchildren. In fact, once we realised it was a cultural faux pas to have a co-ed home, they offered their chicken coop for the ladies to live in. While it doesn’t sound very appealing, once we cleaned it and put kilis (whitewash) on the walls, it became nicer than the main house.

We also made friends from a nearby Muslim village. We would go and visit, drink tea and eat with them. After all, everybody was a victim in this conflict; not just the Christians. Was this suspicious? Most definitely. Because we lived on the edge of Aishea, our Muslim friends would come to our home and visit after dark. This was considered the safest time for them to come to our home. Scuffles would break out between the local Christians and our Muslim guests. This of course raised more suspicion towards us. How could we call ourselves Christian and have Muslims in our home? Why would a Christian speak Hebrew, the language of the Jews? Maybe the bomb was something more sinister after all.

As the sun was setting, still numb with emotion, we slowly returned to our home and the villagers back to theirs. There were no telephone lines. This was before e-mail, mobile phones or text messaging. But because we were under Israeli protection, we were given a small hand-held two-way radio that communicated to Israel. It was to be used only in the event of emergencies. It didn’t take long before the team agreed that a bomb in our front garden warranted such a call. As there was war all around us, we had to talk in ‘code’ so our communication didn’t get intercepted. We were known as ‘mountain-folk.’ The call would have been answered in the northern-most city in Israel, Metulla. I can’t recall the exact wording, but the call went something like this…

“Mountain-folk calling home. Mountain-folk calling home.
Come in home.”

After a few false starts, a lot of crackling noise, unintelligible sounds, and several pauses, we finally made contact.

“Go ahead mountain-folk. Over.”
“This is mountain-folk. We have a tossed salad and would like to invite you for dinner. Over.”

Early the next morning, we found ourselves regretting the call we had felt was so important to make. How prophetic was that last word in our call to home. It was believed by our leaders that it was no longer safe for us to be in Lebanon. Vehicles arrived from Israel and seemingly within moments we were whisked away. We loaded our personal belongings and left the houses vacant. Our two tortoises who lived in our back garden, named Jidde and Sitte after our adopted grandparents, were released into the woods to fend for themselves.

As we sat in our vehicles now pointing towards Israel, we slowly crept through the village. One-by-one they came from their homes and lined the road. Our hands were pressed against the glass as they banged on the windows and cars and begged us not to go. George, the shopkeeper’s son who was convinced he looked like Superman, stood silently beside the only shop in the village. Hadi, a young boy whom I had befriended, stood by his parents, not daring to look up. Miled, one of our best friends, stood along the road, wiping tears on his handkerchief, hand-in-hand with his younger sister. Someone reached in through an open window and pressed a small blue amulet into my palm, to protect me from evil. We had spent months preparing, learning Arabic in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in northern Israel, and learning about Arab culture. We were ready to invest our lives with these people. To have us pulled out before we were ready to go was devastating far beyond my simple words or uncontrollable tears could ever explain.

For us, there was an escape. We could go back to Israel, where there was running water and electricity. We could stand beneath the warm showers for as long as we wanted. We could go to the stores and buy whatever we desired. Fresh vegetables, meat, an unlimited amount of basic necessities were there for us to take. We could travel without fear of being robbed or held hostage. We could live without a cloud of suspicion following us wherever we went. We could buy an aeroplane ticket and fly anywhere in the world we wanted. We were indeed free.

For those we left behind…they could do none of these things.

“Who threw the dynamite?” – a question that had riddled my thoughts since the bombing, was now unimportant. It was over. And so were our dreams.