It’s known as Hezbollah land. It has been bombed in 2006. It’s on the way from Beirut to Damascus. It’s one of the most fertile areas in the Middle East, where huge clusters of watermelons wait on the roadsides. Bekaa Valley is not the fortress I expected, except for the 6 or 7 soldiers who check the cars on the highway at the entrance in the valley.
To reach Bekaa you have to take Damascus road, cross the mountains and pass through the mountain resorts. The view is spectacular. Dr. Nabil Outa and his wife sit in the front. I’m in the backseat. Quite quiet. Too quite for the too many questions in my mind. Or destination: Rayak. A small town at about 10 kilometers from Zahle. We’re visiting Abdallah family. A family of physicians. Four brothers. Three of them graduated from medical school in Romania, as Dr. Nabil Outa did.
Dr Nabil is a small man, a moderate sunni. He and his wife are fasting. As he switches on the radio and settles on an Arabic music station which plays lots of habibi songs – that’s what I could make of Arabic so far - he asks me if I like Arabic music and without waiting for the answer he begins to tell me about the nice things a foreigner can find in the mountain resorts. He goes on and on in perfect Romanian about the slopes in the winter and the Saudi people who come to spend their holidays in the mountains of Lebanon. I can’t take my eyes off the window and I would have filmed everything if my camera wasn’t such a piece of sh…t.
This time Dr Nabil doesn’t talk politics. He usually tells me his worries and all his expectations. He lives in southern Beirut, although he’s a sunni. He and his wife are French Citizens too. They left during the 2006 war and they stayed for a few months in Lyon. The woman keeps mentioning “Fransa” and keeps comparing everything to it. Dr. Nabil was not impressed by France. He got bored there. He wanted to go back to his office in Corniche Mazraa. And that’s what he did. When they came back in September 2006 they found a note in the door of their apartment. The Hezbollah was offering them 300 $ to repair their house after the bombing. Dr. Nabil was very upset with Hezbollah at the time. Other people in the neighborhood had got more money.
On our way to Bekaa, Dr. Nabil didn’t ask me about the rumors I hear from fellow journalists. Nor about what I think of the politics, as he usually does. He shows me the highest bridge in the Middle East, “which was bombed and destroyed by Israel in 2006”. He told me to keep the camera out of the soldier’s sight. Not that I didn’t already know. Once we pass the military checkpoint, the air begins to feel dry and hot. I’d love to stop in one of the villages. But no can do says Dr. Nabil. We need to hurry cause Dr. Mohammed Abdallah is waiting. We take a detour through Zahle though. He can’t miss telling me that 20 of the doctors in the Zahle hospital went to school in Romaia and are part of his 1500 people association of former students in Romania who keep sending their children to study in the same country. Zahle looks different from the other city we passed through, Chtaura. Zahle is mostly Christian and the hill looks like a cluster of yellowish houses. Clean, ordered and beautiful. Disciplined.
We drive through very fast and we continue our way to Rayak. The hospital of the Abdallah brothers seems huge. Until we find the entrance in the residential complex where the four brothers live. Very similar to the presidential palace in Bucharest. Four huge orange houses, in a huge clean park with lawn, flowers and a swimming pool where a bunch of kids splash and laugh. Dr. Nabil had never been there before. His wife mentions Fransa again. They’re trying to act normal, but they seem overwhelmed. We ring the bell of a huge wooden door and a Indonesian maid opens it and invites us in a room which seem more of a museum than a living room. A collection of old Wild West guns, Louis XV like furniture, a beautiful stylish lady of the house, Persian carpets and a huge plasma TV where we could see outside the front door. The lady of the house and her elder son, a 18 year old who’s just been admitted to the second best university in Lebanon and is disappointed it is not the most expensive, invite us to sit down. Dr Nabil explains my presence quickly and then we leave to the hospital. The wives remain in the house. I’m obviously treated as something between a man and a woman. The camera and the tripod seemed to impress as much as that.
Rayak Hospital was a huge building, extremely well furnished as far as medical equipment is concerned. I had to wear special equipment to film in certain areas. And I’ve been able to film in the hospital prison. A detainee was in a coma, probably after an “accident”. The other seemed a very merry guy willing to have long conversation about how “perfect” everything was and how he got there because of a stupid person who went to the American Embassy to renew the false American passport he had forged. He had got 7 years for that. But everything was “tamam”, meaning perfect. The policemen guarding the two cells were having lots of fun with this particular guy.
We met Dr. Mohammen Abdallah in his office. His Romanian was not that good anymore. I had to shout the questions and rephrase them in very simple words. He still keeps his Medical School manual in the office. Now he wants to go to Romania and build a hospital there. He wants to see his old friends from school and mushy stuff like that. And then we headed back to the house for the Ifar, the Ramadan dinner. An amazing experience and a whole different story.
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