May Wehbe: Rebuilding the family home

The Aug. 4, 2020, Beirut blast was really “the apocalypse and the death of the Lebanon that we once knew,” in the words of Lebanese journalist Dalal Mawad. For many people, there will always be a before and after Aug. 4.

Three years have passed and justice continues to elude us, with promised answers falling into the void.

Amid the lingering shadows, a ray of hope emerges. Beirut, renowned for its Art de Vivre, Art de Recevoir ("Art of living, art of entertaining") is slowly starting to regain its colors, with tourists and expats flocking to the city in droves. This revival is nurtured by the efforts of individuals, organizations and NGOs that have come together to support the city.

This year, at L’Orient Today, we have chosen to shed light on the journeys of those who stayed and fought back, each in their own way. In a series of six profiles, we share with you their stories, struggles and aspirations.

When the first fire erupted at the port, on Aug. 4, 2020, the first instinct of 94-year-old Gemmayzeh resident May Wehbe was to run and hide in the corridor, a practice she inherited from the Lebanese Civil War.

‘Wajdi. Come, follow me to the corridor. It is still somehow safer,’ she recalls telling her brother who, along with his son, Georges chose to remain in the living room, awaiting to see “where they were hitting us from.”

When the explosion hit, Wehbe fell and bumped her head against the wall.

“I thought my brains flew from my head. I scratched my hand, but it wasn’t important,” she recalls. “We were lucky.”

Wehbe’s brother and nephew were thrown to the floor

In the minutes that followed, Wajdi’s daughter Karine rushed back to the family home from her office in Gemmayzeh. She took the injured family members to hospital.

“Wajdi had open wounds on his head,” she recalls. “They stitched them up.”

Rebuilding the family home

The explosion took a heavy toll on the family’s Gemmayzeh residence.

“Everything was destroyed and ripped,” recalls May Wehbe. “The glass and window flew through the other inside of the apartment, hitting the door. Then the building’s elevator.”.

Wanting to ensure her aunt and dad’s return to the apartment, Karine Wehbe quickly commenced the reconstruction process.

“My grandfather, my mom’s dad, built this building in the 1960s. He gave one floor to each of his children. This is my parents’ house. We own it. We couldn’t leave it behind. We are very attached to the neighborhood, to Gemmayzeh. It’s our home,” Karine Wehbe told L’Orient Today.

With a collapsing economy and failing banking system, reconstruction was expensive. “Our money was stuck in the bank. We didn’t have cash flow like before,” she said. Her only solution was to borrow from friends who had cash dollars, as no one would accept payments in Lebanese lira.

“There were no associations that reached out to us directly,” Wehbe added. “As an artist, I received some help but we fixed everything ourselves. It took us six months.”

May Wehbe and her niece Karine. (Credit: Yasmina ABOU-HAKA/L’Orient Today)

Dealing with trauma: Two generations differ

Moving back to Gemmayzeh, six months later, was not easy for Karine. “It was a no-man’s-land,” she says. “The street was empty. You could hear the silence for almost a year.”

May Wehbe says her niece was most impacted by the explosion, psychologically in particular as she kept coming to the house during reconstruction. It took Karine time to get used to life again, she says.

“I had PTSD,” confirms Karine Wehbe. “I wouldn’t dare walk alone in the streets. I saw images that cannot be erased from my mind. I had never seen this. Maybe during the war when I was a kid, but I don’t remember.”

Her aunt, who vividly remembers the Civil War, didn’t seem to be struggling with the same trauma. She says she felt a recurrent feeling of insecurity in Lebanon as a result of the country’s history.

“You never feel safe,” Wehbe said. “You constantly feel threatened and exposed to danger, to explosions. You are prone to running away. You are not stable. Wherever you are, there is danger.”

What made things harder for the family is that Wajdi started feeling the impact of his injuries two years after the blast.

“His head kept hurting,” explains May Wehbe.

He passed away later that year.

Overall, May Wehbe stresses the family spirit that allowed her to return to the family home and stay. “What’s nice about Lebanese people is the affection they have for their families,” she says. “I hope it stays with them.”

Moving forward?

“Gemmayzeh was transformed into something new now,” said Karine Wehbe. “There are a lot of new people living here. Everyone comes to Gemmayzeh now.

“It was weird for me, seeing the influx of people in Gemmayzeh. I would ask myself how people could come and party in Gemmayzeh knowing what went down here. It’s weird. On this street alone, at least 20 people lost their lives.” At the same time, “Maybe life goes on? I don’t know.”

One thing that has truly changed in the neighborhood, is the sense of belonging and solidarity. ​​

“The explosion created links in the neighborhood,” Karine Wehbe explained. “It put us all on the same path. We lived through the same incident. It was important. In such a situation, I needed to feel that I wasn’t alone in what I was going through.”

While Karine Wehbe wasn’t hopeful that Lebanese would experience a radical change of mindset, May Wehbe appeared more confident. She ended the interview by sharing her prospects for a renewed Lebanon.

“I have hope for Lebanon. I don’t lose hope at all. Lebanon is the country of miracles. I have an intuition that the day the corrupt [politicians] are gone, Lebanon is going to get better … I hope God sends your generation beautiful days. Our generation lived in the golden age before the war, but you haven’t gotten to those days yet.”