The ¨project¨ (Almashrue) began when Baba decided to finally go back home, to Lebanon, after many years of working abroad. He has not been to Jinnata (his southern family-owned little village) in a very long time (perhaps over a decade?). He didn’t plan to live in the village, but he wanted his “project” to be there, and to be his last. Almashrue and its ultimate completion became a symbol of his return – the return of a modest man who grew bigger than the boundaries of his beloved (and neglected) Jnoub, beyond the borders of a country where his very name instantly professed (for better and often for worse) his roots, his sect, his ancestry, and with that came at once, blessings and curses. Baba’s “Project” became a symbol of a journey of many triumphs, of too many setbacks, of losses, of a wealth that was meant to be shared. He would supervise the “project” from distance (“I will have the specialists run it – what do I know about community medical services?”). Three floors with many rooms, many windows (“they have to be large, and every room should be flooded with natural light all day”). I hear him (or am I imagining him?) elaborate: “People should feel a sense of welcome, of pride, as they walked in – it shouldn’t feel like a charity. It will simply be a medical centre for the community. They walk in. They get their treatment or medical advice or x-ray or pain killer, and then walk out. Thank you and salamat. This is my project.” Baba died just before it was about to be fully completed. He returned to the village in a casquet, to be buried only meters away from Almashrue. He never got to see it. Or to open its (many) windows for the light to flood in. And for years, it remained a project, for us — “the kids” — to finish someday, somehow, to figure out, to find a way for the villagers to walk in with pride, and walk out without pain. The way he liked it. And when Mama died last year, Almashrue became a temporary home to all her belongings (“but Inchallah only for a short while”), until we (the kids) can find our own way back home, again. Then last week, Almashrue died too. An Israeli strike killed it on a Monday, around noon time, when the sun was at its highest, with the southern light flooding through the walls, the naked windows, the many rooms, the unfinished reception area, the (empty) painkillers’ shelves, the delivery room for babies that were, that weren’t, meant to be – and they all came down together, crumbling to their death, into blocks of rubble, of what was once, Baba’s Project.
Samira Atallah, 05.12.2024