The roll of Canadian thunder welcomes me home

This is just a quick post to say I am safely in Montreal, Canada. I arrived last night via Adana, Turkey.

After waiting for days with no word from the Canadian embassy in Beirut, I decided with my 7 Quebecois friends that we would push our way into the port (by any means necessary!) and camp out if need be outside the gate.

As dark set on Saturday, we got our taxi to talk us through security. The next set of guards said no, we were not allowed in. Finally, I demanded to speak to the government of Canada. They were reluctant. More guards gathered, ready to expell us. We persisted.

Finally allowed an audience with an Embassy staff (who was someone I'd actually had dinner with months before!) we were permitted to stay and promised we could leave on the first boat Sunday morning.

We slept in the basement of a conference centre. I had been there at an Arab book fair only four months prior. Funny how things go in circles... the book fair/evacuation camp-out... shooting a shotgun at New Year's in the Beqaa valley/my friends being holed up in the same village, afraid for their lives... walking a bridge the day I made friends with a Palestinian friend/feeling the rumble of that same bridge collapsing under the weight of an airstrike.

I built myself a fort of stacked plush armchairs and a table to keep the light out. It felt like being a kid again, making furniture castles. I wonder what pschologists would say about this defense-building venture?

The next morning, we were processed and spent a few hours helping Lebanese evacuees prepare their luggage for departure.

One elderly Lebanese man, Dawood (my name in Arabic, actually) needed my hand to help him across the hall. As he slowly walked, he stopped and pulled a passport from his pocket. It was a woman in her late 60s.

"We came to visit our family," he said, looking straight into my eye, sadly. "My wife and I... Now I am going home alone. I buried her in Tripoli yesterday."

We were put on a Turkish ferry, a grueling journey with no medical staff on board and one woman going into shock from the panic. Since the crew spoke no English, French or Arabic, no one had any clue even where we were going, or how we could get help for this woman who was convulsing in seizures on the top deck.

She was finally helped by the line of Red Crescent workers once the boat arrived at port many hours later. We were taken to a school in Adana, Turkey, slept the night on mattresses in a huge gymnasium. I stayed up until 3 a.m. lying on the cool, wet grass outside and watching the stars, cringing at airplanes overhead, and in my heart saying goodbye to this region that has welcomed me, broken my heart and spit me out again, into a world where few seem to care.

I know, now, that people do care. Many, many people. I got home to Canada to find dozens upon dozens of emails from friends and strangers. They are so worried about Lebanon. One email from a friend on kibbutz near Gaza. Another in Germany. Others from churches and activist groups who don't know what to do.

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I plan to stay with my best Canadian friend from Beirut for a few days here in Montreal, undergo some trauma debriefing, then get to see my family and partner. After that, I will be ready to speak about my experience, to whoever will listen.

On the plane home, I read about the need to debrief after a crisis, and was surprised to read evacuation on the list of traumatic events. One article advised me to become aware of what triggers my emotions.

As I write, somewhere above the clouds, a commercial airliner jet roars, it's howl echoing over the heavens in a ghastly rumble. It's airplanes, for me, that are the trigger, and the thunderstorm that woke me with a jolt at 6 a.m. this morning. I sat up in my bed, felt my heart speed, my senses tighten in anticipation, my jaw grind tightly. I waited expectantly for for a distant thud-thud-thud of apartment blocks collapsing or runways ripped open. The ripple of the shock-wave across town like concentric waves on a pond surface.

Nothing. Just the wind.

Then the realization comes - after a momentary double-check that Israel has not decided to bomb 'terrorists' in Montreal - that it is just harmless thunder, or a 747 just taking people on vacations somewhere far from Lebanon and Israel and Palestine and the nightmare.

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The war in Lebanon continues, with the south continuing to be pummeled. Israeli soldiers have invaded on ground, with bulldozers grinding over their footsteps. I'm not sure which are more troubling, the soldiers' entry into the conflict, or the bulldozers into villages.

Belgian doctors are also reporting strange conditions of the bodies coming into morgues - they are suggesting that a chemical is being used that prevents bleeding despite heavy mutilation from airstrikes, and turns the skin black "as a shoe." Phosphorous weapon symptoms are also being reported. A friend in the suburbs said the smell of bodies is sickening from a distance, but that they are decomposing at an abnormally fast rate. Something is in these bombs, they say.

I will be searching for references on these allegations. If you find anything, please post it as a comment.

After I have time to take care of myself, I plan to help out with direct action organizing in Canada for Lebanon, as well as touring a bit to offer presentations. There were large protests in Israel over the weekend, against the war. Up to 5,000 participated. Bless them.