Caught!

This morning, armed with my camera and the firm resolution to capture as many moments on film, I ran down the four flights of stairs from my apartment and open the iron gate to let my feet guide me along the sunlit streets.

My eyes were on target, finding amidst the debris and the cement walls scenes that deserved to be immortalized. An old lady, wrapped in black, selling lettuce on the sidewalk. A father and a son, both mechanics, waiting patiently for the client to come. A comical group of taxi drivers taking a break in the sun, laughing. Two young workers, sitting by a painted mural sun-tanning. An old man, a small pick in hand, trying to rub off the posters that were plastered on the walls of his property. Each time I hesitantly asked “mumkeen saweer”, they took a long look at me, smiled, and lent their faces to my camera.

On a corner, I found a visibly abandoned house with wide windows, large balconies, imposing arches. The sun was casting a subtle, yet enchanting light on it, through the leaves of plants who had grown, unhindered, around the walls. I had already captured a few shots of the residence when I saw a police officer, dress in is blue camo uniform, his large, intimidating gun on his side, from the corner of my eye. I thought, naively, that he was passing by, on his way to or back from duty. He stopped when he reached me; asked me what I was doing; demanded that I step aside; wanted to have a look at my camera, inspected my passport. For half an hour, I stood, vulnerable, next to him while he called his superiors, conversed with a friend of him nearby, went through every single page of my passport. Finally, in a broken English, he explained that I was in a “secret” zone, that I needed a permission to take pictures, that nothing would happen to me, he just needed to hear his superior tell him to let me go. Which he did, minutes later, apologizing for the inconvenience. “Sorry for Lebanon”, he said.

It was not just him that had been doing a little zeal, it was the entire country, tensed, that suspected everyone. For the past few days, I’ve heard many, half jokingly, comment that we were statistically due for the next bomb. Some are just waiting for the war to explode, as they believe it is inescapable, the only way out of the impasse in which the country fell.