Notes form the South of Lebanon, part 6: "One wounded school"

About the NDA School in Nabatiyeh we wrote a lot in the past. But in February we visited this place for the first time after the ceasefire. This is how our Sumar remembers that day:

Nothing was enough to prepare us for what we were about to see at the school 

Our first trip to the South after the war and here we were entering the neighborhood

At first, we thought we took a wrong turn and told ourselves it’s been months since we visited the school. Actually, our last trip was 6 months ago, just before the war started and neither of us could anticipate what we were about to see. 

We pulled over to ask some random guy for directions, he drove his car and we followed him to the same location exactly where we found ourselves in the first place. We were shocked when we came to realize that the calm green neighborhood surrounding the school was nothing but those piles of rubble, a totally different landscape than the one we held on in our minds. Yes, everything was roasting slowly in the sun, no trees, no buildings, no residents, just rubble suggesting many stories about some past. 

The old school building was standing there, stripped of the beauty that surrounded it and left with some shy greenery in the monastery garden that wasn’t spared either. 

We won’t deny the fact that our meetings are usually very emotional, but this one left us shaky after seeing the damages around the school premises. Targeting the neighborhood meant that the school was paying off the price with every rocket falling around it.

The nuns stayed as long as possible, sheltering families and holding on to their monastery and school.

It was harder than ever to find words of consolation. What to say to those nuns who dedicated their lives to serve an impossible mission there weaving the strings of love and compassion all around them? How to say that everything is going to be just fine when neither of us can offer any guarantees? Why give them hope if we are not going to kneel in prayers and cry out for God’s mercy to open some door?

What we saw left us speechless. In the main building, the windows in the nuns residence, the cafeteria, the classrooms, the hallways, and stairs had broken glass. Some were covered with nylon but not all. Many walls had cracks, especially around the iron frames of the windows and doors that were blown out of place. The students were squeezed in available classrooms simply because it was impossible financially to restore all classrooms. Choices had to be made. 

The new building hosting some of the classes for the English section, is barely usable as only a couple of classrooms can be used. We could see everywhere how decoration made from cardboards was intended to be visually distracting, a smart move in such a hardship. 

But the worst view was yet to come. We crossed the street to visit the new nursery and kindergarten building. What was supposed to be the pearl of the school was turned into a useless place. The nursery and the kindergarten were completely ravaged, and the classrooms for the primary level look like anything from a horror movie. The place is marked with completely broken windows and holes in the walls. The indoors theater is semi outdoors now and the little pool is filled with rubble that fell off from nearby bombed buildings. The tiny showers for the children became a wreck. The once colorful happy place was turned into a colorful dirty palette of different shapes and forms that damages can embody. 

We had to leave that building when the wind started to blow, we had no guarantees that glass pieces would not fly over our heads or some window frame or door would not fall off at some misfortunate moment.

Later on, we realized that the photos we took couldn’t depict the true extent of damage we witnessed there, particularly in that building. And where are the little ones aged from 3 to 5 now? They attend classes in the basement of the main building. Surely, it’s not the healthiest option, but what to do given the fact that the children start school at the age of 3?

The nursery remains with no solution and working mothers who entrust the nuns to take care of their newborns, still knock on the door of the institution and ask the nuns when they will reopen the nursery.