who they really are...

She has pulled me in with her affection and laughter. With her innocence and hilarious descriptions. With her describing her first moments of living in a tent, with mud as streets, nylon as a cover. How she is used to her glass chandelier and beautiful wood cabinets. how she comes from a bustling city of millions.

She is a city girl.

 She told me she cried when she had to give her children their first bath pouring water over them in buckets. She said she went into her living area and just collapsed and cried at the adjustments.

   And then the mud they would drag into her home...shoes covered thick in mud. She did not understand how to keep her home clean, or how to keep their pants or shoes workable. She said she had no idea how she could adjust to all of this.

   And they all doing their cooking crouched over a small gas stove. crouched over. coming from excellent cooks with their spotless kitchens.

  Bombs were hitting their area for a month without stopping before they fled. Her husband away working here in Lebanon, in order to provide for them. She said she could not even send her oldest son out to get bread or supplies because she was so filled with fear. Her son, 10 years old, would beg her to just let him...that the children needed things to eat.

 She would eventually cave in and then almost go hysterical waiting for him to come back. He always came back... But the stress she lived under is so real as she is describing it that she is shaking.

When the fear and the uncertainty and the bombings were just too much, she fled. She took what items she could carry with them and she and her 5 children fled. It was horrible she said.

  They came out of this horror only to be met with a way of life that she absolutely can not get her head around. To neighbors hearing your every conversation, to children playing in mud all day long, to being hunched over to cook her incredible meals.

 And as she tells me her story I am struck with her humor. Her silly antics and the things that strike her as so funny. How she is terrified of roaches and rats, like any woman. How she thinks day and night about her kids not getting lice or diseases...skin rashes or worms.

  But the core of who she is - a woman who pours herself out. who lives for her children and husband. She meticulously cleans her house, watches over her children, nurses them when they are sick, cooks them healthy meals.

 How she invites me and my family to a meal at her place over and over again. How she feels rejected when I avoid answering her...only because I don't want her to go to all that work for us.





 She spends two whole days preparing a feast for my family. Her neighbors pitch in. It is completely mind blowing and humbling to sit in their home and eat the work of their labor. The food that they are so generously serving us.



I look into my daughters eyes and try to see if they get it. do they feel the sacrifice and the love? the extravagance and kindness?  they giggle and play and speak in small Arabic phrases explaining how good the food is...



 I will have to help them get it.