Baheji was the first one that I talked to, yet her story is the one that didn’t leave my mind. She is originally from Palestine, Jerusalem, but she doesn’t know a lot of what was happening there because she left to jordan when she was approximately 40 days old. Then, she came to Beirut before the civil war broke out. Baheji lived in West Beirut, and she used to do embroidery and she still does it until nowadays. She would collect leftovers of clothes or threads and make use of them. She did a cushion also for a foreign teacher that used to be in ACS.
It was all good until the 13th of April in 1975, that’s when the Civil War started. Baheji told us what was life like for the millions of people who were under the terror, threats and bombs. People would stay in the ground floor because their houses were destroyed and that way they would stay away from all the damages and deaths that were happening outside, and Baheji was one of them. But what interested me the mostly was that, Baheji said, “ they would be shooting, and I’d be making cake for all the people”. She was like a pain relief for them, and of course people were hungry at that time but they weren’t able to go get good food, or if they did they had to crawl under sniper bullets. They were impressed with her and her cake. Someone told her “I hope this war continues, so that we get to eat cake everyday”. But of course, he/she meant that it is tasty and not the other part. She made people love war in a way that they would be telling their enemies- we’re living our life to the fullest. She experienced a human quality and took care for people.
Baheji is a Muslim, but she had friends from different cultures and religions at that time. She had a friend that used to live in East Beirut, and she was visiting Baheji in West Beirut. While she was there, she read in the newspapers that a house was bombed in East Beirut and the people in it were killed, but didn’t mention any names. She was really scared and quickly headed to her house.
The army/snipers stopped her several times on her way there, but then they let her go. It turned out it was her kids and husband. And that was in April 13th or 14th.
