Uled Tripoli, Sabe Tripoli, Soldiers Lebanon

Just as I arrived to Beirut, fighting in the northern city of Tripoli broke out; this time it was different, for the first time in Lebanon, random car bombings took place, a different sense of fear took over, leaving everyone in an cautious state of being; we all waited, like lambs before their time, a nervous uncertainty was truly in the air. Madrases were closed, but the kids still played, giving friendly names to the sounds of war: “Popcorn” for the light artillery, the familiar rapid fire of machine guns and automatic weapons, but for the sounds that came from the heavy tanks, the kids called it “Kibbe”, a heavy and rich Lebanese dish that is made by pounding over and over the lamb’s meat. As I walked trough the streets of Tripoli, everything had a surreal cinematic veil to it, a strange presence not easy to define but palpable only to sight. Adrenaline makes you experience things differently, every sense goes into high gear; time slows down so every gesture could be processed. Colors assume a lively significance even though is destruction what they show, but above all, the sounds of the streets are the ones that take over; every pin, every machine, every echo, every prayer, they stay and linger, becoming a single track that plays over and over again.