Perhaps, in fact, the refugee crisis, since its very beginning, never did really command the landscape, but for the purposes of exaggeration, profiteering, and political gain from a forced presence. No one really knows the exact number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, nor has any one an accurate map of their geographical distribution.
Instead, we have been preoccupied by the pictures of refugees sinking at seas, their daily flights to the unknown, the ongoing destruction of ruins and archeological sites by ISIS, and the agreements between Western countries on the share of each of educated, young Syrians, the ones able to produce a better tomorrow, those who have been rejected by their own country and the neighboring “brotherly” countries.
However, Maryam is still sitting in the corner of both Hamra and Saroula streets, with her three children, except that she’s been sitting there for the past three years. Sadness still shows in her eyes, and the fear of emptiness and the unknown still emanates from deep within her. Her children appear less burdened, as though they are accustomed to the place, and it no longer frightens them. Seemingly, they have become familiar with their routines.
But the greater tragedy is that the family’s daily sentry, stretching back for three years, has become familiar in the eyes of all the passers-by.