Kelly, 22, sat on her father’s couch near the window that overlooks the sea in Ouzai. She watched a plane as it lands, and said «I hate this sea today, we used to sit in this modest room every day, all of us, eat, drink and laugh. But they decided to leave, and I decided to stay.»
Mayez Safwan made up his mind the day he decided to go to Europe, thinking this would change the course of his life. He left Beirut this last October, along with 11 members of his family. They headed for Istanbul in order to take a bus to coastal Izmir. There, the boats were ready to take the migrants to the shores of Greece. But the winds countered the ship’s desire, and the boat sank.
Kelly and Mirna, the two oldest daughters, decided to stay in Beirut and avoid taking that type of risk that didn’t suit them. The two talk about the reasons that led their father to take the difficult decision and to place his trust in the sea. «He was told that the trip would be easy,» Mirna says, «and that it would be easy to get from Istanbul to Izmir, and that the trip by boat would only be an hour; that the weather was good at this time of year. He was also told that the trip to Germany wasn’t difficult, but our family didn’t even make it to the shores of Greece.»
Kelly and Mirna’s family was not the only Lebanese family living in Beirut to be encouraged by the stories being told by people around them to embark the gamble of the sea. But the girls decided that this sea wasn’t theirs. They wished their family well and awaited their safe arrival. However, that did not happen because the deal the family made was suspicious and not documented. The waves, meanwhile, were treacherous.
Elsewhere in the capital, Maya moves around as she packs things in a shop in Beirut. She looks at her phone from time to time and then goes back to checking the price list. She’s a 35-year-old Lebanese woman who refused to leave Beirut with her husband, who decided to go to Germany months ago, also by sea. «It was a big risk,» she says, «and honestly I wasn’t brave enough, although we don’t have children yet and that would only make our movements and our trip easier. But I didn’t want to drown.»
Maya bid her husband goodbye; he headed to Bordum in Turkey. From there he took a boat that got him safely to Greece. Six months later, he is still awaiting to move into a home that is separate from the camp that took him in for several months in Germany. She’s waiting for the papers and the reunion visa to come, so that she can join her husband in Germany and start their new story there together. «We’re Lebanese,» Maya says, «and I still have mixed feelings. I feel that by taking the trip we’ve prevented a Syrian family from its right to claim asylum, but I don’t have a future here. Six hundred dollars a month won’t be enough if I have a baby. Today, I want to make a family, and I’m getting closer to 40 every hour. I wanted to leave but I left the risk-taking to my husband and told myself, ‘If he gets there then great, and if he doesn’t he will have chosen his destiny by himself’.»
Sarah (not her real name) moves between Beirut and Tripoli for her job. Her husband has also settled in Germany a year ago. She is a Lebanese from Tripoli and is also waiting for the family reunification visa for herself and her children – she refused to let them take the risk of traveling by sea. When Sarah read about the drowning of the Lebanese family of Mayez Safwan, and decided to delay her departure. «When I heard of what happened with that family, I called the office that is arranging a trip by sea for me and my two children. I told them that I’m not going. We gave our seats to someone else. I got scared of the idea of the boat sinking while I’m on it, with my children, alone. Who would I save first? My six-year-old son? Or my little daughter?»
«I’ll wait for the family reunification visa, even if for a year, two or ten years – but I won’t give the sea the opportunity to steal my children. My husband managed to get across these obstacles and won the challenge, it’s true, but what guarantees that we will too?»