Easter Week Part ---: Mountain Retreat

Tuesday morning we were off to visit the Mazra'a. The last time I went was when I was here with my family eleven years ago, so although I had distinct images in my mind of the house, of course it was still completely different from how I remember it. When my mom and aunt were here last month, we wanted to go up, but it was too complicated with bad winter weather, not knowing the way, the house being under renovation, and my aunt Nagibe not wanting to come with us. Sr Agnes had spent every summer from May to November at the house and she was the primary caretaker of the house and the family land, so of course memories of her are very closely tied to the house and it is still difficult for family to visit it, especially in the state of disrepair that it is in now, being under construction.

The house itself is over a hundred years old and a place of summer retreat for my grandmother’s family, who like most Lebanese, preferred to escape the heat of the city in a mountain house. There are only three bedrooms in the house, the parents would stay in one room, the three boys in another, and the seven girls in the other, with tiny bathrooms and a small kitchen, all of which are being expanded (for future family reunions, of course). In the 80s the house was occupied for several years (I think seven) by the SY army and when they finally left, they had stripped it of its marble floors, Italian chandeliers, burnt all the doors for firewood, etc. The houses around it (some of them are still abandoned and in disrepair) were destroyed from bombings that occurred between this area and the neighboring mountain. After they left, Sr Agnes undertook rebuilding the house to its previous state, though without the fancy ornamentations.

The drive up to the house was probably my highlight of the week. Spring had certainly begun, and Tia Renee pointed out that even since the last week since they came, trees had begun to sprout and wildflowers to bloom. The mountainscape was more dramatic than any other region I’ve driven through in Lebanon, with patches of different kinds of trees, snow-capped mountains in the background, farmland. The air was perfectly still and it was the most at peace that I’d felt since I arrived. If it weren’t for the neighbors, it reminded me of being in Vinalhaven and Renee confirmed the fact when she mentioned that she thought my dad would like it there a lot.

We only spent about an hour and a half at the house, my aunt and uncle went around supervising the work that was being done and talking through various tasks with the repairman that we brought up with us. Before we left, we drove a little further up the road so I could see a better view of the mountains and the surrounding area. And on our way back down the mountain we stopped at the family’s farmland and apple orchards below the house to talk to Charbel, the caretaker of the land and overseer of the renovation project.

After the winding mountain roads we came to a small town and stopped there for lunch at a bakery. The three of us ordered za’atar and jibni pies (cheese and dried thyme), which were surprisingly delicious, with fresh squeezed orange juice.

When we got back to the house, Renee Henri and Nagibe set to work planning Sr Agnes’ memorial mass for the following weekend and I drifted around the apartment, waiting to watch Obama speak about the economy on CNN live from Georgetown. Oh life. What a time not to be in DC.

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The next day I was on a bus back to Damascus and arrived in record time: 2 ½ hours! It can be done.

And waiting for me was lunch: artichokes stuffed with ground meat and carrots, cooked in lemon and garlic.