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When Love Meets War
by Erika Williams
A wedding celebration is something most couples plan down to the last perfectly executed detail. Things were no different for Chadi, from Lebanon, and Macarena Sarraf of Argentina — until the bombing began.
Chadi and Macarena met in Nigeria while they were both working for Catholic Relief Services, Chadi as a civil engineer in his family-owned construction company and Macarena as a CRS program manager. They were first married in Argentina and decided to have a second celebration in the Lebanese tradition in Chadi’s hometown of Juniyah. Both families made the long trip from their respective homes in Argentina and Nigeria to Lebanon, and the ceremonies went off without a hitch.
“We wanted to have the wedding in the summer,” says Macarena, “so all of my family decided to go to Lebanon for the wedding. When both of our families got together, we did everything from sightseeing to relaxing. It was very normal.” Their wedding was on July 8, the Saturday before the shelling began.
The area they were staying in, Juniyah, is about 15 miles north of Beirut, right on the sea. It is a picturesque place where the families could celebrate, safe from any of what Chadi refers to as “normal” shelling that takes place during the tourist season.
“Typically, there are bombs that go off that are meant to distract from the tourist season in Lebanon,” said Chadi. “To us, some shelling is normal. The attitude is like, ‘Life goes on.’ “
‘Life Goes On’
Because of this nonchalance, no one really paid attention when they heard the news that Israel had just begun shelling only hours into the day on July 12. When bombs started hitting the city infrastructure, and airports, everyone was shocked.
“No ship was allowed to enter and none were allowed to leave,” says Chadi. It became even more real when bombs began exploding near their hotel.
“We were resting by the pool and finally decided to go inside,” explains Macarena. “Soon after, we heard these great bangs so we ran to the window and saw the helicopters hovering over a hillside near us. Then it seemed that the helicopter turned toward us, and that’s when we all ran to the parking structure, which was located underground.”
“My feeling,” adds Chadi, “was one of hopelessness and emptiness. They destroyed everything: the infrastructure, civilian businesses and homes that have nothing to do with Hezbollah or the military.”
Honeymoon Over
Chadi and Macarena were soon evacuated to Cyprus, where they were encamped with some 1,000 other evacuees, whose numbers would fluctuate by the day. Both described a situation of chaos and panic.
“People were everywhere,” Macarena explains. “It was basically a sea of cots all around with women crying and children running around. The noise was incredible. Everything was dirty; as fast as something could be clean, it would be dirty again just as quickly.”
Everyone wanted to leave, but many didn’t the have passports or visas required to evacuate. This was Chadi’s situation.
“I wasn’t sure if I could leave because I didn’t have an American visa,” he says. “I had applied in Nigeria months earlier and it had not yet been approved. I was not sure if I would be granted one. Macarena had all of her papers together, but I didn’t want Macarena to have to stay behind in the conditions we were in. I told her that I would meet her in America, but she refused. She wanted to stay with me.”
After seven days of going back and forth to the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus, Chadi and Macarena finally got word that he was approved to leave for the United States. Still, their ordeal had not ended. Now came the time to wait for a flight out of Cyprus and to the United States. Several were promised and canceled until, finally, the couple boarded an old plane that they say looked less than airworthy.
“The passengers aboard were all very nervous and very anxious to get to the United States just because of the stress and sleep deprivation that many had endured,” says Chadi. At one point, when the plane was forced to land, a woman nearly jumped off the plane with her baby.
They reached Baltimore on July 31, tired but in good spirits. Macarena was looking forward to surprising her worried parents, who did not know of her safe passage back to the United States.
Erika Williams is a communications coordinator for CRS. She works in the Baltimore office.
