Triumph of marriage over militancy

Nothing like a band of Islamic extremists to throw a wrench in one's wedding plans. Just ask Taha Hussain and Fatima Shtiwi. They had been engaged for six years and had already prepared their new home in Nahr Al Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp on Lebanon's northern coast. But then clashes between the Lebanese Army and Fatah Al Islam militants in their camp forced them to flee — along with 31,000 Palestinians.

Yet nothing could stop the momentum of their marriage. Recently, their families — now resettled in makeshift circumstances — held the wedding anyway. Two, actually: Taha's brother, Wasim, was also married in a joint ceremony.

The brides' rented gowns flounced and swished as they moved, Cinderella-like poofs of white satin, tulle, embroidery and beading, with decorated veils to match. Their grooms looked plain in comparison, with short-sleeved collared shirts and ties. For some guests, it was their first change of clothes since fleeing Nahr Al Bared. It was also a welcome shift in atmosphere.

"It's nice to have a wedding," muses Ziad Shtiwi, a relative of the bride and groom. "It's a change in the mood."

Several Nahr Al Bared couples have wed since losing their homes and possessions, says Caoimhe Butterly, a relief worker at the Beddawi refugee camp where Hussain's family now lives in a school. Some even have a few days' honeymoon in their own "room" — a corner of a classroom sectioned off by blue plastic tarp — before family members, often numbering in the double-digits, move back in.

The Shtiwi-Hussain clan is fortunate in that the bride's family can afford to rent two apartments outside the camp, in the nearby village of Deir Ammar — one for the newlyweds.

Of the 26,651 Nahr Al Bared refugees who have stayed in north Lebanon, two-thirds took shelter in Beddawi, says Bassem Chit, project coordinator for a relief data-collection group, Lebanon Support. About 4,095 of them are living in schools or other centres; another 12,791 found host families in the camp. Together, they have more than doubled the population of Beddawi, causing overcrowding.

Aid groups and international donors brought an initial stream of relief items this spring, including 33,000 food parcels, 26,000 mattresses, and $1,300 in cash per family.

But, in the past few weeks, those provisions have virtually stopped coming, Butterly says. Unemployment is rising since refugees fear Lebanese soldiers on the lookout for Fatah Al Islam militants will harass or detain them — or worse — if they leave the camp to look for work.

Shorn of variety

Food still arrives daily, but there is little variety. "Rice, rice, rice, every day!" complains one teenage boy — a diet with a low nutritional value, Butterly points out.

Dairy products have gone bad in the heat and caused stomach problems among hundreds of people, many of whom share one bathroom. But the refugees' main concern is when the fighting will stop in Nahr Al Bared so that reconstruction can begin.

"They're uncomfortable, there's absolutely no privacy, they're lacking some items ... but all that is nothing compared to what's going to happen in the future," says Ismael Shaikh Hassan, part of a volunteer team assessing refugees' desires for the future Nahr Al Bared.

People want the camp rebuilt the way it used to be, several refugees and relief workers say. So the Lebanese government's talk of a bigger and better camp with wider roads is sparking fear. Refugees worry that a new layout will disrupt the social fabric or allow tanks to enter more easily, Hassan explains.

For now, Nahr Al Bared remains a battle zone, with the death toll already more than 200 and rising almost daily. On the morning of Hussain and Shtiwi's wedding, a Lebanese soldier who was a neighbour of the bride's family was killed at Nahr Al Bared. The family decided not to cancel the wedding, but did nix the music and dancing out of respect for the fallen soldier.

There was also a scare in Beddawi the night before. The grooms had been celebrating loudly with hundreds of guests in their Beddawi school's courtyard, dancing, clapping and yelling. But the party was cut short by the sound of gunshots. The music stopped. Half the crowd ran outside to see what had happened; the other half grabbed their children and ran inside. Within minutes, the schoolyard was cleared.

It turned out that a security officer had fired bullets into the air to break up a fight between two boys — nothing serious, but a skirmish symptomatic of overcrowding.

The night of the wedding was quieter, particularly after the newlyweds said goodbye. The guests moved from the patio into the living room — and turned on the evening news. Two more soldiers killed, a power plant hit. After the news, the joking, and the baby talk, laughter and chitchat returned to family-reunion volume.

"Inshallah, your wedding will be more beautiful than this," one bride's mother tells her nephew. "But of course we are happy with the wedding," she says. "It's a wedding!"