Helping Lebanon

I have always wanted to travel to Lebanon, the reason I haven't been there yet is because I can't find someone to go with me, and I haven't ran out of "normal" places (where there're actually friends who are willing to go with me) to visit.

Today, I received this forwarded extract from Financial Times from a friend.

"Please, don't stop visiting

By Justin Marozzi

Published: August 5 2006 03:00 | Last updated: August 5 2006 03:00

The most peculiar thing I heard during 12 months in Baghdad a couple of years ago was a retired British Army corporal asking me whether it was safe to visit Beirut. I found it hard to suppress a smile, the question coming from a man bold or foolish enough to live in the heart of a war zone. Angry young men were blowing themselves up daily at checkpoints only a stone's throw away, mortars were landing with heart-stopping regularity around our flimsy accommodation, any travel in Baghdad ran the real risk of ending in injury or death, much of the country was in flames and my colleague wanted to know whether Beirut, playground of the Middle East, was safe enough for a summer break.

Today, the same question would elicit tears rather than smiles. Every bomb landing in Lebanon sends the country further down the road to oblivion, smashing its economy and removing it from the list of travel destinations for years to come. This is bad enough. Lebanon's phoenix-like recovery from the 1975-1990 civil war and the resurgence of its tourism industry was one of the region's most spirit-lifting stories of recent years."

Together with it, there's an article on MSF's mission on Lebanon. The situation is really saddening. Precious lives being wasted.

"It was incredible and shocking to see these old women coming out from devastated houses, screaming, crying, desperately seeking help. We could not find any wounded but the distinctive smell of dead bodies was all around us", Ledecq (the surgeon in the MSF team) recalled.

I probably won't be visiting Lebanon in the near future. (I am not living in Baghdad, so Beirut is too dangerous for me.) To help these people, the only conceivable ways (for me) are by praying and donating.

Apart from MSF, we can also donate to World Vision.

There're still another few more years to go before I can consider actually going to these war zones or other disaster-struck area to help. (I just realised I can actually offer help for minimum of 6 weeks in MSF instead of 6 months by following the links in the MSF site. 6 months is probably to long for me. =P) For now, I am going to give money to help.