The woman in her fifties, sitting in the backseat of the cab, asked the driver to raise the volume of the radio. She hearkened as she leaned forward, closer to the front seat, while the radio announcer blurted out some seemingly random, non-sequential numbers. Several minutes later, she heard the one number she’d been waiting for.
Her wishes had come true; Salah, her youngest son, had passed his official high school examinations, becoming the first of his siblings to graduate from school.
The mother, unable to contain her joy, asked the cab driver to take her to the closest sweets shop. Salah had finally concluded a three-year chapter of his life that he had spent commuting back and forth between his village, el-Mrouj, and Ras el-Nabeh in Beirut.
Three years earlier, when Salah consulted his math teacher about the answers he wrote in his ninth-grade exam, the teacher claimed that Salah would fail without a doubt. A while before that, Salah’s neighbor had promised him 100 liras if he passed his Brevet (ninth grade) exams. As opposed to this neighbor’s son, Salah was doing very little studying; spending his time playing games and hanging out. After some time, the results were out, and somehow, Salah and one of his colleagues from Dhour Choueir had passed, while the rest of their classmates had failed their exams. So, Salah won the bet, but he only got half of the money he was promised. In any case, it was now time for him to look for a suitable high school.
At the time, the idea of moving to Beirut didn’t go down well with people of the North Metn villages, and those who spoke openly of making the move were mocked. Education was still considered a luxury, and students who had thus far studied the French curriculum could find suitable high schools and eventually graduate school, whereas those who enrolled in the English curriculum usually dropped out of school after ninth grade because only a very few high schools offered English programs.
In his search for an appropriate high school, Salah disappointedly found out that schools in the North Metn region exclusively offered French curricula. So, Salah, insistent on pursuing his education, had to look further, and finally found the Raml el-Zarif high school in Beirut. It was as close as he could find, but the distance meant nothing for him. On his trips to Beirut, a friend of Salah from a nearby village became his regular commute companion.
The hardships of the journey were no big deal to the ambitious, politically involved, young man. Salah commuted to and from Beirut from 1971 to 1974, not only for the purpose of going to school, but also to take part in the student demonstrations.
Salah would get to the bus stop in el-Mrouj at 6:00 AM every morning, pay the driver a quarter of a lira, and hop in the bus heading to the Burj Square in Beirut. It was a 40-minute journey through the Bikfaya route, on a narrow road that could accommodate no more than a single car lane. Nevertheless, the bus made a swift journey, uninterrupted by traffic on that rarely-busy route. The few car-owners in the village were numbered and well-known, the most famous of whom was the village doctor who came once a week to his clinic in nearby Bolognia and spent the rest of the week at his primary workplace in Gemmayzeh.
Forests and bushes filled the areas between Bikfaya and Antelias, so it was highly unlikely for new passengers to join the bus on that route. Most passengers heading to Burj Square joined the bus either from the village squares between Antoura and Bikfaya, or from Antelias and Dawra at the coastline.
Fifteen-year old Salah couldn’t care less about the cold drafts in the bus along the way. His trip had become a routine to endure, in which he would chat, snack, and even get a little nap. Upon his arrival to Burj Square, he hoped off the bus and walked to his school in Ras el-Nabeh. On his way back, boredom would hit, and he would feel an overwhelming desire to get home as soon as possible.
The distance between el-Mrouj and Beirut always took the same time. Sometimes, when the driver got to his stop ahead of schedule, he had to wait for other buses to leave. Among these drivers, Simon was Salah’s favorite. He was over fifty years old, spoke loudly, and drove fast.
With the school year coming to an end, Salah finally got a break from the daily voyaging and spent his time in his village instead, playing volleyball, reading, and participating in political activism. During the summer season, the village swarmed with vacationers who came from Burj Hammoud (Suburban neighborhood of Beirut, mainly inhabited by Armenians). The “Armenian visitors” arrived in the morning and returned to their homes by the end of the day, stimulating, through this daily routine, the buses’ business, which kept their usual schedules.
At a distance, in Beirut’s Burj Square and close to the Martyrs’ Monument, two private bus companies managed the North Ment buses. “Cedars”, owned by Albert al-Kharrat, was responsible for the Mrouj buses, and “al-Ghazal”, owned by a member of the Murr family, managed the Bteghrin buses. In total, no more than five journeys were made per day: two in the morning, two in the evening, and one at noon. Passengers had to book a prepaid ticket for each scheduled journey, because the buses were almost always full. Passengers who got to Burj Square ahead of the scheduled departure time usually spent their waiting time surveying the markets downtown.
No such offices existed in el-Mrouj. Instead, a small table was planted in the town square, near the Mar Taqla Church, to sell tickets during the summer. The small number of passengers from the village meant there was no real need for an office, as the bus drivers knew the passengers by name and memorized their work schedules and preferable commuting times. Naturally, things were different at the coastline, where an assistant to the driver supervised the passengers’ boarding and disembarking.
Tension was mounting in the country at that time. There was a lot of talk of an impending civil war and schools were affected by the quickly changing circumstances. Sometimes, Salah would arrive to his high school only to wait with some of his friends for any news from the Student’s Association about upcoming demonstrations. If a call for demonstrating was issued, Salah and his friends would relentlessly join the student rally.
They had very specific demands: the establishment of applied colleges within the Lebanese University.
It was a demand that directly affected Salah and other students, since it would allow them to enroll in medical or engineering programs, previously exclusive to students from rich families who could afford private universities after they graduated from school. In addition to the student movement, Salah enthusiastically supported the Palestinian cause. Although his political activism predated his “Beirut era”, Salah’s passion for the causes he believed in would not have materialized if it weren’t for that bus ride; his sole gateway to the world of the city.
When the National Movement held a walking rally in support of tobacco farmers in South Lebanon, 14-year-old Salah didn’t think twice before joining in, even though he knew he would be could get beaten or arrested. With the first rays of light, Salah and his friends were already in the village square. They took the bus from there to Burj Square, then walked to the planned site of the demonstration in Corniche el-Mazraa. Salah was excited about the fact that Kamal Jumblatt was heading that rally despite the foot injury he was suffering. Soon, though, the boy’s anticipation of violence or arrest incidents was dispelled when heavy rain fell, causing everyone to find cover and flee from security forces. With that, Salah took the memory of the day and caught the last bus of the day from Burj Square back to his village.