Tucson singer's harrowing escape from Beirut

[thedrifter]

Tucson singer's harrowing escape from Beirut
By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

For Tucson singer Anna Warr, leaving Lebanon was more harrowing than staying there while Israel and Hezbollah waged war.
Warr, 35, who began a two-month series of gigs in and around Beirut on June 2, said the friends she made in Lebanon took great pains to make her comfortable when hostilities began on July 12. They assured her it would all blow over in a few days, as it had so many times in the past.
In the meantime, life went on, even in her final week when she abandoned her Beirut hotel suite for a chalet owned by her Lebanese manager on the beach north of the city. The Lebanese are used to weathering such things, she said. There were nightly barbecues with the neighbors and occasional trips to the mountains "to watch the fireworks."
"It was very surreal," she said. "You'd be lying on the beach or sitting by the swimming pool and see the Chinook and Apache helicopters fly by." The U.S. Marines were arriving to evacuate Americans.
There was also the smell of burning diesel, after the Israelis ''lit up the fuel sites," and the beach house shook from Israeli bombing to the south.
Warr figured she wasn't on the A list for evacuees with no dependents in tow and no medical condition. She had left her son, Hiram, 4, with his father in Tucson.
She gave up when she first visited the U.S. dockside checkpoint in Beirut Tuesday of last week. "Everybody was screaming and yelling 'Get me on the boat' and there were more desperate cases than mine. I just figured 'Get those people out first.' "
She returned on Thursday and "it was absolutely crazy again." Officials told her that if she was safe and comfortable, she'd be better off returning the next day when more boats would be available.
On Friday, she waited with about 3,000 others for nine hours to clear the checkpoint manned by U.S. Marines.
"The Marines were just great," Warr said, though some of her fellow evacuees were not.
"People were complaining and some were starting to flip out. I just figure 'What's the point?' You're going to waste so much energy going bonkers in a situation you can't do anything about."
After another long line for processing of papers and baggage, Warr finally boarded a boat at 2 a.m. Saturday — the passenger ship Rahmah, hired for the evacuation and accompanied by the USS Nashville, which also carried evacuees.
Warr got a bunk on the Rahmah, but others were sleeping on floors and in the boat's galley, which wasn't stocked with food. The Marines supplied MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and water.
The Rahmah headed for Istanbul, but detoured to Cyprus after one of its engines blew, arriving there Saturday night.
In Cyprus, the Americans were housed on rows of cots in large exhibition buildings at a fairgrounds while they waited for planes to become available to fly them home. Warr left for the airport Sunday afternoon but didn't take off until 2:30 a.m Monday.
She finally arrived in Baltimore at 6:30 a.m. Monday, greeted by Red Cross workers who arranged for passage home to Tucson, where she arrived Monday afternoon.
The experience hasn't soured her on travel, she said. Warr leaves the country again on Sept. 25 for a six-week tour of the Netherlands with "Mr. Boogie Woogie" (Eric-Jan Overbeek), the Dutch boogie-and-blues piano man who showcases Warr on his most recent album, "Live at the Duke."
Warr, who has her own band, has also fronted for the Tucson groups Tony and the Torpedoes and the Bad News Blues Band, and performs with a group of women singers put together by Lisa Otey — the Desert Divas.
She doesn't rule out a return to Lebanon. "I'd go back in a heartbeat," she said. "It's one of the most spectacular places on earth."
Beirut, where she sang with two different bands for weddings and private parties and in clubs, was just reclaiming its position as one of the Mediterranean's best vacation spots this summer, Warr said.
The weddings she played were pageants of singing, belly-dancing, fine food, fire-eating and fireworks, she said.
And the people were friendly. "It's an entire culture based on making sure you're taken care of," she said.

● Contact reporter Tom Beal at 573-4158 or tbeal@azstarnet.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Boca Raton couple, son stuck in Beirut for seven days

By Peter Franceschina
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted July 27 2006


The bombs shook their hotel, leaving the curtains swaying.

They were afraid to travel by car, for fear of being blown up.

They brought back with them conflicting feelings about a Middle East yet again torn by violence, and a great appreciation for the American Embassy officials and U.S. Marines who helped them evacuate Beirut by helicopter.

It was an uncertain, sometimes fearful, seven days in Lebanon for a Boca Raton couple who managed to return to South Florida Tuesday afternoon with their 13-month-old son.

Robert Rabil, 45, an assistant professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University and a noted expert in Syrian and Lebanese relations, was in Lebanon to research his third book.

In late June, he was confident the Middle East would remain stable during the month he would be there, so he took along his son, Georges, and his wife, Patty Stefanovic Rabil, 43, a doctoral candidate at FAU and a teacher at Palm Beach Community College.

Then Hezbollah crossed the border into Israel and kidnapped two soldiers on July 12. The couple were in Bhamdoun, a popular tourist area in the mountains east of Beiruit. The news of the kidnapping was on everyone's lips.

"We were alarmed, but not that alarmed," Stefanovic Rabil said.

Israel quickly retaliated with ground forces, artillery and bombs dropped by jets. Some of the first Israeli targets were the Beirut airport and major roads. Even where the Rabils were, high above Beirut, they could hear the percussion.

"No one could believe it. People were wandering around the streets going, `Can this really be happening?'" Stefanovic Rabil said. "We stayed there, because we were afraid to go on the road."

After a few days, the couple went to stay with Rabil's mother in east Beirut, to be closer to the American Embassy. Even though the roads were dangerous, they were afraid they would become even more dangerous.

"We cannot afford to get stuck," Rabil told himself.

In east Beirut, they were much closer to the bombing, which was targeted at Hezbollah strongholds in the southern part of the city.

"You could hear everything. When we were in east Beirut and [the bombs] hit, the whole building would shake and you were afraid it was going to fall on your head," Rabil said.

Rabil, a native of Lebanon and an American citizen, was not as alarmed by the violence as his wife, having served in the Red Cross in Lebanon when he was younger and having studied in the Middle East.

For Stefanovic Rabil, it was excruciating to hear the Israeli jets and wait for the explosions. "You don't know what is going to be happening next," she said.

She headed to the U.S. Embassy three times to register their presence in the country and to ask, as many Americans were, what evacuation plans were taking shape. The scene, she said, was chaotic, with embassy staffers who didn't have solid information and a man on a megaphone trying to keep things calm. The tension was palpable.

"People were really, really trying to keep their composure," Stefanovic Rabil said. "It was mayhem."

They watched as other countries, in particular the Arabic Gulf states, quickly mobilized to get their citizens out. Finally they received word from the embassy they would be evacuated, on July 18. Because they had a young child, they were among the first Americans to be airlifted.

Rabil took his son and held him tight on the flight to Cyprus, pressing one of the boy's ears against his chest and holding his hand over Georges' other ear to drown out the thunder of the helicopter. They were dropped off at a filthy hotel and quickly found better accommodations.

Rabil staked out the airport, to get any flight out. He secured seats on a Cyprus Airways flight to Paris.

They spent five days as dazed tourists in the City of Light, visiting the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Cathedral. They ate out every night.

"As a matter of fact, the credit cards are pretty much maxed out," Rabil said.

"We had a lot of pent-up energy," Stefanovic Rabil said with a laugh.

They were anxious for home but were told it could be 10 days for flights to the United States. Rabil managed to get an Air France flight out after only five. Rabil said he was relieved once they reached Cyprus, but not so Stefanovic Rabil -- she didn't feel truly safe again until she arrived at Miami International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, "when the customs officers said, `Welcome home,'" she said.

Rabil, who is ready to write about their experiences, said he will go back to the Middle East for his research. Stefanovic Rabil is not so sure she wants to accompany him.

As for a return to normalcy, they met with friends Wednesday evening for a welcome-home gathering at their local watering hole, The Lion & Eagle English Pub in Boca Raton. It was good to be back.

"It's wonderful to be home," said Rabil, who bounced his son on his hip. "We are very much blessed by our friends."

Peter Franceschina can be reached at pfranceschina@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5503.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Home from a war zone: Mother, 3 children return to Stamford from Lebanon

By Lauren Klein
Special Correspondent

July 27, 2006

STAMFORD -- Veronica Touzot finally has time to relax. But the stress and sadness she hid from her three young children while fleeing her native Lebanon is just beginning to surface.

"I just can't turn a page and forget," Touzot said. "The stress will take time to go away."

A world away from the war zone she left behind, Touzot recounted her five-day ordeal to get back to her Westover home by car, plane and aboard a U.S. Navy warship.

Touzot had hoped this would be the summer to expose her children, ages 3, 5 and 7, to the country where she grew up and its culture while visiting with relatives in the mountainside resort of Ballouneh for a two-month vacation.

Her husband, Etienne Touzot, was supposed to join them early next month after working a few more weeks in his store, Le Wine Shop on Elm Street in Greenwich.

But when war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah militants on July 13 in southern Lebanon, the Touzots' only thought was to bring the family back home to the United States.

Etienne and Veronica Touzot are French nationals and permanent U.S. residents; their children were born in the United States.

With the Beirut airport bombed out on the first day of fighting, it took Veronica Touzot and her children three attempts before finally boarding the USS Nashville on Friday.

The ship, with a crew of 600 U.S. Marines, brought the Touzots and 1,200 others to Cyprus. Some people fled by car to Syria, but with three children and horror stories of roadside bombings, it was a risky trip they would not take.

In the time before leaving Lebanon, Veronica Touzot made every attempt to keep her children in the dark about the war. The bombs were fireworks, she told them, and they were leaving early because their father had to stay home for work.

"In my opinion, they are too young to know," Veronica Touzot said. "And unfortunately, they will witness more wars in their life, so if I can hold it off as long as possible, I will.

"It's been a tough job, they ask questions. But they're still young and believe everything I say," she said.

Aboard the USS Nashville, she was relieved to find the Marines were friendly and caring with her children, handing out candy and playing with them. Adrian, her 5-year-old son, says he wants to become a Marine. The other children are Alexandra, 7, and Maxime, 3.

"It's thanks to (the Marines) that the children never realized what was going on," Veronica Touzot said. "They just thought it was an adventure."

The four waited in Cyprus -- with about 70,000 others who had fled Lebanon -- until Monday when they learned they would be on a plane to Philadelphia. The plane landed in Ireland and Canada to refuel before finally arriving at about 4 a.m. Tuesday. They were greeted by American Red Cross volunteers and Etienne. who was waiting with open arms.

It was the first time Veronica had returned from Lebanon relieved and happy to be back. She usually is sentimental about her time in Lebanon.

"I thought, I've never been so happy," Veronica Touzot said. "I just wanted to be back."

Ellie