It was the summer of 2006 and by June, my family and I had already moved from Beirut to our mountain house in Kfour, a small village in the middle of Lebanon in the Keserwan area. Before the summer, there was quite a bit of tension and aggressive back and forth words between Israel and Hezbollah. In July, the group fired rockets across the Lebanese border to Israel which sparked off a 34-day military conflict. It was definitely one of my most memorable summers in Lebanon and one of the most stressful.

Israel concentrated their bombing to the Hezbollah neighborhood in Beirut and also targeted key bridges leading to Syria. Once the bombing started, most of the people in Beirut who could, moved up to the mountains to the safe areas. In Kfour, every empty apartment was rented and occupied. But as you might think, people weren't sad or upset or even scared. They were partying. It was a morning until night daily drinking and eating fest. It was incredibly surreal. These people were not even phased by the bombing of the Hezbollah neighborhood south of the city.

Our friend's family moved into one of the empty flats in our building. They have three children and with their children and the added children from the other families, we had some damn great soccer matches. I do believe the kids had the best time. They roller-bladed; they played soccer and basketball. They played hide 'n seek, played cards, and watched every DVD we had. The energy and noise from all the kids in the "hood" to this day makes me smile. I loved seeing how much fun they had.

(On a side note: I consider myself extremely lucky as I truly like my children. I love them of course but I really like the people they are. I enjoy their company so every summer was golden for me. I also liked their friends. Such wonderful people. So you can see why I enjoyed having all the kids around.)

Our family dog was only a puppy that summer, and he was traumatized by the bombings. To this day, he shivers from fear if he hears fire works, thunder, or any noise resembling an explosion. It reminds him of the war, poor baby.

One afternoon, they bombed the bridge on the autostrad near the Casino which is directly down the mountain from our flat. I was sitting in the salon which faced the Mediterranean Sea when planes dropped the bombs on that bridge. The compressed air from the explosion bulged the siding glass doors. Seeing this happen in slow motion, I put my hands up to cover my face as a reaction. I jumped up and ran outside looking for my children to make sure they were OK.

Fortunately, the conflict ended before the end of the summer, before we moved back down to Beirut. The country sustained a huge amount of damage, and I tell you, it was sickening to see. What was truly sickening was all the people who were injured or killed.

It took years to rebuild all the bridges and roads and repair all of the damage. The disruption to our lives was immense. Traffic was always bad in Lebanon but with most of the major bridges destroyed and many of the main roads damaged, moving around was hell. When I think back on that summer, it does not seem real. It was such a strange experience. And to think that I stayed in Lebanon; I didn't go to the US to get away. My ex told me we would be safe, and I believed him. Small kiosks were set up in the mountain that sold the essential groceries: bread, vegetables, dairy and meat and chicken and other supplies. People hoarded gasoline (a pretty scary fact actually) and water. They knew what to do after spending 20 years in a civil war. To them, this was nothing to worry about. And by all the partying I saw, they weren't worried. Pretty crazy indeed.

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