Beit Douma (Lebanon 2016)

In the wood house where I grew up, you could feel the walls reverberate in a rainstorm. I never noticed until last night, when the wind blew hard and thunder struck, but inside this stone house, all was still.

“People are like the places they come from,” Samira said. She sat in the hard chair with both her feet on the ground. I swayed a little as I stood and listened, balancing.

Jon’s family’s house in Douma has stood for nearly three hundred years. It is the yellow stone of these mountains, with a red roof that once meant wealth.