Twelve-year-old Ahmad from the southern town of Borj Qalaouiye represents the bright future for Lebanon. He, and his family, survived a month-long war and he's looking forward to going back to school. He is lucky, his school, and his home are still standing. "My favourite subjects are maths, physics and chemistry," he says proudly in very good English. "And when I grow up I want to be a professor of electronics and chemistry."
When I met him, he and his mates were playing in the street near his home with a fragment of an Israeli bomb the size of a dinner plate.
It's the third week of the ceasefire and UN peacekeepers are filing into the south, but Lebanon it is still a country under siege. Ahmad pointed to the sky to tell me there was an Israeli drone overhead. I had noticed a faint buzzing sound, similar to that of a model aircraft, but it hadn't really registered. When I concentrated it was clearly audible, but too high to spot. Ahmad said the drone had been flying overhead constantly for the past 24 hours. He knew full well that if the spy plane identified a "target" it could unleash two missiles powerful enough to destroy a car, and anyone in it, but he didn't seem too perturbed. How children cope with the stresses and strains of war is beyond me.
Though not quite the size of Northern Ireland, Lebanon is doing its best to return to "normal" but faces a long and painful recovery phase. People say the war has set the country's development back by 15 years, others say 30, others say more.
Compounding the problems is Israel's refusal, in the face of calls by the UN, to end the sea and navel blockade. Basically, Israel controls the skies over Lebanon and its sea-lanes, deciding who can and cannot enter the country. The blockade is crippling the economy like a patient starved of oxygen.
An Oxfam team of engineers visited Ahmad's town to talk to the local municipal leader about the condition of the town's water supply. Bomb damage has caused a range of problems from cracked pipes, damaged water pumps, destroyed reservoirs and generators. Oxfam engineers needed to assess the damage before deciding the best way to work with the community to fix the problems.
In Ahmad's town, petrol to run their emergency generator that powers the water pump was what was needed most. Oxfam will pay for some fuel deliveries. There have been chronic fuel shortages because the Israeli army appears to have targeted petrol stations in its bombing raids. In the city of Baalbek, to the north-east of Beirut, one road was untouched with the exception of three petrol stations picked out with precision. A short way out of the city, two industrial sites were also singled out for special attention by Israeli war planes - a dairy plant and a ceramics factory, both important employers in an economically depressed region. Also in the Bekaa valley, the $82 million Liban Lait milk factory was destroyed in an Israeli air strike stripping milk farmers of a market. Apparently, in the past year or so the company had won a contract to supply the UN with dairy products which for the previous 30 years had been held by Israeli companies. I was astounded to see these buildings so obviously targeted.
In a nearby town another business had been hit - this time a chicken farm. The farm was the size of a football pitch and housed thousands of chickens under corrugated iron, which now lay shredded and strewn across the site. The owner of the farm wasn't around when it was hit. He has now lost his livelihood and left the town, according to a local official.
The rotting carcasses of animals combined with the hot humid climate has caused a major problem with flies and other pests.
In three villages in southern Lebanon Oxfam has trained 14 local people to use of environmentally friendly pesticides to help bring the problem under control. We have supplied fogging machines and insecticides to address the problem. The logic is to prevent problems before they occur. To that end, 1800 hygiene kits, and other cleaning items have been distributed to help people deal safely with normal household rubbish and waste. In the southern town of Srifa, one of many badly bombed villages, the stench of rotting garbage is overpowering. Oxfam will pay a local contractor to come and remove some of the large piles of hazardous waste before it causes health problems.
On the way back to Beirut after two hot tiring days working with our teams in the south I ask our driver Mohammad, 23, about life in Lebanon. As with many young people I spoke to, there is pessimism about the future. Conflict that has plagued Lebanon for so many years has driven much of its best and brightest abroad to places like Australia and Brazil where they are known for their entrepreneurial skills. Mohammad too is looking for a way out of Lebanon, though is torn between pursuing a career and staying to look after his elderly mother and brother. He started out in the hospitality industry and was hoping to move up the ranks but there is little opportunity in a depressed economy. And now the tourists have deserted the hotels and beachside resorts of Lebanon, opportunities are even less.
"Here I can earn enough to eat, to drink but not enough to build a life. I would like to go to Dubai where there are better jobs - I think I will go if I have the chance, if luck smiles on me," Mohammad said.
The Lebanese Government estimates $3.5 billion of structural damage has been sustained with economic losses $15 billion and mounting each day the blockade remains.
International donors gathered in Stockholm this week to discuss funding for the first phase of Lebanon's recovery and more than $USD900 million was pledged. International donors have a patchy record on turning pledges into hard cash so let's hope this money materialises. An injection of funds is desperately needed to help this bruised and battered nation begin its recovery and for young people like Ahmad and Mohammad to have a future in their own country. For once, let's hope the "luck will smile" on Lebanon.
