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Photograph taken by Hannah Sender on a drive around a young Syrian man's favourite places in Bar Elias. This photo is part of The Litani River: Witnessing the shift from the vital to the non-living photo essay.
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English
English
After a conversation with a young Syrian man, living in a small tented settlement near Bar Elias, we took a short driving tour together, to visit his favourite places. He directed us a little way down the road where the settlement was, to a plot with mid-rise white-washed walls and blue gates. We walked through the gates and were greeted by a man in his late 50s or early 60s. He welcomed us to the local outdoor swimming pool, which he had established a long time ago. He was familiar with the young Syrian man, and greeted him warmly. The pool behind him was full of stagnant water. It wasn't the season yet, but in the summer it was 'too busy'.
The owner of the pool told us that a lot of people came to spend time here, Syrians and Lebanese alike. Anyone was welcome to come, as long as they behaved themselves. In a place where young people are threatened with beatings and abuse on the basis of their nationality, the swimming pool was viewed as a safe place by the young man who took us there.
Places like the local pool are becoming more vital for a town for two reasons. Firstly, as a replacement for the leisure spaces rendered uninhabitable by pollution. Secondly, as one of a few safe places where the proprietor resists toxic relations between Syrians and Lebanese, and attempts to create a place where everyone can feel welcome.
Visting the empty swimming pool out of season, I am still struck by the owners' words. This place is 'too full'. Parts of the town which serve a public function do seem to be hugely in demand. Bar Elias' population has likely doubled in ten years, with the arrival of tens of thousands of people from Syria and their inability to move out of the area. It is imagined as a place that is teeming with people who need respite from everyday lives, mostly characterised by bordom by young people and the gradual deterioration of one's agency and hope by adults. It offers the same thing to people who are encouraged to see themselves as different from one another on account of their nationality, gender, sect and age, but who seem to share similar experiences of Bar Elias.