The Camp

I have no words. (link to a few more pictures at the end)

Today I walked into a Palestinian refugee camp for the first time in my three trips to Lebanon.

I have never seen anything like what I saw today in my life. My world view is completely changed.

These are the quick notes I jotted when I walked back into the office;

A maze
tiny passages
No light
Wires
trash piled in corners
smell
dirty water
one floor for each generation of inhabitants
35,000 people one square kilometer
self existent
darkness
sense of being lost
Arafat everywhere
posters plastered all over with semi-automatic weapons
filming guy with AK47
cat on a wire
bones thrown everywhere

I haven't really had time to process it all and when I do I'll post it on my normal blog where people go to read what I write... but here are TEN MORE PHOTOS of my time in the camp, with some short descriptions.

When I get my words, I will share a bit more. I think the pictures will speak for themselves.

Let me try to give you a description of this photo:
This is what the ENTIRE camp looks like. This passageway has more space than most because of all the crap in it, but we only ever walked in one passageway where two people could walk side by side, most were so narrow you could only walk single file The big grey things hold water and the black "wires" carry the water to people's "homes." Homes are what you see on either side. The first settlers are on the first floor and each respective generation builds on top of their parents. These are essentially simply cinder block homes. I HAVE NO IDEA how people find their way through this maze or identify anything, especially because this is the outskirt of the camp where there is still natural light, the further in you go, the less light there is. The AC unit that you see is the only one I saw in the camp. I am sure there are more, but imagine the heat mid summer for the homes that have none. Nor can I imagine what the cold is like in the winter.