She has lived through the loss of her family land and the misery of refugee camps, civil wars, terrorist attacks and retaliatory raids that continue today. Yet the mother of 11 children radiates strength and hope in her voice. Her family moved to Shatila during the Lebanese civil war that raged, off and on, from 1975 to 1990. There was no soap or food - only a jar of olives remained. Outside, the temperature is 90, baking the ground and roasting everything above it.
Horns beep and voices shout.
Children squeal while playing next to heaps of rotting garbage under a canopy of tangled electric lines. To get just about anywhere in Shatila means walking through darkened alleys and stepping over and through bare electrical power cords snaking through shallow puddles of water. During the war, Abdmajdab recalled, she would make candles by putting a string in a small coffee cup, then filling it with grease and sand. Broken doors and furniture fueled fires to cook whatever food could be scavenged. When I got hungry and had a headache from lack of food, I would chew on some peas and take a cigarette and go to bed.