Hawaii professor makes it to Beirut
The halt in air attacks allows Ibrahim Dik to travel back roads
A temporary halt in Israel's air attacks on Lebanon allowed a Kapiolani Community College economics professor to drive to Beirut yesterday from a mountain village where he had been trapped by the war.
Ibrahim Elias Dik is now staying at his brother's house in Beirut in a neighborhood near the U.S. Embassy, waiting for word on the next evacuation of U.S. citizens from Lebanon to Cypress or Turkey.
As he made his way to Beirut along mountain back roads, Dik said he was struck by the contradiction of the beauty around him and the tragedy that has befallen Lebanon.
"The mountain drive was gorgeous," Dik said in a phone interview from Beirut. "But in your mind, you think about the people who are dying."
As he entered the city, Dik said he drove "under, not on" one of the main bridges that had been bombed early in the three-week conflict.
Dik, 62, was born in Roum, Lebanon, and raised in Beirut until he immigrated to the United States. He got his doctorate in economics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and has lived here since 1975.
Dik makes an annual trip to his birthplace to visit with family and friends. He had been planning to return home on Aug. 11.
Dik didn't evacuate earlier for fear of being caught on the road during an Israeli attack, but when Israel announced it was stopping its air attack temporarily, the U.S. Embassy contacted him and told him to get to Beirut.
Dik's wife, Susan, also a professor at KCC, left Lebanon on June 24, before Israel started bombing, to go on a Fulbright fellowship in Malaysia. Susan was traveling yesterday and expected to arrive back in Hawaii this morning, said her sister, Cindy Schenk.
"I was really happy (to hear Dik made it to Beirut safely)," said Schenk of Kula, Maui. "It took a lot of stress off our shoulders."
Dik said he is grateful to friends and family in Hawaii who have been e-mailing and calling with messages of support.
Roum, where Dik was staying, is a mostly Christian area and had avoided many of the bombs. But Dik said he could hear and feel the explosions when Israeli jets destroyed a tissue factory about seven miles from Roum.
As Dik prepares to leave Lebanon, he said he has mixed feelings about leaving friends and family behind.
The bombing resumed today, Dik said. Fuel is running short because of the Israeli blockade and there are hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Asked what he would tell students in his economics class at KCC when school resumes this month, Dik replied, "Don't go to a country that is at war. Avoid war. War is not good for anybody. The economic cost of war is really devastating."