KCC professor expects to leave Beirut today
A Honolulu economics professor who has been trapped in his native war-torn Lebanon while visiting family got word yesterday he would be transported out of Beirut early today (Hawaii time).
"I'm relieved," Ibrahim Dik, economics professor at Kapiolani Community College, said last night. "I'm going home."
The U.S. Embassy notified Dik early yesterday morning that he would be taken to Cypress possibly early this morning.
"Then I'll try to get out of Cypress on my own," he said.
Dik hasn't been in Honolulu since late May when he left for his former hometown of Roum in a mountainous region of Lebanon.
His wife, Susan, also a KCC professor, had returned to Hawaii yesterday after an extended stay in Malaysia on a Fulbright scholarship.
Dik has not seen his wife since she left Lebanon June 24, before the Israeli attacks began.
Dik broke the news to his wife yesterday.
"She's very happy," Dik said. "We have been working on this to get me home as fast as we can. Hopefully, it's happening."
As for his family in Beirut, "They're happy for me," he said.
The 62-year-old did not know what form of transportation he would take out of the country, but believes it might be a helicopter.
Dik, a U.S. citizen, said he has not been in contact with other Americans in Lebanon, except for people at the embassy.
Throughout his ordeal, however, Dik has maintained e-mail and telephone contact with family in Hawaii and other parts of the United States.
He has been staying at the home of relatives in Beirut after traveling 2 1/2 hours down a narrow mountainous road from Roum.
Dik fled the area after Israel promised a 48-hour cessation of airstrikes.