Memory Map I: Aley, Lebanon /
Annette le Fort
Annotated map of Dr. Khalil Maasri’s destroyed garden
Aley / Lebanon, 2005
Fifteen years after the end of the civil war, and a year before the renewed assault, veterinarian Dr. Khalil Maasri and his German wife show me the ruins of their garden.
I take a photo from the roof, have it developed as a card, and ask the family if they can write on it their memories of their old garden.
They write: here was the fish pond a bomb fell into, and now it’s a big hole with a stone table in it on which Mrs. Maasri dries fruit. There were cows and chickens over there. The garden was terraced, with fruit and vegetables, apple trees and mulberries.
I make a blueprint using the card and put it on the stone table that is now used for drying fruit. Bleached by the sun, the memories begin to fade.