Shiite Pilgrimage Leads to Church

As thousands of Lebanese take refuge in the Christian village of Rmeish, some are drinking water drawn from a fetid pool. The green-tinged water is also used to bathe, cook and wash dishes. (By Lefteris Pitarakis -- Associated Press)

Three nights before, his house was destroyed. So were three houses of his relatives. His grandfather was killed, as was his grandmother. With his cousin and uncle, they were still buried in the rubble. Before dawn, he walked to Rmeish with his three children and wife, all of them barefoot, bringing nothing with them but their clothes. They slept by the fetid pool.

"I didn't want to leave," he said.

"It was forced upon us," added his wife, Amal.

As they left Rmeish, a convoy with perhaps 100 cars plied the road, the vehicles flying their ubiquitous white flags, as blasts reverberated in the wadis along each side. Ahead, the white flag once tied to the roof of one minibus trailed behind it like a sail. There was a battered red Mercedes, improbably filled with 10 people, and a red tractor carrying 20 in back. They passed olive trees, a plowed but abandoned field and a silver Mercedes that was abandoned. "Joe Taxi," its windshield read.

At each blast, the eyes of Rida's children grew wider, and his wife cried more.

"These aren't my tears," she said. "These are the tears of my children."

He called his brother, staying near Sidon, to see whether he had room for his family. His daughter asked where another relative had gone. But for long stretches, they simply sat in silence, the terraced, rolling hills of southern Lebanon passing their windows.

"We don't know where we're going," he said softly. "We're just going."