Families Find Refuge in Shade of a Beirut Park

As Thousands Flee Fighting in South Lebanon, City's Young Mobilize to Provide Aid

About 450 refugees from southern Lebanon have settled at Sanayeh Garden, a public park in Beirut. About 800,000 people have been displaced since the fighting began. (By Nora Boustany -- The Washington Post)

BEIRUT, Aug. 4 -- At a relief center in Beirut, teenagers in flip-flops and cropped cargo pants rushed supplies up and down stairs. Volunteers standing in a line passed bags down the building's steep steps, loading a truck with heaps of cleaning kits: a broom, a mop, a dustpan, detergent.

A few blocks away at Sanayeh Garden, 450 refugees were living in the public park. Flushed and perspiring, Serjoun Kantar, a volunteer, rushed around with a clipboard trying to figure out a way to get mattresses and medications for diabetes and hypertension for the people he was helping.

Old men, hands folded patiently in their laps, sat speechless on freshly painted park benches. Women with haggard faces rested on rolled-up sponge mattresses and bundles of clothing. Few ventured toward vendors selling bottled water and coffee and tamarind syrup served over crushed ice.

"I don't have a penny to move two steps from here," said Wadad Salman, 77, who was separated from her son, daughter and grandchild as the family fled Israeli bombings.

"We are grateful indeed," she said with a mirthless smile. "We were harmed, then we were dumped here."

The hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have left hundreds of people dead. Meanwhile, about 800,000 people have fled southern Lebanon and the suburbs south of Beirut either because they were warned to leave or because they were trying to escape airstrikes and ground offensives. Many of the refugees have crowded schools, parks and abandoned apartments in Beirut, and hundreds of young Lebanese have rallied to help care for them.

Jamal Krayyem, 26, who studied drama at Lebanese University, had planned to spend his summer teaching theater and dance at camp. Instead, he has spent the past 20 days at centers for the displaced, engaging traumatized children in drama and physical exercise.

Krayyem leads an activity in which children ages 4 to 13 stand in a circle and pass around a ball. The first starts by laughing, and the rest have to follow. The second child cries, and the others must do the same. The third barks, the fourth meows and so on.

Last year, Krayyem became an instant hit at a school he visited once a month with a character he created named Jankouz, a bumbling, inquisitive little boy.

"My inspiration is Patch Adams," Krayyem said, referring to the title character in the movie starring Robin Williams as a medical student who wants to heal with humor. "My aim in life is to amuse people, lighten their burden and, if I can, keep myself laughing, too."

Krayyem is part of the group Samidoun -- meaning "steadfast" -- which was created after a sit-in July 12, the day hostilities broke out. The group of young Lebanese volunteers seeks to care for the displaced in Beirut.

"After two days, we felt we had to do something," said Sandy Chamoun, 19, one of the volunteers.