Janet Abou Hamad Visits The Woman's Voice

She is a sweet brunette, Lebanese in features, but I stumble along with her in my French, for she speaks no Arabic... She is a daughter of Venezuela — fluent in Spanish and French.

She came down to Lebanon to represent the Venezuelan Sociological Association at the conference on social affairs held at UNESCO in Beirut, under the patronage of His Excellency President Chamoun, between September 23 and 29 last...

We spoke of her in the previous issue, saying that she was coming with her mother to her first homeland and that she was eager to become acquainted with her people... They showed her what The Woman's Voice had written about her, and the piece left a pleasant impression on her soul.

And she wished to visit us and to talk of what she had come for, and of the sweet impressions her visit to Lebanon had left in her soul.

At the conference Miss Abou Hamad lectured on the social effects of emigration in Venezuela, from both the internal and the external sides; she analyzed its causes, offered some solutions for stemming its flow, and hinted that the causes of emigration in Venezuela are the same as those in Lebanon.

Miss Abou Hamad carried a special letter from the president of the University of Caracas to the head of the department of social affairs at the American University of Beirut, and she was intent on visiting the scientific and archaeological centers of Lebanon before returning with her mother to Venezuela.

She was seized with astonishment at Lebanon's natural beauty, and at the building renaissance going forward apace...

I pressed her with a personal question, and she answered frankly: wherever I find the prince of my dreams, there I shall set down my saddle; it makes no difference to me whether I live in Venezuela or in Lebanon...

— But, I said to her in farewell, if you find your prince here, you will simply have to learn Arabic!... And she laughed a full laugh of pearly teeth!

As for me, I felt sorrow flood my heart, for through this quick-witted Lebanese girl I saw the tragedy of emigration made flesh... and I learned, alas, that with the passing of a few numbered years this bridge joining our world here to the world of our emigrants across the seas will be severed, and Lebanon will become, for the new generation, an old tale with which they threaten their little ones... to make them sleep!