by Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

They are beautiful. They are young. They love to be together. They have had fun living with Karen and Fred Kloman and their family out in Marietta. But when they go home, these two teenage girls will no longer have a close friendship.

It sounds like a story of two youngsters from Northern Ireland on a U.S. holiday. It is not. It is the story of two Lebanese girls participating in the same kind of vacation. One is Moslem, the other is Christian. The divisions in Lebanon are just as rigid, just as divisive as Northern Ireland. And the resulting violence is just as tragic.

Oumaima Dakik is 14. She lives in Moslem West Beirut. Sabine Ged is 15. She lives in Christian East Beirut. They have rocked and rolled in the American teenage style for some weeks and have never thought of division. Both like boys (how strange!), both like Phil Collins (he sings), Six Flags and McDonalds. Oumaima likes books and the more rambunctious Sabine likes American TV.

They are wonderful, happy kids but their background is dark and even frightening.

“Going to school,” say Oumaima, “can sometimes be difficult. You hear the explosions in the background and always the bullets. On one occasion last year a bullet came in the window of my classroom. But school goes on.”

However, both girls agree that sometimes school has to be canceled. It is too dangerous at times to go on the streets.

They both tell you about the “green line.” That is the border between East and West Beirut. Oumaima with her beautiful dark eyes, touched with sadness, says that she cannot cross into the Christian East, while the ever smiling Sabine says that going to the Moslem West is impossible for her. Religion, politics, gunmen keep the division intact.

Both girls heard of the vacation program through their parents. Vincent Lavery had been spearheading an Irish program for years. But just Ireland was not enough for this great man of compassion for suffering children. He wants to extend his American spirit of charity to the world. His first choice for expansion was war-torn Lebanon.

Sixteen were picked. Two were sent to Marietta. There, the open arms of Fred and Karen Kloman were ready to receive them.

The Klomans have been hosts to the Irish program for years. Happily, on their spacious 3 acre home, they hosted the first Lebanese experience. Karen would say these vivacious kids are an “experience” but one she has enjoyed.

Why do people fight in Lebanon, a nation of 2 million Moslems and 1 million Christians? The girls sadly are puzzled. “We were such a beautiful country,” says Oumaima, “we were the Paris of the Middle East. Our hotels and shops were glamorous and beautiful. But violence came.”

The French left Lebanon in 1946 when it became independent. But the French were Christian and wanted Christian guarantees for the minority. Always there was the feeling of discrimination by the majority Moslems. But other ingredients were added. The Palestinian camps came, the Israelis came, the Syrians came. The resulting chaos is almost impossible to sort out. Chaos reigns and the native Lebanese suffer.

These youngsters have no answers, just questions like the rest of the world. Their American vacation healed many wounds in them and they want the experience for others. “We will probably never stop talking about it,” says Sabine. Quickly Oumaima adds, “We don’t really want to go back.”

But back to Beirut they will go. Vincent Lavery’s program for the divided children includes a stipulation that the children must meet at Christmas for a reunion in their homeland. Even in difficult and dangerous Belfast this has been possible. Will it now be possible in Beirut?

“We don’t know,” say the girls together, forcing themselves to reach into an uncertain future. “We have the ‘green line’ and gunmen and the militia. It may not be possible.”

Fred Kloman, eternally enthusiastic and optimistic, reminds his guests that the militia okayed their passage through the city to the airport, which is in the Moslem section of the city. “Who knows,” says Fred, “we’ll plan and see.”

The girls return next week. They lived with some Northern Irish children whose families have known division for centuries. The Lebanese have known it for only 10 years. Both girls are determined the “line” should go.

They will do their part to see it gone. Somehow you know they will.