It’s been ten days since I’ve returned from Lebanon. The image of the Shatila refugee camp we visited almost two weeks ago now has latched on to the surface of my memories. There, I saw a truth that is often swept aside, avoided, repealed or reconstructed. This is a truth friends and family in Beirut may not want me to tell because it pulls the curtain away from what Lebanon works so hard to hide, revealing what’s behind the vibrancy of its mainstream. (Friends and family: please don’t misunderstand me. I love our city and I will share its beauty, but I cannot turn away from what is just as real, from what we would rather forget.)