Amid a war in Lebanon, a photographer and her subject reconnect almost 20 years later

When Rania Matar returned to Lebanon in August 2006, it was as if she couldn’t recognize her country.

“It was apocalyptic,” she recalled. Large areas were completely destroyed, and left in total devastation.

Matar stopped in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, south of Beirut. The same location that Israel is bombing today. As she walked around in the destruction, she noticed some objects in the rubble.

“You see people’s belongings – pictures, albums, forks, knives, towels, flowers,” she said, “there were these pops of colors in the middle of the destruction that were … I don’t know how to describe it … it was a visceral feeling.”

The buildings were almost completely destroyed, and every day, cranes with wrecking balls tore them down because they were no longer safe to live in.

“And people who used to live in these apartments and had to escape during the war would go there day in, day out, and wait all day long so that when the building falls, they could run and find their stuff in the rubble.”

Matar insists she’s not a war photographer, but she wanted to capture this moment, as these families tried to salvage pieces of their old lives amid the rubble.

One day, around 5 p.m., one family caught her attention. A little girl, about a year old, was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Barbie on it.

Matar got close and snapped her picture.

The photo is in black and white, and the girl has her arms open as if she is about to embrace someone. A woman stands on her left, looking at the girl and smiling at her. A man is next to her. Behind them are a row of semi-destroyed buildings, about to be demolished by a crane.

“For me, […] the girl looks like a phoenix rising out of the ashes,” Matar explained. “The picture gave me hope. So it wasn’t about the destruction behind them but it was also about the sense of moving on and humanity and resilience.”

She took a few more photos of the family. But it was getting dark, and Matar had to leave.

She never saw the girl or her family again, and she didn’t even know her name. So, she decided to call her “Barbie girl.”

Life went on, but the photo and the girl stayed in Matar’s mind.

The black and white image became the cover of one of her books, titled “Ordinary Lives.”

“This image means so much to me that it’s actually also hanging in my house,” Matar said. “She’s part of my life. So, I often wonder what happened to her.”

Late last month, as Israeli forces prepared to invade Lebanon once again, an arts and culture account on Instagram posted Matar’s photo. Matar wrote under it: “Thank you for posting. Another war and yet the same war. 2006.”

Below her comment, someone wrote “My family” and dropped a heart emoji and a face with teared up eyes.

“So, I reached out to them and eventually, I got to the little girl who is now a young woman and now I know her name is Lynn,” Matar said.

Barbie girl is Lynn Abbas, now 19 years old and an engineering student.

Over a phone call, Abbas and Matar spoke for the first time in 18 years. Matar lives in the US, Abbas in Brussels.

Abbas said she doesn’t remember much about the war. But her mom tells her it was a really difficult time.

“When we were searching in the rubble,” Abbas recalled, “I just remember that my mom was searching for my doll. It was called Daloula. And we manage to find it actually. And they were trying to salvage anything they could. Like important documents and keepsakes and our family memories.”

Abbas gave the doll to her sister, who now lives in Romania. After the war, her family moved in with relatives for a while. Then, they slowly started to rebuild their lives.

Today, they’re all scattered around the world – Canada, Qatar, Belgium. Some are still in Lebanon, she said.

“I’m just really sad, you know? Every time I call them I hope this is not the last time I will hear their voices. Every time I video call them, I hope this is not the last time I see them.”

It turned out the woman in the photo wasn’t Abbas’ mom. It was her aunt. The man was her cousin. Details that Matar didn’t know until her conversation with Abbas, which took place before Israeli tanks rolled into Lebanon. But the invasion seemed imminent.

“This book touched my heart,” Abbas told Matar. “Like … no matter how much Beirut will get destroyed, but every time, it will rebuild itself.”

“Yeah, God, you’re making me emotional,” Matar responded.

Two wars almost two decades apart connected them. As happy as they both are, Matar said, there is something disturbing about the context of their reunion.