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The army took them. Jobs in the cities lured them. And ships and airplanes carried them to such faraway places as Australia and Brazil and New Zealand. My friend Kameel, his cousin Habeeb, and their cousins and my cousins all went away to become ditch diggers and mechanics and butcher-shop boys and deli owners who wore dirty aprons sixteen hours a day, all looking for a better life than the one they had left behind. Within a year, only the sick, the old, and the maimed were left in the village. Magdaluna became a skeleton of its former self, desolate and forsaken, like the tombs, a place to get away from.
軍隊召喚著他們。城里的工作在誘惑著他們。他們乘船乘飛機到了遙遠的地方，比如澳大利亞、巴西和新西蘭。我的朋友卡米勒，他的表兄哈比卜以及他們的表兄弟和我的表兄弟都離開了家，當上了挖溝渠工、技工和一天十六小時穿著臟圍裙的肉鋪伙計和熟食店老板。所有人都在尋求一種比過去更好的生活方式。不到一年，村里只剩下老弱病殘了。馬格達路納只剩下了一個空架子，像墓地一樣孤獨凄涼，成了一個人們紛紛逃離的地方。
Finally, the telephone took my family away, too. My father got a call from an old army buddy who told him that an oil company in southern Lebanon was hiring interpreters and instructors. My father applied for a job and got it, and we moved to Sidon, where I went to a Presbyterian missionary school and graduated in 1962. Three years later, having won a scholarship, I left Lebanon for the United States. Like the others who left Magdaluna before me, I am still looking for that better life.
最終，電話把我的家人也帶走了。父親接到了一個老戰友的電話，說黎巴嫩南部的一個石油公司正在招聘翻譯和教師。父親申請了一個工作并被錄用，后來我們全家搬到了西頓，在 那里我進了一所長老會教會辦的學校，并于1962年畢業。三年后我獲得獎學金，離開黎巴嫩來到美國。像在我之前離開馬格達路納的人們一樣，我仍在追求一種更加美好的生活。
