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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.
军队召唤着他们。城里的工作在诱惑着他们。他们乘船乘飞机到了遥远的地方，比如澳大利亚、巴西和新西兰。我的朋友卡米勒，他的表兄哈比卜以及他们的表兄弟和我的表兄弟都离开了家，当上了挖沟渠工、技工和一天十六小时穿着脏围裙的肉铺伙计和熟食店老板。所有人都在寻求一种比过去更好的生活方式。不到一年，村里只剩下老弱病残了。马格达路纳只剩下了一个空架子，像墓地一样孤独凄凉，成了一个人们纷纷逃离的地方。
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.
最终，电话把我的家人也带走了。父亲接到了一个老战友的电话，说黎巴嫩南部的一个石油公司正在招聘翻译和教师。父亲申请了一个工作并被录用，后来我们全家搬到了西顿，在 那里我进了一所长老会教会办的学校，并于1962年毕业。三年后我获得奖学金，离开黎巴嫩来到美国。像在我之前离开马格达路纳的人们一样，我仍在追求一种更加美好的生活。
