In a small village called Sirifa in South Lebanon, lives an extraordinary woman named Umm Ali. Unlike most of the women in the village who abandoned farming long ago, Umm Ali still carries a family legacy in cultivating tobacco, as her father was among the very first tobacco farmers in the village.
When she married Abu Ali, she brought this legacy with her to her new home, and together they began to farm. They started with a small plot of land in their garden, which gradually expanded into a full field overlooking the windows of their house. Abu Ali plowed the soil and planted the seedlings at the right time, while Umm Ali took on the meticulous care: monitoring the growth of the leaves and choosing the perfect time for the harvest.
Every June, with the sunrise, the couple makes their way to the field. They carefully gather the tender tobacco leaves, then carry them to the drying room where they tie them onto strings and hang them to cure, transforming the room into a green canvas filled with the scent of the earth. Umm Ali says: “I care for them like my own children, until they grow and ripen.”
But the recent war did not spare her farm. One season, shelling struck their fields and burned all the tobacco leaves. The chemicals left behind in the soil ruined the crops for months afterward, forcing them to start from scratch. And yet, Umm Ali remained steadfast, repeating: “Tobacco was created to burn, and we will keep planting this land until the last day of our lives.”
