The life of rural women students residing in Beirut dorms is challenging

In a special feature on September 2, L’Orien Le Jour portrayed the life of students coming from rural areas and staying inside university dorms better known as foyer houses, with special focus on women and their capacity to adjust to new circumstances and to roommates or classmates from different environs and communities. On the subject, the newspaper interviewed a number of girls who had to leave their villages to follow up their studies, particularly the disciplines that are not easy to get at nearby college branches. Some students, while admitting the tough new life in the city and the challenge of dealing with diverse mentalities and lifestyles, disclosed that they would have never left their families if they found their desired specialty close to where they live. Adila Lakkis, for example, said she had to move from Batroon to Fanar suburbia of Beirut to study public relations and Joanna Sayyid Ahmad left Tripoli to specialize in speech therapy. Other girls boasted to the newspaper’s reporter that living independently was a splendid experience of freedom away from home. Besides, L’Orient Le Jour cited a number of women  students who lamented the difficulties they encounter every day, mostly the feeling of home-sickness or having to attend to uncalled for duties, like the provision of food and similar living allowances. Others interviewees spoke of the hardships of adaptation to a completely new environment particularly in terms of reconciling and coping with widely diverse standards outside their social norms and prejudiced thoughts. (For more about the article in French, please check: http://bit.ly/2bXFq0o). (L’Orient Le Jour, September 2, 2016)