Photo and text by Hiba Ziad Al-Sweidan

Selling bicycles became my father’s hobby, which started in 1982 and continues to this day. He was and still is passionate about his profession, and he finds pleasure in manufacturing and repairing bicycles. He started by renting out bicycles and making very little money. He didn’t like it, so he decided to sell them one day.
When he returned home, my grandfather got angry and told him to get them back, because he knew how much his son loved his work.
So my father got convinced and felt remorseful. He went back and started again by getting a few bicycles and renting them out, earning his own money and supporting himself because he is a self-reliant person.
In 1985, my father owned his first bicycles shop. His name “Ziad Al-Suwaidan” started to be popular and he decided to work more to expand and develop his business. His name began to spread more and more and people started calling him “Abu Honey”. Over time, my father became a well-known shop owner, after working in a small shop under the house.

It was from there that my father began to feel stable and his sense of responsibility towards his profession increased.

Then came the severe crisis that resulted from the Nahr Al-Bared war in 2007, which destroyed his businesses and those of others, so my father decided to move to the Bekaa and leave everything behind.
I feel proud of my father because he didn’t give up but decided to return without us and work again despite losing all his possessions.
With his determination, strong will and self-confidence, he fought the crisis and decided to rent a small shop in Al-Abdeh outside Nahr Al-Bared camp. My father returned and restored his lost profession, and his nickname Abu Honey came back stronger and more famous.
Because of his persistence, hard work and excessive endurance, my father developed a disc in his neck and underwent surgery on his left leg. My father then decided to teach my brothers his profession because he didn’t want his profession to end with him only, and today my two brothers own that small shop but with an upgrade after they learned the profession well. They start their work from eight in the morning until seven at night.