Yeah, it's a huge day. I'm so excited. I cannot wait to sleep my first night here.

Back to my home. I'm so afraid, actually, a little bit afraid about the nightmare flashback all what we have been through

gonna try to get tired so I go straight to bed.

Johnny Juan's house was wrecked by the giant explosion that devastated Central Beirut a year

ago when a huge chemical dump blew up in the port. Now finally he's come home.

I'm so, so, so excited.

Hopefully I can remember the old days, the good days here.

I was born here, I was grow up here. All my memory are in this 62

square meter. I don't know. I'm excited and I'm afraid.

Johnny is a big bear of a man in his early 40s with a glossy black beard.

He's a playful guy, so playful that from March every year he lets that beard grow and then whitens it in December so that he can be the best possible

Santa Claus for local children at Christmas.

I have to bleach it six times and stay under the bleach one and a half hour each time.

He's a lover of life, of memories, of motorbikes.

This is a magnificent machine.

This is a Honda Steed 1994 and of the network of quiet almost forgotten streets around his house

vegetation bursting out between the ancient stones a district called Carrantina.

You're listening to assignment on the BBC World Service with me Tim Hewell,

and this is the story of Johnny and Carrantina since the blast.

It's this little pocket of land trapped if you like between the highway and the

and the port but we look the other way and we see well either surviving or restored all the skyscrapers the big office blocks the apartment blocks of downtown Beirut

Definitely for me it is a village it's a village in the town. I had all my childhood here. Lovely place. Everybody knows everybody. Let's say I went to a party and I'm a little bit drunk.

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