Sunday in Beirut

An sandy beach down south. The men are playing racket ball. You could call it a traditional Lebanese sumer sport, I guess. Wherever there is sand and Lebanses men, there is racket ball. 

  

It is Sunday morning in Beirut. Government is supplying electricity, and so it is void of the humming of generators. The only sound you hear is the humming of the water pumps, and some birds. For some reason, there is no pressure on our waterlines, and if you want water to come out of your tab, you have to pump it to a tank on your roof (or your building’s roof), and gravity does the rest. Once in the tank, it also requires a pump, or else it will just ‘fall’ out of your shower head, instead of ‘spray’ out. The intricate workings of a society that somehow never regained its pre-war status, even though we are some 30 years further. The poor Syrians next door will be experiencing the same if they do not stop soon.

Beach Bums

A sure sign that summer is in full force is that my children roll into their beds at night with their clothes on, and get up the next morning in the same outfit. They also wear socks with huge holes, and get stringy hair because of salty water.  What will the neighbors say? Who cares? They eat breakfast at 12, and ask “What beach are we going to?”

I love the contrasts in this society. And anything goes. That's how it should be anyway.

Today we went to the south for the beach, south meaning ‘south of Beirut’. Every year there is a ‘favorite’ beach in town. The problem with ‘favorite’ is that the next year, they’ve made massive improvements in the hope of attracted an even bigger crowd, after which the beach loses its initial charm, and this make-over needs to be financed, so the entrance fee and food prices are hiked up quite massively as well.  And so it takes some time before we’ve located the new ‘favorite’ of the summer. I am not sure it is going to be this one. But it was nice. 

On the way home; sandy feet on the dash board.

Hhmmmmm . . .

. . .  I apparently pushed a particular button, and now all has changed. Change is good, but give me some time to get this blog fixed. Looks pretty ugly now.

Update: 
Sorry about that, but this is as good as it gets. I pushed just one button. ONE BUTTON! That 'll teach me never to push any buttons anymore. Somehow I ended up with a Dutch spell check, and so everything I write is underlined red. HOW ANNOYING! Oh well. If you'd kindly let me know if there are any elements in this blog you were used to and that now are gone, then I will try and get them back. Cannot promise anything. I don;t even know how Twitter works. I think I need a drink.

I will leave with a picture of my sailing endeavor. I did figure out my pictures get wider on this new lay-out.

That's me in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Beirut

And these are some of the guys teaching me . . .

Well, not really. This guy is. Not 6-pack rastaman, but he's good.  Got a big fat tattoo on his arm, like a real sailor

An Ode to my Friends

The temperature is rising, the sun is shining, the Gulf Arabs have all departed – upon advise of their governments – which will most certainly enhance our traffic situation in town but probably not our economy, another month and school’s out, and my sailing endeavor is taking off, so what more could you possibly need?

Friends.

Friends to hang out with. And so this is an ode to my friends. The friends of the HRC (Hadile, shall I mention you by name, even though you so harshly abandoned us? :), the friends at work, my Dutch friends, my local friends, my friends in Holland, My blog friends, my FB friends ("ahum") my SIL, who, although family, should count as a friend. Because a life without friends is empty. And so, an ode to friends.

Not Stockton, California

The 'End of the Affair'

Didn’t get much sleep the night before last. What I first thought was fireworks, soon erupted into full-scale machine gun battle in the street below, with hand grenades being lobbed out of windows (read here and here). With an office of armed Awmiyeh (Syrian Socialistic National Party) boys next door, you’d almost get worried.

People looking from their balconies at the battle site

 But it was soon clear that it was not a political action, just a banal fight over a woman, which turned ugly. Apparently the lady’s new lover came to the apartment to pick up her stuff, while her old man was in no mood to let go of her. The domestic dispute got loud, the new man on the block got shot, and when the police was called in by the neighbors to do something, the man took refuge in his apartment, and things got complicated. The army moved into the street, and sporadic fire kept us on our toes for most of the night, until they finally moved into the apartment in the early morning, and that was the end of that.

Everyone is all worried, but I think you should see things in its proper perspective.

'The morning after'

You see, I have a colleague from Stockton, California (yes Andy, you). When I mentioned to her last week that my son had been to a party in downtown and a kid had gotten knifed, and someone else had shot a gun, her reply was “That sounds like a normal party.” The surprise on my face must have been obvious, because she added “What? You mean you guys have parties where there is no shooting or stabbing?”

The American embassy is sending out travel warnings to its citizens in Lebanon. I wonder what travel warning Americans get when they visit Stockton. You see, Stockton is a town with a population of some 291,707 inhabitants (source). That’s about a quarter of Beirut. And it apparently is the second most violent city in the US (on the basis of violent crimes per person), with some 49 murder, 109 rapes, 1,436 armed robberies and 2,533 assaults a year!

The chances you get mugged, raped, robbed or killed are 1 in 70 (source). You want to know what happened in Stockton these past 24 hours? Beirut numbers 4 times that number of inhabitants. We have an employment rate that is well above Stockton’s (which is 18.4%), yet I doubt we make it to 168 murders a year. 

And so, in retrospect, we’re not doing so bad at all. Breathe in, breathe out. We're in Beirut. Not Stockton, California.

Djeezz . . .

. . . I didn't think you guys were going to take that 'burnt diner' seriously. Well, the 'personal dispute' was not over my dinner. My son is negotiating not going to school. Haha, dream on baby. You are going to school. You're dealing with a Dutch here.

Caracas shooting after personal spat wounds 3

May 24, 2012 02:45 AM

The Daily Star

BEIRUT: A soldier and two policemen were wounded Wednesday evening in what media reports said was a personal dispute in the Beirut neighborhood of Caracas.
The National News Agency blamed a “drunken” man in the neighborhood for shooting an unspecified weapon near the headquarters of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, while several rounds of RPG fire were reported by residents afterward.
Media reports said one Army soldier and two members of the Internal Security Forces were wounded after the authorities intervened.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/May-24/174483-caracas-shooting-after-personal-spat-wounds-3.ashx#ixzz1vkkJYYpb

Two dead, six hurt after Beirut shootout

Lebanese security forces stormed a building in the capital Beirut Thursday following a shootout overnight with a man who was holed up inside a flat, an AFP correspondent at the site said.
A security official said the gunman was killed and the body of another man was found inside the flat located on the sixth floor of a building in west Beirut's Karakass district.
The army and police rushed to the site late Wednesday after reports of gunfire.
The man subsequently lobbed grenades and began shooting at the security forces from his flat. At least six people were wounded.
The cause of the incident was unclear.
The shootout came amid heightened tension in Lebanon, where deadly sectarian violence has taken place in the last two weeks linked to the unrest in neighbouring Syria.

-AFP/NOW Lebanon
To read more: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=400500#ixzz1vlcn8qav
Update: They got the guy(s). Poor son Now he has to go to school.

Burn Some Tires (or On Infinite Indiots)

2 sunni sheikh are killed at a road block

People in Beirut block roads and burn tires in protest

16 Lebanese kidnapped in Syria

People in Beirut block roads and burn tires in protest

3 Lebanese killed in an Iraqi bus bombing

People in Beirut block roads and burn tires in protest

A family dispute in Jdeideh injures three

People in Beirut block roads and burn tires in protest

I burnt dinner tonight.

I think I’ll go out now and block some roads and burn a few tires. Anyone cares to join me?

Beirut from the Water

A 6-pack rasta man, he is not

I  have temporarily moved my sailing attempts to Beirut. 6-Pack Rasta man is an awesome instructor, but he’s in Batroun, and Batroun is some 50 kilometers north of Beirut, and thus I get to sail only one day a week, which – apart from being distracted by the 6 pack – does not amount to much in the ‘serious sailor leg’ department. If I continue this way, my plans of sailing around the Mediterranean will materialize somewhere in 2065. 

Rceding hairlines

Beirut is different though; much more business-like than laid-back-Batroun. My sailing partners are serious gentlemen with receding hairlines (including the instructor), or no hair at all, who squeeze the sailing in between business trips and boardroom meetings, and family lunches on Sunday; A far cry from my ‘live-on-the-beach-all-year-long’ rastaman, but I do think I will now be able to concentrate better on the sailing.

Sailing in the Beirut Marina

My first attempt in the Beirut Marine resulted in a capsized boat however (and since I am the one with the camera, there is no documentation of that). The army gets edgy of you move in and out of the port without handing over your ID (where do I stick it?), and there is more traffic on the water. Boats go in and out, divers return from their dives at sea and now there are a couple of incompetent navigators on small lasers in the port that add some extra zest. 

But you do get to see a different side of Beirut. I am used to ‘Beirut the City’; busy streets, the traffic, honking cabs and the yellow color of its buildings. A town that’s a little dirty and seedy and old.

Beirut from the port side however, is totally different. It is all new, fresh and cool and blue and sparkly. No honking horns, but quiet and calm, and waves.

A dive boat coming back from the dive

I am kind of surprised that there aren’t more sail boats in this country. Everyone is into motor boats, but you’ve got wind all year around, 180 kilometers of coast line, and gasoline that sells for 37,000 LBP a tank these days. So why not sail?  For those unfamiliar with this rather illogical phenomenon; gasoline prices are not indicated per liter, but per ‘tank’. And a ‘tank’ equals to 20 liters.

The real deal; this should be me in a couple of years. That is the plan, at least.

What better way to escape the infinite idiots on shore  (I love this lady) who will start a street battle over the most stupid reason, meanwhile doing the dirty work for ‘others’, whoever the others may be. Which brings me to issue that probably only concerns the Dutch. George Michael has been seenpartying around town  (I love the ‘explicit picture’ warning), apparently not hindered at all by the political events up north. A Dutch singer on the other hand, Marco Borsato didn’t know how fast to run to get home again. That’s 1-0 for the Brits, I am afraid.

For the moment however, this is what I deal with :)  

Beautifying Beirut

Tempers are running high and the pressure is mounting!, according to my son this morning, who was trying to convince me that he had no school due to yesterday’s event when a sunni sheikh & his convoy somehow did not quite halt at an army check point, which resulted in his untimely death.  

Well sorry, but uhhh, no, you are going to school. And so off he went, like a good boy. His sister went as well, but I got a call from her school around noon that ‘due to the uncertainty of the situation’ I was to pick her up again. Things are quiet in my part of town, and as such, a peaceful post, even though other areas may not be as peaceful as mine.

Some years ago, the government made an attempt to stop cars from parking on the sidewalk. This has not been completely successful (here and here)  , but it’s been better than it has been in a long time. The short stubby black and yellow bollards  are all over town.

I came upon this initiative to ‘beautify’ the ugly bollards into something more colorful. My guess it is connected to the store nearby. I love the idea. 

First Things First

Nothing much is happening. Tripoli is in a bit of a clinch; The boys of the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood (with a majority of sunni muslims) got into a scuffle with their next door neighbors, the boys of the Jebel Mohsen neighborhood (with an alawite mulsim majority), or the other way around, depending in which side you are (pro or anti syrian). Trouble between the 2 neighborhoods are common, but ‘since the uprising in Syria began, tensions between the groups in Tripoli have mirrored the ebb and flow of events next door' (source). The army moved in to keep the neighborhood separated, but the Dutch Embassy is mailing me I should ‘prepare to possibly change my travel plans in and around the city of Tripoli.’

 Which means I should probably go there and check it out, but summer is in the city, and so we are back to learning how to sail. Remember? Six-pack rastaman is a patient man; He speaks to us in sailor language, and we are clueless as to what he means. “No no, you have to go beam ridge, go beam ridge, you’re in close haul right now, go upwind, go upwind. Tack, tack now!”

We want him to speak to us in English, like “push the rudder to the left”, or “sail towards Jimmy’s & Friends,” but he insists he’ll make real sailors out of us yet. He wants us to know how to make eight knots (easy) and bow knots, and how to rig the boat ourselves (‘What this rope for again?’). He tells us to we have to start at the outhaul with the rope. ‘Outhole? What’s an outhole? You never told us about an outhole?’ “Yes,” and he nods patiently, “I told you about the outhaul last week.” Mind you, we’re learning on a laser, a boat with one sail. You’ve got boats with 2 or even 3 sails.

We asked him if he remembered names of students that were worse than us; he had to think very long. Too long. Clearly, he couldn’t think of any names. “It’s better if you come several days in a row,” he says, to make us feel better, but we’re working women; we’ve only got that one day a week.

But heck, we’re going to learn how to sail! I just read this morning that ‘someone with no musical talent can learn to play guitar as an adult’.  And so Tripoli will have to wait. First things first.

And We've Got a Winner

I was going to keep you updated on this, but the no-longer-a-teenager-son of mine vetoed that plan. I thought taking driving lessons in Beirut should provide plenty of blog posts, but I wasn’t even allowed to sit in the back of the car while he was learning how to drive a car. (I was allowed to pay, however. )

I stipulated he learn stick-shift, but it seems the one stick-shift vehicle they had was often out of commission, and so most of the time it was in an automatic. “Automatic is for sissies,” I told him (even though I shifted to automatic recently, after 22 years stick-shift), so he apparently engaged some friends with a stick shift. The reason I went for automatic is because I got stuck once in an uphill traffic jam in Ashrafiyah for so long that I got cramps in my ‘clutch’ leg, and almost developed a carpal tunnel syndrome in that leg (self-diagnosis, mind you). 

I thought I’d sit in on his driving test last week, somewhere in Ouzai, but my presence there was vetoed as well. He did report that the gear-shift was replaced with a broomstick handle. In that case, what could possibly go wrong? And now he’s got his license. He requested a $21,000 vehicle. We declined. We offered him a fifth hand Volkswagen buggy for $2,100. He declined. Will we meet in the middle? I’ll keep you updated.

But in the meantime, we've got one more driver in Beirut. Just what we needed.

Safety First

I work for an American company where – when the cleaning crew comes in – they place little yellow markers on the floor to indicate it might be slippery because they’ve just mopped the place. And where they announce the day and time when they will spray the place with insecticide in order for you to be somewhere else. Yes, I agree, a little over the top, which makes the contrast with what happens outside only sharper.

The other day I walked pat a construction side, and I saw workers with hard hats. I had to do a double take. Hard hats? The only hard hats we have here are the ones in the toy store that come with the plastic carpenter set.

And so it didn’t surprise me much when I saw this poor dude sitting on a sort of home-made wooden swing device, dangling from a rope, like some sort of extreme sports rock climber. He's got a rope around his waste, but if you fall off the swing, and en up hanging upside down, you'll fall right out of that harness. I think he was filling holes of some sort. I doubt he’s got insurance to fill the hole in his head later on.

There Are Days . . .

I just read somewhere that there is a phenomenon called Facebook Depression. It seems that people have a tendency to upload only their happiest, prettiest and most adventurous moments. Seeing all these happy people might give you the impression that they lead an infinitely more interesting life than you do (I hear bloggers do the same :). 

‘Since Facebook users are far more likely to depict the happiest times of their lives through carefully curated photos rather than catalog depressing events, many users are more likely to believe that happiness is a constant in their friend’s lives.’

I find that a fascinating thing.


We finally went back to sailing with the 6-pack rastaman this weekend



I do admit, I am guilty of culling my pictures. And I do admit that there are days, and sometimes weeks, when things just don’t go right in my life. Days when you wonder whether your depression is medically related, weather-related, or that’s just the kind of person you are. Days when you open your facebook, and all your friends and acquaintances lead virtual lives that seem so much more exciting than your real life.

Nothing more fun than a stone with a hole in it

But I have developed a simple remedy for that. I go on the internet, and check the webcam in my hometown  and the webcam in the town of my parents. On early mornings, when I have coffee on my balcony and see the sun come up behind the mountains just before I go off to work, those towns are still shrouded in darkness. In the afternoon, when I fill my daughter’s kiddie pool, and have tea outside in the sun, they are battling windy weather and constant rain. In the weekends, when I go off to sail, go to the beach, or have picnics in the fields and valleys, they need to negotiate grey, overcast skies.



Just filled up the kiddie pool again. I go through one each summer; it stays filled all the way until end of October.



And then I think; life is not so bad.

Moral of this story; If my blog posts give you a depression, since it seems like my life is infinitely more interesting than yours, than go out and do something yourself! 

More Dust

OMG. Yep, you can say that again. Went I walked out of the house Thursday morning, this is what I saw. It had rained sand (or actually dust) all night) My puny little white dog wasn’t that white anymore (though still puny) after his morning walk.

When I walked my daughter to school. We wrote on all the car windows. We always assume that this dust suspended in the atmosphere comes from the Sahara; after all, that’s the closets desert we have, although the Syrian and Saudi deserts are close as well. But the Sahara sand is just a little more white. This dust is floating around in the upper layers of the atmosphere and could come from as far as South America (lower Orinoco), but it seems dust from Africa (Chad in particular) makes it all the way to the Amazon as well. (Thank you UTH). One-third of the global land area is covered by dust-producing surfaces.

These dust rains apparently are a common occurrence between April and May in the northern hemisphere. 

So where are we getting this dust from? No idea. It’s yellow, so probably not the Sahara. It’s not red, so that rules out the west coast of India. “ The Chinese, whose closeness of observation in agricultural matters is well known, assert that they are always followed by a fruitful season,” according to this article from 1852. 

Uhm, yes, we're still  working on the spelling .

Did you know that atmospheric dust can play a role in global cooling? Ice Ages are linked to it.  No, of course you don’t. You’re just upset you’ve got to go to the car wash. It still isn’t all gone though; I still have a hazy few from my house, there is no sunshine yet is HOT! 

What is This?

This would be the hood of my car, some 30 minutes AFTER I picked it up from the car wash. It seems we’ve got sand in the atmosphere. Every time I was my car, which is rarely, it is followed by a sand shower.

Hood of my car with buildings reflecting

Useless to wash anything outdoors now, for the past 4 days it’s been layering the city with a very fine dust. You don’t really notice (other than that the visibility is very poor and the sky is extremely bright, but you do not see the sun), until it rains; sand showers.

We’re somewhere on the outskirts of this cloud of dust . This one, coming from our southern neighbors, shows it even better,  

There’s a whole science in ‘atmospheric mineral dust’. Most of it comes from the North African and Arabian and Syrian deserts.

'More than 89% of the total annual dust is accumulated between December and May, the ‘high dust season’ (. . .) Dust-fall has beneficial effects on the soil as a source of nutrients. In addition, suspended dust plays an important role in neutralizing acid rain in the region.' (from this source.)

 So don't bother washing your car of your balcony or your windowns the coming day. We've got dust till friday. 

Dutch Queensday in Lebanon

The Dutch really have only two traditions when it comes to celebrations, and in good Dutch spirit, they’re not religiously affiliated (well, one originally may have been in a distance past): St. Nicolas and Queensday . St. Nicolas is really for young children, but Queensday is for everyone. On Queens Day, April 30,  we celebrate the birthday of the Queen, although her birthday isn’t really on April 30; it’s the birthday of her mother. But once you’ve set a date, you might as well stick to it. 

Poffertjes bakken; another Dutch tradition.

Queensday is known for its large scale nationwide celebrations and everyone is decked out in orange, because the Queen belongs to the House of Orange. I bet Aoun would like to claim that fame, but sorry dude, that color was taken a loooong time ago.

The Queens Day organizer (well, not the only one) on the right

We used to celebrate it here in Lebanon with a lukewarm reception at the embassy. These days, the lovely Tineke (en friends) has taken up the task to make it a happening in Lebanon too. And so we gathered last Sunday, to celebrate.