In which the taxi-driver is looking for some pedagogical entertainment

It was a rainy night, and we were in the back of a service (shared taxi), chatting with the driver about the progress of the different teams in the Lebanese basketball championship – or rather, we were being updated about their progress, because neither Walid nor I know much about the subject. Before we reached the end of the street, the driver picked up a teenage boy who wanted to go to Qoreitem, a few minutes away. I’ll take you there, said our chauffeur, as the boy slouched down in the front seat, chewing candy, but I have to drop them off at the Corniche first. The boy was not pleased. But I’m in a hurry! We weren’t, so we told the driver it would be ok to drop him off first before continuing to our destination. In return, the boy offered us candy, in that typically uninterested-teenager-way.

So… Qoreitem, ey? The driver said jokingly to the boy. Why, do you have a meeting with Hariri? Pfff… Hariri has a meeting with me! answered the boy, playing with his phone. Hariri has a meeting with him… mumbled the driver, so what’s your name? My name? the boy looked up. Why? Just want to know, what’s your name? Antoun. Why? Why is that my name? Yes, why? Well, said the boy, confused, I guess my parents felt like it. Hahaha! the taxi-driver smiled at us, I ask him his name and then I ask him why! Hahaha!

The boy’s phone rang. No, I’m on my way already; I’m next to Yamaha now, he said in English. I’ll be there soon. He was still slumped in his seat, continuously chewing his sweets. Yamaha, Honda, Nissan, the driver muttered. Like he speaks French or English or Japanese or whatever.

When the taxi-driver wanted to drop him off and take a right turn, the teenager motioned with his hand that he should move forward on the main road. Another 5 meters farther he had arrived at his destination. He looked down at the driver’s packet of cigarettes, decided that they weren’t it, then turned around and asked Walid: Do you have any Marlboro Red? Unsuccessful, he got out of the car and walked off.

Too bad, said the driver, I wish you had let me drop you off first. I wait the whole day for boys like this! These youth nowadays…. I would have taken him all around Beirut, and then some. That’ll teach him! The other day I was hit by a scooter going against traffic, and the boy started yelling at me. Well, I picked him up, stuffed him in my trunk and drove him around for a while. I guess he learned when to apologize!

With that, we arrived at our destination, where the driver refused payment. We had fun! he said. We sure did.

So you want the real thing...

I’m in a service (shared taxi) and since I am the only passenger, the taxi-driver starts a conversation with me. ‘So, what do you think of Lebanon?’ It’s the usual question to start with. ‘I like it. That’s why I live here.’ My standard answer to this question. ‘You live here? Where are you from?’ Curiosity goes up, possibility to charge higher rate goes down. ‘From Holland.’ I have to pronounce this one really well, for it not to be confused with Poland or written off as ‘non-understandable Scandinavian country.’ ‘Hahaha!’ The taxi-driver starts laughing. ‘You must be scared of the cold there!’ ‘That’s right. I love the sun!’ I’m glad he understands what I’m talking about. ‘Well,’ he says without missing a beat, ‘you could just take a picture of it and put it up in your room.’

And with that: case closed on the weird foreigner who wants to live here.

On Diminishing the Decorative Value of Traffic Lights

We were once on the way to Jezzine, a town in the mountainous area of South-West Lebanon, when we hit a stretch in the road that had recently been repaved. Smooth, black tarmac for what seemed kilometers on end, with brand new road surface marking; clear, thick, white stripes on both sides of the road and in the middle. ‘Wow,’ said Walid, ‘look at this road, it’s almost European, so beautiful!’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and it seems they even put the correct stripes in the correct places! Double, uninterrupted lines in dangerous bends, and single dashed ones on straight stretches.’ ‘Wait…’ was the incredulous answer, ‘road markings have a meaning..?’

Well yes, they do, although I am not surprised that this is little-known fact among Lebanese drivers. Traffic here is notorious, and my friends used to tell me that ‘traffic lights are for decorative purposes only.’ But now that the Minister of Interior has decided to try to actually regulate Lebanese traffic, it is slowly dawning on people that it might be useful to know some rules. Rules such as speed limits, which to the surprise of many are different inside and outside the city.

Currently, he has invited some French policemen to train their Lebanese colleagues in traffic-control. I remember when I was taking driving lessons in the Netherlands; we would go to a busy intersection where students from the police academy would train in regulating traffic, because it was the best place to learn the many different positions of hands and arms and all the different directions the traffic police was giving with them. In Lebanon, the poor policeman in the middle of the road only has two orders to give: Stop! or Go! And for both of these he can use any type of gesture he wants to convey the message.

The newspaper reports how the French-Lebanese training-sessions are going; they spent some time with a pair of them on one of the major roads in the city. At one moment, the French policeman has signaled a bus-driver to stop, and the bus-driver has obeyed his orders – only about 6 meters too late, right in the middle of the intersection. The French policeman explains to the bus-driver where he was supposed to stop; a few meters earlier, before the traffic lights and the pedestrian crossing. The Lebanese policeman translates for him. The bus-driver looks over at the French policeman, shrugs, and says with a smile: ‘Ala rassi’ – which in this situation means so much as ‘sure man, no problem.’

I hope the Minister of Interior is a very, very patient man.

Beirut, you are breaking my heart (and stealing my view)

As seen from our terrace when we moved in in May 2008...

And this is the view now...

This Country Is Too Small And I Have Proof (bonus edition)

Currently on vacation back in the Netherlands, I am meeting with a student who would like to do research for her Master's thesis in Lebanon. I ask her if she has been to Lebanon before. She has; once on a few days with her parents while she was spending some time in Syria, and then again for a true Beiruti party-night on invitation of a guy they met randomly that first weekend. But the guy is not very useful as a contact for her research, she thinks, he seemed to be a bit too much on one side of the political spectrum. Her research is rather political and will require careful balance.

We get to the practical things she will have to arrange, and I tell her I know an international student house where a room might be available. I once lived there, but I don’t know who to contact for it now, because the friend I had in that house doesn’t talk to me anymore now that his dad has become something high up in the government. Oh, she says, that guy we went out with lived in an international student house as well. Are there many of those in Beirut?

Of course there aren’t. And of course the guy she once met on the street is the guy I shared a house with. Welcome to Lebanon, Nora!