It's about time

You know you have been in Lebanon for too long when… - You are happy that during a thunderstorm the rain only comes in through the walls and is not dripping from the ceiling - You ask for bread with dinner – even when the dinner is pasta with tomato-sauce - You wonder why the car in front of you doesn’t pass the slow one in front of him – he can easily squeeze himself between the truck and the sidewalk on the right! - You are no longer able to formulate a sentence consisting of one language only – little bits of French and Arabic show up in everything you say - You assume the phrase ‘oh I’m fine, nothing’s happening’ means no fighting has taken place and no bombs have exploded recently - You catch yourself saying ‘we’ when you try to explain crazy Lebanese habits to tourists

But you know you are still European when… - Your first thought, when seeing people burning tires during a demonstration, is ‘but… but… the black smoke is bad for the environment!’ - You hesitate to shake out the table cloth onto the street because you worry that the breadcrumbs and the like will dirty the sidewalk - You actually get upset when a co-worker promised to have something done and hasn’t… 3 days after the deadline - ‘I invite you for dinner’ means just that, not that you will pay for the whole evening

And you know you are still Dutch when…

- You expect a koekje every time you order coffee or tea in a café - You assume you will meet someone around 11am when you had agreed to go for a coffee, at 3pm for a tea, or at 7ish for a dinner date – rather than any random time during the day or night, for any of these things - Your friend is coming over and you ask her to bring drop, Calvé pindakaas, peperkoek, stroopwafels, and the Saturday edition of de Volkskrant.

The Unfair Lightness of Being

So Lebanon has a problem with electricity. Not only are the electric cords so old and rotten that with every bit of rain they break and leave whole neighborhoods in the dark, and not only is illegally tapping public power sources (streetlights and such) and refusal to pay the electricity bills a common occurrence, there also simply isn’t enough electricity. What does that mean, you ask? It means that every day, for a few hours, the electricity goes off. These power-cuts are scheduled on different hours during the week. For example, on Monday, the power cuts from 3 in the afternoon until 6 in the evening. Tuesday, it cuts from noon to 3pm. Wednesday, there is no electricity from 9am until noon, and Thursday from 6am to 9am. On Friday, the cycle starts over again at 3pm. And this is for the lucky ones in Beirut – outside of the capital, the power-cuts can go up to six, seven, eight, in some places even 10 hours a day.

In many places, people buy private generators or subscribe to a big one that provides for the whole neighborhood. Some buildings have a generator just for the elevators, but ours unfortunately doesn’t. Not that I mind a bit of physical exercise, but I do plan my grocery-shopping around the power-cut – I don’t feel the need to carry the 10-liter bottles of potable water all the way up to the 8th floor. And it’s not only the grocery shopping that gets scheduled during electricity hours; the same goes for showers (no hot water!), watching a movie (no TV / computer!) and even cleaning the house (no music!). Luxury problems, true, but inconvenient nonetheless – and I have come to realize it contributes greatly to the feeling of ‘in Lebanon, you can never decide for yourself, it’s always outside forces that determine your life’ that I have heard so many Lebanese people express over the time. It’s not just about wars and major political events; it’s the small, daily stuff that puts you out of control over your own actions.

But back to the electricity, and there not being enough of it. As I said, those of us living in Beirut are lucky, with the minimal power-cut of three hours, thanks to the strange reasoning that ‘tourists come to Beirut so the businesses there need it more than elsewhere’. With the arrival of a new minister for electric affairs, however, this unfairness was going to be addressed: cutting the electricity in Beirut for four hours a day instead of three would presumably free up enough electricity to bring back the power-cuts everywhere else in the country to five or six hours. All fair and well, right? But no, heavy protest ensued, especially from those men in the government with many followers in the city. It was even named an attack on the capital, and a continuation of the siege that happened in May. So the fair and equal distribution of electricity throughout the country never happened, and Beirut is still given preferential treatment with 21 hours of electricity a day.

Obviously, I don’t mind, living in a house on the 8th floor with no generator. But I don’t think we need to brag about it by leaving the streetlights on even during the day…

Bits and Pieces

I am the 804,100,258th richest person on earth!Remember when I told you that one quarter of the people in Lebanon live under the absolute poverty line? Well, even when living on a salary that is modest according to Lebanese standards for someone with my level of education, I am still in the top 13,4% of richest people in the world. Do you want to know how rich you really are? You can calculate it here in (literally) 1 second.

I’m famous! Eh, well, in the Netherlands at least. And only among those who have been listening to BNN Radio / BNN Today and have paid attention to the 3-minute segment called ‘Exit Holland’. As someone who has left the low country, I have been asked to shine some light on the rare and the mundane stuff of life in Lebanon. If you go here, you can hear what I had to say about the falafel-war between Israel and Lebanon (in Dutch only, unfortunately). (Als je klikt op Uitzending van 21 Oktober, en je vindt daar mijn naam, dan kun je ook eerdere uitzendingen beluisteren.) I have a new blog! No, I’m not leaving this one. There will be plenty of stories to follow. But the other one is for pictures, you see. That’s why I called it ‘Qussa : The Visuals’. One photo a day, to illustrate what’s being said here, or for something completely different – whatever I feel like showing you. So come over here and have a look!

Poor Lebanese

It struck me, my first time in Lebanon in 2005, how little poverty I saw. No beggars, no people scouring the garbage, hardly any street-vendors, panhandlers, little kids trying to sell gum or polish shoes. Maybe I was blinded by the bling of the upper class, or maybe it was indeed hardly there. I remember asking my friend about it. After all, she often complained about Lebanon being ‘not even’ a third-world country. Her answer was that Lebanese people were too proud: nobody would let anybody in their family get so poor that they had to display it for the rest of society to see. Bedouins would go around begging, she said, but Lebanese people would always make sure that no one could accuse them of not taking care of even their most remote family-members. But over the course of the past few years, life has not become easier in Lebanon. War, political crisis, and simply being part of a world in which the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer – whatever be the cause, the result is increasing suffering for many Lebanese people. Following the definition of the World Bank, an astounding 28.5% of the Lebanese live below the poverty line. That’s about one million people, in a country of around four million.

I now do see beggars. I see people digging in the garbage for cans and bottles, but also for food-items that are still edible. I see more and more children trying to sell roses on busy roads late at night. I see people riding around their (grand)parents in wheelchairs to collect money from passers-by. I see the old woman who knocked on my door, today, after walking 8 flights of stairs, to ask if I have anything for her to clean. I see a van-driver whose minibus breaks down and can only be repaired if he buys the required part, which costs $400 – news which sends him into a screaming panic… crying, completely desperate, the driver hit his front screen so hard it broke. He broke the glass with his bare hands.

Poverty, I think, is one of the most debilitating conditions a person can live in. Real, deep poverty, the one where you have to choose between using the bed-net as a fishnet to be able to eat, or as a mosquito-net not to get malaria. The one where you have to choose between giving your children to eat, or eating the food yourself so you will have enough energy to go out and try to find work. The one that makes you break your windshield in desperation because you know you will never be able to afford the necessary car-part, which means your single source of income (and that of all those who depend on you) just disappeared.

Today is Blog Action Day, and on many, many blogs, people will write about poverty. I hope some of it will translate into small or big actions to finally get everyone up to an acceptable standard of living. If you’d like and you have $25 or more to lend to someone for a while (and get them back later!), join me in micro-financing a loan through Kiva. And if you have another idea to get rid of poverty, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

I made you a mix tape!

Some Lebanese songs to go with the stories... enjoy!