That explains things

Yesterday we had some American friends over for dinner. They were in town to see several people and were slightly worried about the fact that they didn't have a watch with them and afraid they might be late for one meeting or another. We told them not to worry – often meetings in Lebanon don't start until half an hour or an hour after their scheduled time, and if somebody is late for less than 20 minutes, they don't even need to say sorry. This is something even I have gotten used to (and am now regularly guilty of, myself), but I still don’t really know why this is the case, and we did not manage to not explain why this national phenomenon of ultimate flexibility with time exists. Moving on to other topics, we got to an all-time favorite international-discussion-topic: animal sounds. You know those picture books you had as a kid, which you would look through over and over again while your parents would try to teach you the sound each animal makes? Well, apparently not only humans speak different languages – animals do too! A cow, for example, says 'mooh' in England and the USA, but 'boo' in the Netherlands. A chicken, curiously enough, says 'pȏk pok pok pok pok pok’ in the low countries, but ‘baq baq baqeeq!’ in Lebanon. (Only if it’s an Arabic chicken, though, because the ‘q’ refers to the letter ‘qaf’, a sound which is quite unique to the Arabic language). We continued our search for sounds and found out that only sheep can travel internationally: they say ‘mȇh’ in both English, Arabic and Dutch.

Finally we got to the rooster. In the States, a rooster says ‘cock-a-doodle-doo!’ our guests started. In Holland, he says ‘kukelekuu!’ was my contribution. We looked expectantly at Walid. What does a rooster say in Lebanese? ‘Cocoricoo!’ was his answer. But that’s French! What does a post-colonial Lebanese rooster wake you up with in the morning?

My dear Lebanese boyfriend looked confused and said …well, I don’t know, I can’t think of a sound! Upon which our American friend shook his head and said well at least now we know why everybody is late in this country….

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...

Reading material, for it has already been 22 days in Gaza

Israeli Assault Injures 1.5 Million Gazans – Jonathan Cook “Talking of Gaza's civilians, where did they all go? Israel's so-called "war" on Gaza must be the first example in human history of a conflict where there are apparently no civilians. Or, at least, that is the impression being created by the world's leading international bodies, from the World Health Organization to the United Nations. Instead they refer to a new category of "women and children." […] The implication -- one with which Israel is presumably delighted -- is that the rest are Palestinian fighters, or "terrorists" as Israel would prefer us to call them. It also suggests that every man in Gaza over the age of 16 is being defined as a non-civilian -- as a combatant and, again by implication, as a terrorist. In short, all Gaza's men are legitimate targets for Israeli attack.”

War Diary from Sderot – Nomika Zion

“It frightens me to see my town lit up, as if for a festival and decked out with Israeli flags, groups of supporters distributing flowers in the street and people sounding their car horns in joy at every ton of bombs that's falling on our neighbours. I am frightened by the citizen who admitted to me, with a beaming face, that he never attended a concert in his life but that the Israel Defence Forces bombs is the sweetest music to his ears. I am frightened by the haughty interviewer who doesn't question his worlds by one iota.

I am frightened that, underneath the Orwellian smokescreen of words and the pictures of [Palestinian] children's' bodies that are especially blurred for us on TV as a public service, we are losing the human ability to see the other side, to feel, to be horrified, to show empathy. With the code word "Hamas" the media paints for us a picture of a huge and murky demon that has no face, no body, no voice, a million and a half people without a name.

A deep and gloomy current of violence seeps through the dark pores of Israeli society like a grave illness, and it gets worse from one war to the next. It has no smell and no shape but one feels it very clearly from here. It is a kind of euphoria, a joy of war, lust for revenge , drunkenness on power and burial of the Jewish command "Do not be joyful when your enemy falls". It is a morality that has become so polluted that no laundry could remove the stains.”

How to Sell ‘Ethical’ Warfare – Neve Gordon

“The Israeli media continuously emphasises Israel's restraint by underscoring the gap between what the military forces could do to the Palestinians and what they actually do. […] The message to the Israelis is a moral one. The subtext is that the Israeli military could indiscriminately unleash its vast arsenal of violence, but chooses not to, because its forces, unlike Hamas, respect human life.

This latter claim appears to have considerable resonance among Israelis, and, yet, it is based on a moral fallacy. The fact that one could be more brutal but chooses to use restraint does not in any way entail that one is moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have razed the entire Gaza Strip, but instead destroyed only 15% of the buildings does not make its actions moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have killed thousands of Palestinian children during this campaign, and, due to restraint, killed "only" 300, does not make Operation Cast Lead ethical.”