What goes up...

Sietske has a post up about the way things are celebrated in Lebanon: with fireworks. Beautiful fireworks, and dangerous gunfire: emptying one’s Kalashnikov (or recently: RPG) straight up into the air to celebrate (re-)election of one’s favorite politician is considered quite acceptable behavior by many. It’s one of those habits that’s amusing as long as you don’t think about the consequences, because as Sietske says: what goes up, must come down, and a bullet coming at you vertically is no less lethal than a bullet flying horizontally.

Walid tells me the story of the first time Nabih Berri was elected Speaker of Parliament, in the early years after the civil war. Celebratory gunfire erupted in the neighborhood of his school. They were playing in the recreational area during the break when suddenly a boy fell to the floor, blood all over the place. He was rushed to the hospital and the bully of the class was punished because ‘he must have hit him with something sharp’. As it turned out later, a bullet coming down had entered the boy’s body close to his neck and had ended up close to his heart.

A friend of mine told me a similar story. When the civil war was over, she and her sister went out to celebrate. So did many people – with their weapons. The sister was hit by a ‘celebratory bullet’ in her lower back and brought to the hospital; she’s still in a wheelchair.

The most famous of these tragic stories is from a wedding in the Beqaa: when the newly married couple drove off in a convertible, their friends and family were shooting in the air to celebrate. One of the bullets came down and hit the bride; she died on the spot.

I heard this last story so many times I don’t know if it’s true; but it shocks me that these incidents are not more widely reported. If there is fighting, every killed and wounded is counted; but when it’s to celebrate, we hardly ever hear of all those things that go wrong. We may pretend it’s a fun game to guess the difference between the sound of firecrackers and Kalashnikov, but maybe Maya Zankoul’s rage is more appropriate. Not sure about her solution, though…

A whole other electricity problem

One of the most complicated things in Lebanese daily life is paying the electricity bill. That is, if you want to do everything like a good citizen is supposed to do. First, you have to convince Electricité du Liban of giving you electricity. This can be quite costly if, like in our house, the previous tenant of the apartment has not paid their bills for over a year and has left the country with an outstanding debt of about $300 with EDL. You will be given three options: either you pay her outstanding debt in full and they will resume delivering electricity to your place, or you pay a fixed sum which happens to be around $250 dollars with the same result, or you buy a new energy meter for about $250 which you install in the meter box of your building and leave the debt for the tenant after you.

Once this inevitable payment is made, you go to another counter to tell them how many Amperes you want (5, 10, 20, 50, 100 – they can tell you exactly how much you need if you tell them how many appliances you have. The friendly employee smiled broadly when he announced we could even run ‘another A/C!’ on what we chose). You make the rounds past various other counters and offices, get some stamps, signatures and more stamps, pay some more, and then just like that – you have electricity in your house.

And that’s where the real fun starts. Because then, every month, a guy will come by to pick up your payment. He will come during the day, so usually there won’t be anybody home but the cats, so he leaves a little green note with the fact that he was there, found no one, when he will come again, and how much you owe him. (For us, this is usually around $15, or $25 in really hot and really cold months). There used to be an indecipherable name and number scribbled in the corner of the note, but now he has upgraded to a stamp so that you can actually read it and call him.

Which you will do, because the proposed date to pass by falls in the same category as the first one: a working day between 9 and 6 when no one is home. He then says he will pass by at a time you agree on, but you both forget that that’s when the regular powercut is scheduled, so rather than walking all the stairs to the 8th floor where you are waiting, he decides to skip your house and wait for you to call again.

You call him again to ask why he didn’t show up as promised, and hear that he will pass by in a few hours when the electricity comes back. He will ask you to leave the money (exact change, please) with the janitor of the building. This means you have to be on friendly terms with the janitor, which can be assured by monthly payments equal to your entire electricity bill (you should also do this if you decide not to pay your electricity bill at all, because the janitor is the one with the key to the meter box of the building, and the one to turn your electricity back on after the electricity guy has turned it off due to default. But that's only for those of us who do not aspire to 'perfect citizen' status.).

If you are not on friendly terms with the janitor, there is nothing you can do other than to carry with you the amount due, including the little green note he left a few days before, and walk around in the neighborhood until you see the electricity guy passing by. If that happens (hopefully without a lot of phonecalls as to his exact whereabouts), you hand him the money through his car-window, he gives you back a little white slip of paper, and you will have paid your electricity bill for the month.

Congratulations.

Because it's too funny not to post

Somebody made Saudis dance to Michael Jackson. I give you 'Smooth Criminal, Saudi Style':

Such a difference over the years...

2006:“Would you like to go to the Fȇte de la Musique?” “Yeah, I guess, I mean we should party as long as we still can!”

2007: “Would you like to go to the Fȇte de la Musique?” “Are there any concerts? Anyway, I will not go, my parents don’t want me to go out much, they’re afraid something will happen.” 2008: “Would you like to go to the Fȇte de la Musique?” “What, there are concerts? No way! Who knows what will happen!”

2009: “Would you like to go to the Fȇte de la Musique?” “Yes, of course! Who’s playing?” And with that, I think it’s safe to say that the dancefloor in the ‘Dome’ (an old cinema destroyed during the civil war) was the most dangerous thing of this year’s Fȇte de la Musique, being made of wooden boards supported by a stick – and that made us very happy. That, and seeing such a huge crowd out on the streets without any flags whatsoever. Nice party!

Sunday, in Nicosia

Remember the words of this lieutenant? And the situation I was in? Well, that's why we went to Cyprus.

wedding-complete

And because we love each other.

Nicosia, Cyprus; 14 June 2009.