Pulling out the big guns

Coming back from Damascus, I was once dropped off at the highway just before Beirut and needed to take another bus to get back home in Hamra. I got on a mini-van which happened to be empty and was supposedly going my way. Unfortunately, the driver changed his plans upon seeing me, and took a left turn where I knew we should be going right. I asked him where we were going, and he said he ‘just wanted to pick something up at home, I didn’t mind now did I? We could have a cup of tea together?’But yes, I did mind, so I opened the door of the van and when he saw I wasn’t kidding, he slowed down and I jumped out.

***

Last year I was living on one end of an L-shaped building. On the other end, new apartments were still under construction. Communication with the construction workers was usually courteous and friendly, until one day they employed a guy who just couldn’t stop staring into our apartment. Whether my roommate and I were in our respective bedrooms or in the living room, his eyes were constantly following us. One day I couldn't take it anymore, so I went over to the work-site and told him in no uncertain terms (in limited Arabic, yes, but with easy-enough to understand hand gestures) that I had had enough of his non-stop looking into our house. Luckily, the other workers followed me and yelled at him what the hell he thought he was doing, and before I was back in my apartment they had sent him away and never employed him again.

***

A few days ago, I was home alone in my pajamas, when I heard voices on our rooftop-terrace. To my surprise, I found the janitor of the building right outside our open balcony-doors, showing the living room to a prospective tenant. When he noticed me, he backed away, but a minute later the doorbell rang. It was the manager of the building: if I could please move over and show the tenant our house. This time in French, I was a bit more eloquent: Did he think it was ok to sneak into my house like that? What if I was in the bathroom? Or walking around in my underwear? Just to name a few scenarios. He saw nothing wrong with it, after all the prospective tenant was an American woman – just like you! But neither am I American, nor is the janitor, who was also there standing on the terrace of my house with the tenant, a woman (and neither of which are really the point, ultimately), so I slammed the door in his face.

This morning, the manager wanted to speak to Walid about the inappropriate behavior of his wife, what with me denying them entrance to my own house and objecting to the janitor breaking in by way of the terrace. Walid asked him what he would do if a stranger would enter his house when his wife was home alone, and when the manager didn’t know what to answer, the assembled neighbors were there to help him out: shoot him, of course! ***

A while ago, a foreign friend of mine living in Beirut for the summer wanted to take a bus home, but accidentally got on the wrong line. A friendly passenger advised her to stay put until the end of the line, when the bus would turn around and go back to where it came from. Sensible advice, except that the bus, with my friend as the only passenger left, did not turn back – the driver took some back-roads until he got to the highway, parked the bus on the side of the road, and sat down next to my friend, to ask if she was married, after which he proceeded to grope her. She screamed and pushed him off of her, but having learned never to get out of a vehicle on the side of a highway she still needed to stay with him until he decided to drive again and get back to the inhabited part of the city.

We have so far identified which type of bus is was (the beige one), and which line (the 4), and there are apparently only 4 or 5 drivers on this line so it won’t be long until we’ve singled out which driver it was, but we’re as yet undecided what to do with him. Sending in a big friend acting as her husband, although probably an effective scare, will only reinforce the idea that what he did would have been ok if she were not married, so we need something else. These are obviously issues that need attention on a much wider scale, but until then we have to deal with it on a case by case basis. Anybody any ideas?

A Message from the Organizers of the Baalbeck International Festival

Dear Internationally Renowned Artist who will be performing at the Baalbeck International Festival: Thank you for accepting the invitation to play at our festival in the historic site of Baalbeck. Now that the date of your performance is coming closer, we would like to inform you of the following:

- Lebanese people are always late, so your performance may start at 7.30 (as scheduled), or at 7.45, or at 8, or at 8.15pm. In any case, we cannot start until all the VIPs have arrived, so please be flexible when waiting in the dressing room to go on stage.

- Once you start, don’t be surprised if your soft rendition of Schubert disappears by the sound of the nearby mosque’s call for prayer. See, we cannot possibly know what time those pesky things start singing and schedule your concert around it, so you’ll just have to live with that.

- The local population will be very happy to receive you, and will demonstrate this intermittently with fireworks and gunshots around the venue throughout the entire duration of your (acoustic) concert. Don’t worry about it, it’s tradition.

- Similarly, a welcome-party will be held across the street, and cars will drive by honking loudly. Don’t worry about that either, we will send the police to ask them to turn down the volume of the music, and they will do so with blasting sirens so you are sure they are doing their job.

- Some of the audience will be there to listen to you play the piano. Most of them are not. They’re the ones with the expensive tickets sitting in the front row, and they will come and go as they please. Don’t think that they are rude for getting up in the middle of the concert – they’re just trying to get their money’s worth in terms of showing off. Similarly, we’ve made the floor-boards of the venue extra squeaky, to assure the full attention of the whole audience when the above-mentioned guests get up and walk out of the temple during your concert to answer their phones.

- If all the noise and disturbances make you feel unappreciated, know that we can’t help it, this is how people are here. The client is the king, so we can’t possibly ask our security people to tell paying guests to turn off their cell phones, or return on time after the break is over. That would just be impolite.

So, we hope you will have a great concert here at the International Festival of Baalbeck, and remember: it’s not about you – it’s about them!

Looking forward to seeing you here,

(signed) The Organizers of the Baalbeck International Festival

Can you tell we had a great night at David Fray’s acoustic piano-recital yesterday, in the Temple of Bacchus at the Baalbeck International Festival?

What I really wanted to say about that

“The absence of Marwa’s story from the mainstream media and the failure to start a debate about the immediate dangers of present European anti-Muslim racism shows the depth of the problem and draws us to expect a gloomy future for Muslims in Europe. Muslims like Neda only get to the news if their story serves the dominant narrative that presents Islam as the primary threat to freedom, while Muslims like Marwa who expose the pervasive racism of the West and challenge the existing stereotypes fail to get their story told.”

Read the whole article here.

(And yes, he took my title. But he’s allowed to, because he is my husband.)

One woman makes the news, another one doesn’t

So here’s what happened, and we saw it:A woman in Iran protested the outcome of the elections, and was shot by the Religious Guard. She died on the street. International outrage followed.

So here’s what happened, and we didn’t see it: An Egyptian woman living in Germany sued a man for using racist and sexist slurs against her. She won; the man is fined 780 Euros. He appealed, and when she showed up in the courtroom for the second trial, he attacked her and stabbed her 18 times, to death, with a knife – in front of her 3-year old child. Her husband, who rushed in to help her, was shot by the guards in the courtroom and remains in critical condition in the hospital. International silence followed.

Can we all take a moment to think about what it means that the first death is immediately widely covered in European and American press, and the second death widely silenced?

Lost and found: does anyone know this little guy?

I found him on the street here in Hamra a little while ago. Someone must have loved him dearly – he’s missing a leg and two arms, and possibly his ears as well. If you know the kid who lost this little guy, please direct him or her to me; this little one is waiting to be picked up…

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