Why, really?

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So why do you like living in Lebanon? My friend, visiting from the Netherlands, asked me after a day of being harassed on the Corniche and having been overcharged with every single purchase just because we are both foreign.

I couldn’t quite think of anything, just then.

But two days later I knew full well why I like living in Lebanon. Because I can sit on the beach on a Monday night, enjoying the colors of the sunset and throwing pebbles in the water, I said.

In November! she added.

In November, indeed. It’s easy to forget one cannot wear flip-flops this time of year everywhere in the world...

Photographic evidence

We are having guests this week, and part of my duties as a tour-guide is a morning walk on and around the Corniche. While for my guests – a Spanish couple – everything they see is a surprise, for me this is a great opportunity to discover new details in buildings and areas I have come to know oh so well. I love passing by this building, for example:

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There is always something going on here – some rooms, apparently, have sleeping shifts, because the beds are almost never unoccupied. There will always be someone having a drink on a balcony, someone doing laundry on another, yet someone else surveying the street from up above.

Now that the political posters have been taken down, it’s time for other questions:

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And also for more cryptic decorations, it seems. (For those of you unfamiliar with Arabic super-stars: that second picture is a graffiti of Umm Kalthoum, a famous Egyptian singer of endless poetic songs, uttering the words of another (in)famous singer, Haifa Wehbe: bous el wawa – 'kiss the booboo'.)

When we got to Raouche, home to the famous stones-sticking-out-of-the-sea known as the Pigeon Rocks, we were joined by a busload of tourists busily snapping pictures of this attraction. A small guy with a Polaroid camera approached us and asked if he could take a picture of us. Not interested, we told him no, but then he explained in broken Arabic that it wasn’t for us – there were two Iranian men standing with him who wanted to be in the picture with us. Who are we to deny anybody our pretty faces? we reasoned, and agreed on the portrait. The Spanish couple and me in the middle, the two guys on each side against the backdrop of the Pigeon Rocks… beautiful. Except that just before snapping the picture, one of the Iranians moved closer to the middle, pushing the Spanish boyfriend to the side, and draping an arm around the girl. Click! I didn’t see the end-result, but I am pretty sure that it showed 4 people maximum, and I wonder what their story about it will be at home…

Broken memory

It is known that a fish forgets everything after one tour around the fishbowl.

And you, Lebanese, when was the last time you tested your memory?

Point of view

Should new clashes / another civil war break out, I know I have a place from where to watch it all :

Beirut, as seen from the mountains. The workers at the construction site told me I could come and enjoy the view from there. They even promised me the comfy chair.

Photo taken in Fanar, east of Beirut, May 18th 2008.

View from the balcony