And what does Hana do during all this driving around town? She sleeps. 

My Son's Social Life

Now I understand why everyone hires chauffeurs around here. On Saturday Adrian had a birthday party, of Meera. So at 11 we go buy a gift at BHV which is in Jnah, a southern part of West Beirut. At 12 I drop him off at the birthday in Verdun, another neighborhood. Then I have to look for a shirt for Hana, which is in a neighborhood called Basta. From Basta back to Verdun, in the meantime stopping for another gift, this time for Adel, because when I pick Adrian up at 3:00, he’s late for his next birthday, of Adel, which is downtown. From downtown I have to drive all the way to Gobeireh, to a hardware store for some filing cabinets, back to downtown, where Adrian decides to stay a little longer, so back home (Hamra), and then I pick him up at 7 from a friend’s (Adel) house, which - for a change – is almost around the corner here, on the seaside. I think I have been in the car pretty much from 11 to 6, with a few stops here and there, and driven over 60 kilometers to get all over town. Today I had to pick him up at a friend’s (Rand) house, here he slept over, now he is getting ready to go with another friend (Michael, who lives here in the building) to the mountains where Michael’s parents are invited for lunch, and the kids can play since this is at a massive villa with a huge garden (I am being told). When he comes back in the afternoon, I’ve got to drive him over to his grandmother’s where he sleeps every Sunday night, and pick him up again Monday morning before we go to school. So all I have done is drive him around. His social life is definitely more alive than mine. All I can do now (in between driving Adrian all over town to his social engagements) is lie in exasperation at the beach. I’m going at 12 with Anne. Maybe Cecile comes too. So what do we do with our weekends in Beirut? We drive our children around.
He hasn't gotten to the phoning stage yet. I will know when my phone bill will soar.

And so its Cops & Robbers in the Saida Souq. 

Daily Business

We’ve got a new prime-minister; Mikati. Tall guy. He reminds me of Mr. Rumbold of Are You Being Served. Maybe we’ll get parliamentary elections on May the 31st anyway.
Basil Fleishman died this morning. He was sitting in the front seat of Hariri’s motorcade when it exploded on Valentine’s Day. I wonder where they are going to bury him, since he – being a protestant – cannot be placed where Hariri and his 7 bodyguards – all Moslem – are buried. I find this Virgin Parking lot a pretty poor spot.
The cat’s got worms. Had to wash all the sand in Hana’s sandbox yesterday, by hand, with Clorox and dettol, to clean it yup, as she has shitted all over the sandbox, worms and all. Now it’s got to dry, but the moment you open up the box, cat’s back in again. Wonder how we are going to do this.
And as I got home from work today, I noticed that Walid has decided to break out an entire wall in the kitchen. The man that has to install the window found out the window + window frame didn’t fit in the elevator. “He’s walking up with the window, floor by floor,” reports Adrian. “He might actually make it.” We live on the 12th floor. Well, that’s good news. Hope it doesn’t rain tonight. Wonder what he is planning.

Wissam buys them a toy gun at the souq in Saida 

Hana at the Crusader's Castle of Saida. It was conquered by Baldwin the 1st in 1108, and reconquered by Saladin in 1187. As the castle was built in 1227, it's not really a Crusader castle.  

Soap and Crusaders

We visited a soap museum in Saida (Sidon) today. It’s actually an old soap factory of the Audi family (Raymond Audi has one of the biggest banks in Beirut, son Pierre is the artistic director of the Netherlands Opera) in the old souq. They have restored it, and it is done quite neat. Soap making was big business here at one time. There's a Khan as-Saboun (soap market) in Tripoli as well. Adrian and Obi got guns, and spend the rest of the time playing James Bond and Mr. Bean. I doubt they saw anything of the entire museum. We went with a little boy of a friend of Cecile. His name was Alexander. He was 10, behaved as if he was 65. I was quite pleased with Adrian’s immature behavior. We visited the Crusader Castle as well.

Hana and Adrian Downtown 

The Ostrich Approach

The war celebrations / commemorations are over. Not very well organized, nor was there much line in it all. Several groups were supposed to play, but were deemed too ‘modern’, it seems, it had to fit the average taste, which is rather basic. A power failure during the performance of an Arabic singer made it all pretty authentic. But it was better than the other fourteen years, when this day (April 13, 1975) was totally ignored. Most countries – after a civil war – seem to have some sort of therapy to get over it. South Africa had its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Rwanda has its War Crimes Tribunal and Yugoslavia does it through the International War Tribunal in the Hague. Here in Lebanon we have the ostrich approach; ignore it, censor it, erase it from the history books, take it out of the curriculum, don’t talk about it, pretend it never happened, call it ‘the events’ instead of a ‘civil war’ and hope it goes away.
Hana liked the balloons, and Adrian was bored.

Lees het!

Hier kun je mijn artikel van vandaag vinden: http://www.trouw.nl/nieuwsenachtergronden/artikelen/1113285604909.html
Here you can find my article, although I think it doubtful you'll enjoy it as it is in Dutch.

Lots of things going on downtown these days. Here Hana, Obi and Adrian are watching balloons go up in the air at an art exhibition. They are sitting in front of a paining called 'variations sur Tabouleh' (A Lebanese salad). 

And why do we have a one-hour traffic jam? Because the army has a checkpoint. 

Monday evening, 7:30. Traffic Jam on the Corniche (Beach boulevard in West-Beirut) 

Brothers and such

I think I’ll remove the options of commenting on my blog. All I get are these irate readers, like brothers and such … Hum.
Today I am going to walk the 5K. It starts at 11:00 A.M. The organizers promised medals to anyone who signed up for this walk. All the more reason for the kids to do it. Now they are saying only the first 2000 will get a medal. As I am walking with a two year old, and will reach the finish line somewhere around dusk, I guess that won’t be us.
Almost finished my story, still need to talk to two people. Should be in Trouw on Wednesday.

Lock on the Fridge

I’m going to have to put a lock on that fridge; Hana is constantly raiding the fridge, knows how to climbs all the way to the top shelf, gets pieces of cheese, salmon and salami all by herself, looks for food in Tupperware containers and drawers. And it’s not that she is hungry, if you give her something to eat, she’ll just put it aside.

Yesterday there was a kite festival downtown, but no wind. Free kites were handed out, and all you saw were adults running like mad, crisscrossing Martyr’s Square with little plastic kites fluttering behind them.

Today I visited Anne. Anne’s got a place somewhere in East-Beirut. Now and then she tries to be a good mother, and organizes some friends to come over and play with daughter Parel. This is extremely stressful for her, because when you invite a child to play over, you automatically get the mothers too, and she doesn’t do too well with mothers. There were a few other moms, of which one was a severely constipated French lady who was constantly making sure her four year old didn’t do this and didn’t do that and didn’t touch this and didn’t touch that and didn’t eat this and didn’t eat that. “Did you was your hands before you touched the food?” Anne – being far from relaxed herself – tried to give her some advice as to how to relax. She got all worked up about the fact that this French woman got herself all worked up about her daughter. It was very amusing to see, and Joke, Tineke and I observed this with great amusement.

Tomorrow there is a 5 K Unity walk, I think I’ll go with Adrian and Hana. I must say that since the opposition is organizing all these anti-Syrian events, there is suddenly a lot more to do in this town. Free music concerts, kite festivals, candle tours, marathons, human flags, balloon releases and on and on.

Next week they have planned all sorts of sports events and children’s theater, in order to commemorate the beginning of the civil war, exactly 30 years ago. It all hints distinctly toward the opposition, but it’s fine with me, they are keeping the place quite alive at the moment. Anne has a gig downtown on Wednesday, so I think we are going to check it out. We’ve got to see the ‘Great Balloon Release’ anyway. The kites didn’t go up, let’s see if the balloons will.

Adrian, Obi and Hana at a (windless) kite festival downtown 

Life on the Back Burner

The newspaper wants me to write a story about the current situation, but there isn’t much to tell. It seems like everything has been put on hold until the May second parliamentary elections. The Hariri list will have to be revised, as there no longer is a Mister Hariri, although it wouldn’t surprise me if his son Bahaa will jump in his father’s footsteps. He’s currently abroad (due to death threats it is said). But not much is happening. The head of the Military Intelligence ‘suddenly’ decided to go on a month long holiday, and he’s been gone now for a week. The judge that was heading the investigation already resigned quite some time ago. The government says now it is willing to cooperate with a UN investigation, but there is little left to investigate. If anyone is interested, I do have a piece of an exploded car in my possession; found it on the street near the site when I had to write a story about the explosion. So life is been put on the back burner, you can put it as literally as that. In West-Beirut there are frequent army checkpoints, and anyone driving a car with tinted windows (previously a trade mark for Syrian secret service people) is taken aside, frisked, and their car papers are confiscated. In East Beirut I understand it is the civilians that have set up their checkpoints to check other civilians, but we all understand they are looking for Syrian/pro-Syrian people, as they say the police is not doing their job adequately. I understand they are being upset for being targeted in this bombing campaign (four so far and I’m sure there will be more to come), but this is very much like the civil war, I must say, with neighborhood militias taken care of their ‘own’. The army has cracked down on this, but it’s quite interesting to see that the network is already in place. And although now the reason are different, the sides and the suspicion are very similar. This is how it started in ‘75, with Christian militias ‘taking care’ of business (By executing a number of Palestinians that happened to drive through their neighborhood on their way to somewhere else). Hopefully the elections will bring a change in government, because it seems clear (to me at least) that all this is provoked by the Lebanese government itself, who are taking their orders still from the Syrians. They may be retreating, and the whole bunch is supposed to be out by the end of April, but there is no way you can check their intelligence service. Many Lebanese are working for them, so they are going to keep a very fat finger in the Lebanese porridge for a long time to come. Even if the opposition will win, they just do not have the means to cleanse the Syrian intelligence apparatus out of their system.

The one on the left was taken during the 1 million people demonstration of March the 14th. That Absolut bottle is the only place where people couldn't stand; namely an archeological dig. I believe it is a Phoenician city-wall if I am correct.

The one on the right is Adrian, Hana and me burning a candle on Hariri's grave the evening of his funeral. I'll spare you the caption the newspaper gave it.

Power Cuts

All lights went out last night, 8:02 PM local time. It happens a lot, usually one neighborhood at a time. Power plant cannot feed the whole city. But it rarely cuts off the entire city at the same time. This time entire Beirut was dark. We could see it from our house (We have a roof apartment, overlooking major parts of West-Beirut, with a view on the mountains of East Beirut). The whole town blacked out. That hasn’t happened since the Israelis bombed the power plant. It took a good thirty seconds before the first generators kicked in, and individual buildings got their power back. I tried to figure out what had happened this morning, but it is so incredibly usual, that it didn’t even make it to the paper. People are so used to it in fact, that it doesn’t even cause a baby boom. Figure that one out. If this would have happened in Holland, they’d have entire parliament debates about it. Here it doesn’t even make it to the newspaper. “You were in the dark all last night? Oh, well, sorry folks.”
We do have some awesome sunsets though. This is the one of today.
Bill Clinton’s diary is off the web. I figured it was a hoax, but it was a pretty darn good one. Petty, the guy said some good things about Lebanon.

Hana watching the sunset. She loves the sun and the moon. It's all 'moona' for her. 

Sunset, Monday evening, in Beirut 

To The Aquarium

You can feel things aren’t right now. Cecile and I went into town today, did our round of ‘cheap shopping’, and took the kids to the aquarium in Jdeideh (they had a bomb there a couple off days ago) in the afternoon. I asked two of Adrian’s friends to join us. Their Moms wouldn’t let them. “Jdeideh? Are you crazy?” This is Saturday, town’s supposed to be packed with shoppers. But it’s quiet in the shops. Maybe a costumer or two, but several times we were the only ones in the store. In the east it is almost impossible to shop, ‘cause they won’t let you park anywhere near the shops. All streets are cordoned off with yellow police tape. Nobody wants to have that car bomb in front of their place. At the aquarium – quite a nice place – we were also the only ones. On the way back I took Bliss street, which usually is one long a traffic jam because everybody goes there to get their fruit cocktails (and park in the middle of the road, needless to say). It was a through fare today, very little traffic. This can’t last very long like this. People seems to take it very serious, are not going out and are not spending any money.

Two Very rare Lebanese Fish.

Obi and Adrian in the aquarium.

I T ' S R A I N I N G (B O M B S)

H E T R E G E N T (B O M M E N)
Het regent vandaag, waarschijnlijk de laaste regen voordat de zomer begint. Zodra de zomer begint krijgen we geen regen meer voor oktober.

Weer een bom vannocht, de vierde al in twee weken. Dit keer in Broummana, een randstadje in de bergen. Randdorpje eigenlijk. Er wonen enkel christenen, net zoals de plaatsen waar de andere drie zijn afgegaan. Het feit dat het s’-nachts gebeurd, en op plaatsten waar niet zo heel veel mensen wonen – voornamelijk winkelcentra - geeft aan dat ze (wie ‘ze’ dan ook mogen zijn, alhoewel iedereen hier van mening is dat het hun eigen mensen zijn, in opdracht van de Syiers) het niet al te ernstig willen maken. Enkel de christenen bang maken, en ze laten zien dat als de Syriers weggaan, niemand ze meer kan beschermen.
Daar tuint niemand meer in. Maar een logisch gevolg is natuurlijk dat als niemand in deze explosies trapt, de volgende stap grotere explosies is. Meer TNT, op klaarlicht daglicht, en op plekken waar wel een heleboel mensen bijeen komen. En dan komt ook West-Beiroet aan de beurt.
Het zal er toch van komen, en iedereen is zich dat bewust; dat het erger wordt voordat er verbetering in de situatie komt. 31 mei moeten de parlementsverkiezingen plaatsvinden. Tot die tijd zal het nog doorgaan.

Sommige mensen gaan nergens meer naar toe, bang dat ze net daar zullen zijn waar er iets ontploft. Ik trek me er weinig van aan. Ik heb ook nooit iets gewonnen met die lotto kaartjes die je hier op straat kunt kopen. ‘Kahmsin miljon, khamsin miljon’ roepen de oude mannetjes (50 miljoen, ongeveer $33,000).

I T ‘ S R A I N I N G (B O M B S)
It’s raining today, probably the last rains before the summer. Once summer starts, no more rain until at least October.

Another bomb last night, the fourth one in two weeks. This time in Broummana, a town outside Beirut, up on the flanks of the mountains. All Christian, just like the other places where they planted bombs, at night and in non-residential areas (or at least light-residential), shopping centers and the likes. It seems they (whoever ‘they’ may be although the general belief here is that their own security people are doing this on orders of the Syrians) try to limit the casualties. Just to frighten the Christians, and to show them that once the Syrians are gone, there’s no one left to protect them. Nobody buys that. But the consequence is that if nobody goes for this theory, the next step is bigger bombs, in broad daylight, in areas where there are a lot of people. And West-Beirut will be next.
Everyone is aware of that; it’s going to get a lot worse before it is going to get better. It will go on till at least the parliamentary elections, which are to take place on May the 31st.

Some people are staying at home, out of fear that they may end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t worry about it too much. I never won anything in the lottery either that the little old men sell out here on the streets. ‘Khamsin miljon, khamsin miljon’ they call out. (50 million is about $33,000).

Cerile, Obi, Hana (in the back) and Adrian

during the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

Babbel Bloggen en Bouli-Bouf-Tous

B A B B E L B L O G G E N
Vandaag in het Nederlands. Met de huidige situatie in Libanon, en vooral in Beiroet, is het geruchtencircuit hier op volle toeren. Nou is Beiroet altijd erg goed als het gaat om geruchten, roddel en achterklap. De meest intigerende verhalen doen hier de ronde; sommigen zo bizar dat je aan het verstand twijfelt van diegene die ze heeft verzonnen. Of die ze doorvertelt. 'A cosmopolitan city with a village mentality. '

Met de komst van de mobiele telefoon is dat circuit aanzienlijk versneld. Libanezen zijn enorme babbelaars. Ze kleppen de hele dag door met iedereen. Ik ken dat van Walid. Die hangt gerust een uur met zijn moeder aan de telefoon en klets over de politieke situatie van de dag. Als over een twintigtal jaren het aantal Alzheimer’s gevallen zich hier verdubbelt, weten dat het waar is; mobiele telefoons werken als magnetron ovens. Je hersens worden langzaam klaar gestooft.

En nu iedereen hier weet hoe het internet werkt is er een nieuwe dimensie bijgekomen; bloggen. Men kan nu keuvelen dat iedereen kan meelezen! Zelfs mensen die je niet kent. En waar babbelt men hier zo graag over? (Zou babbelen komen van het woord Babel? Dat had ook iets met communiceren te maken)De politiek. Nou zit die de laatste tijd ook wel in een stroom versnelling. Libanezen zijn allemaal politieke analisten. In tegenstelling tot Nederland is hier iedereen op de hoogte van de politiek. Wat er ook gebeurd, het wordt tot in de details geanalyseerd. En die analyses worden gepubliceerd in die babbelbloggen. Sommigen zijn heel goed.V

oor het geval je geinteresseerd ben in de Libanese politiek (en die van het M.O.); hier zijn een paar goede:

http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com (excellent)

http://beirutspring.blogspot.com/

http://www.blissstreetjournal.com/

http://lebop.blogspot.com/

http://lebaneseblogger.blogspot.com/

Zoals je ziet, iedereen aan het bloggen. Sietske ook. Overigens bevind ik mij in goed gezelschap. Ga maar eens naar http://billclintondailydiary.blogspot.com/

B O U L I B O U F T O U S

We hebben hier een neefje, Obi, en die heeft maar een ding in zijn hoofd; eten. Waar hij ook komt, de eerste vraag is: Wat is er te eten. Nou zit hij nog in de groei, dus hij is nog niet dik, maar we houden ons hart vast. Als dat zo doorgaat, wordt hij moddervet. Hij eet alsof zijn leven ervan afhangt. Het neefje wordt dan ook door de familie ‘boulibouftous’ genoemd. Bouli van de boulemie, en bouftous komt van ‘bouffer tous’ , i.e. alles eten in het frans. Het neefje is frans-talig.

Hana wordt inmiddels ook boulibouftous genoemd, maar dan met een andere spelling; boulibouftwo (nummer 2), of boulibouftoo (ook), hoe je het ook wilt interpreteren.

Gisteren wilde ze aan appel. Althans, ze komt met een appel aandragen, zegt “appel “, en wijst naar haar mond. Ik schil de appel, snij hem in partjes, en geef haar het bordje. Vijf minuten later komt ze weer met een appel. Ik op zoek naar het bordje, want ik denk dat ze die appelschrijfjes ergens in heeft gestopt of heeft laten vallen. Maar nee, ze had hem keurig opgegeten. Omdat ze al een appel op had, dacht ik, kom, ik geef nu eens een peer. Dus ik schil een peer, snij hem in partjes. Zij staat geintersseerd te kijken hoe ik dat doe. Als ik haar het bordje weer aangeef, zegt ze. “No, appel.” En ik krijg het bordje weer terug.

Vannochtend vraag ik of ze wil eten. Nee. Geen cornflakes? Nee. Geen boterham? Nee. Geen pannekoeken (zeer Amerikaans, ja, ik weet het). Nee. Nou, dan niet. Twee minuten later komt ze met de taartdoos binnen. “Juju” (juju is taart. Dat komt van het “Happy Birthday to You.”) Walid kan geen nee tegen haar zeggen, die zit nu al onder de duim. Hoe gaan we die die tante slank houden zonder d’r anorexia aan te praten?

Blogging and Boulibouftous (In English)

B L O G G I N G
With the current situation in the country (Lebanon), the circuit of rumors is going at full speed. Now for those living in Beirut, or who’ve lived here, they know that the Lebanese are good at this. The spreading of stories. Some may be true, but sometimes you hear stuff that is so outrageously strange, you just wonder whether the one who invented this is quite alright. A cosmopolitan city with a village mentality.

When mobile phones were introduced to the Lebanese, this circuit doubled itself in growth and in speed. Lebanese talk all day long! I know this from Walid. He’ll talk to his Mom for over an hour about the political situation of that day. If, in twenty years or so, the number of Alzheimer cases in this country doubles, we know it is true: Mobile phones fry your brains.
And now that everyone has figured out how the internet works, they have added a new dimension; blogging. Now you van talk, and just about everyone in the world can read you! And what do they talk about? Politics, what else. No people in the world that seem to be more interested – and aware – in what is going on behind the walls of the political institutions. What is decided officially, and un-officially. Now I agree that the situation here has been quite interesting lately, and since every Lebanese is a political analyst, a lot of them have started blogging about the political situation. How to interpret this politician’s handshake with that politician. Why is Hassan Nasrallah (Hezbollah) saying what he is saying? Why are they bombing the Christian areas?

Whatever happens, it is being analyzed into the smallest details. Some of these blogs are actually quite interesting. If you’re interested in the Lebanese politics, (and that of the ME), here are a few good ones:
http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com (excellent)
http://beirutspring.blogspot.com/
http://www.blissstreetjournal.com/
http://lebop.blogspot.com/
http://lebaneseblogger.blogspot.com/

As you can see, everyone is blogging, even Sietske. And I am in good company. Check this one out: http://billclintondailydiary.blogspot.com. (I am still not sure whether this one is for real or just a hoax. Can’t be a hoax, though. I doubt the real Bill Clinton would allow that).

B O U L I B O U F T O U S
I’ve got a little nephew here; Obi, and he’s got one thing on his mind. Food. Now he is still in his growth years, so he’s quite all right, but he eats as if his life depends upon it. We call him now and then ‘boulibouftous’. Bouli comes from bulimia, en bouftous comes from French, meaning ‘eating everything’ (bouffer tous’). The little cousin speaks French.
Now Hana a well-earned eating reputation. She is therefore called boulibouftous but with a different spelling; boulibouftwo (# 2), of boulibouftoo (as in also).

Yesterday she wanted an apple. So I peel an apple, cuts it into little parts, put it on a plate and give her the plate. Five minutes later, she comes with another apple. I figure she lost the first one, or dropped it somewhere, so I look around, but no, it seems she ate the whole plate of apple. Because she already had one apple, I figure I give her a pear. So I get a pear, peel it, cut it into little parts and give it to her. No mind you, she’s been watching me doing this. When I hand her the plate, she says: “No. Apple.” And she hands me the plate back. Reminds me of parking in Lebanon. They watch you park, forward, backward, forward again, backward again. You are finally parked. Get out of the car, lock the door, and then they come to you; “You cannot park here.”

And this morning she didn’t want breakfast. No cornflakes. No sandwich. No pancakes. Five minutes later I see her carrying the box with chocolate cake to her father. She knows he won’t say no. How will I keep this girl slender without turning her in an anorexic?