On skiing, Qanat Bakish and the Burning of Embassies

Well, while I was out skiing, some thugs went on a rampage through the mainly Christian neighborhood, smashing car windows and throwing in shop windows, and a nearby church. And when done with that they burnt the Danish embassy. It seems however that almost everyone is into bulletproof windows these days. The Beirut fire department lost a couple of its engines, and the army and civil defense a few of their vehicles. Everyone is blaming the Syrians, but I think the Lebanese should look among it’s own people as well. I like the post of this guy; he's going to bathe in Lurpak tonight! All the bloggers I read seem to be pretty much disgusted by this whole affair.

Fundamentalism is up and coming. I had a long discussion about this with a friend yesterday. We were trying to figure out what this whole cartoon problem was about. West versus East? Islam versus the West? The haves versus the have-nots” The ignorant versus the educated? Clash of the cultures? It’s a bit of everything, we thought, but couldn’t quite put our finger on it.

And just as I placed this post of how very pleasant it is to live in Beirut, I have to add to that that there are two Lebanons; the one in which I live, and where life is all fine and dandy, and tolerant, and the Lebanon of the camps, where families live on $300 a month, where kids cannot go to school, are not fed and clothed adequately and the sick are not cared for properly. We do not see those people, because we don’t live in the same neighborhood, our kids do not go to the same schools, we do not meet at the beach because they cannot afford the 10,000 and above entrance fee (and probably don’t think it a proper pastime anyway), we don’t meet at the sports club where our kids spend their weekends, or the ski-slopes. We don’t shop in the same supermarkets. We basically do not meet one another at all, unless you go down to areas like Hay-esSilloum (in the southern suburbs) or Bourj-Barajneh (Palestinian camp in the suburbs). They do not come in my neighborhood, I don’t go down to theirs. I have no idea who they are and how they live.

Well, I do a little, but that’s because I am a journalist and have spend time their with people. But other than that, I wouldn’t go there. They are probably dazzled about all the riches we have, driving our SUV’s and 4x4 through town with a driver, having the maid carrying the groceries from Spinneys, where we spent in one session what they have to live on an entire month. The gap between rich and poor is simply too big in this place.

What am I doing anything about it? Nothing. I went skiing today. Fed up with traffic jams in Feraya, I decided to explore another ski resort today; ‘Qanat bakish'.

On the road to Qanat Bakish

A little stream right next to Qanat bakish

Look what the web site said about it: "Its ski resort is well known for the quality of its snow and it is visited by skiers of all levels who enjoy the non-crowded slopes as it is the case with most of the other resorts. The first ski lift was built in 1967, and since then the resort has been developing to host more skiers, specially with the opening of a new road between Faqra resort and Qanat Bakish.”
Aha, that’s interesting. Three lifts, all open . So there we went, It’s a bit off the beaten track, so it took us some time to find it. Finally we arrived. We saw a bus in front of a hotel, on a very narrow road in the middle of nowhere. Some skiers, a baby-lift. People hauling ski equipment. We didn’t really see a hill, nor any other lifts, but then again, maybe it was a bit further. So we drove further. Well, that was it, that was the fantastic ski resort of Qanat bakish; one shitty pull line. No lifts, no hill, no nothing.
Disillusioned, and still in a daze, we drove on, until we reached a sign saying “Welcome to Faqra club. Which is the ski resort next to Feraya. Guess where we ended up skiing. Again.
It was a very nice ride though, well worth the time. It’s similar to the Cedars. As you climb up the mountains you pass all these tiny villages, strung like pearls on a string, often still very traditional, with stone houses and wooden shutters.

I just received a warning from the Dutch embassy. They’re not yet asking us to leave though, and I guess nobody would anyway. But they want us to be at our guard. That’s a bit of a joke. I remember a couple of years ago, during some Israeli action, or maybe it was the second Gulf War, when they send us a list of things to have ready in case of an evacuation. It was very obvious that some nut in The Hague had taken a long time to ponder over that list. We (Dutch community) had a great laugh over that one. It asked for things like ‘5 liters of gas’, in case you need to drive out of town and you don’t have gas. Oh yea, they also advised us to have our car reservoir filled up at all times. Just in case. Candles were another item, batteries, portable radio, loaf of bread, money in small nominations and all kinds of other useless stuff, penned down by some idiot who wouldn’t know how to evacuate if his life depended on it.