Street Scenes in the Southern Suburbs

I was in Ouzai today; had to pick up a bed. Had my camera with me, and had some fun.
Here's the coffee guy, selling Turkish coffee per cup.

It must be banana season; 1,000 pounds per kilo (about 50 euro cents)

Goldfish for sale.

These guys are hauling around sardines, or something. Fish for sale.

Here we have the scrap metal dealer. Want to get rid of your junk? (Because I cannot imagine anyone buying from this guy. What's there to buy?)

He sells it all. Little mirrors, brushes, beads and combs. Sponges I am sure. Ostrich feathered plumeaus and the like. There's a lot of dust in Beirut, we got to do lots of dusting. Reminds me a little of those expeditions to the African tribes a long time ago, and the missionaries would bring beads and mirrors.

Here's the Sokleen guy, the street sweepers; you see them all over town.

Now what else could you want after attending a school like this? Opulent riches maybe.

This place sells second-hand sanitary stuff; toilets, bidets, sinks and the likes. I remember one time I was looking for a toilet (mine had cracked) in a sort of aqua-green color. The dealer called it 'Fairuze', and said that that color was no longer for sale on the market, but mentioned that I might find it in Ouzai. So I went with a friend of mine. Rows upon rows of Fairuze green -used - toilets. Why don't you try them out' the dealer said. So there we sat, next to the road, trying out toilets. Unfortunately, they all displayed the same crack as the one I had at home.

This guys sells bras stuff. I think. Looks a little shabby.

Planes fly over (this is right next to the airport)

I have a love affair with the southern suburbs. Not many people here (in Lebanon, that is) will share my view. The suburbs are crowded, depilated, in general poor, although there are relatively affluent areas as well, infrastructure is horrendous (is there one?), sewer system does not work adequately, I believe the Lebanese government does not collect the electricity bills from the southern suburbs either (I have been told this, haven’t verified that), and there are a million and one other things that just don’t work there. You can get horrible lost in there. I remember last year, when I went to visit a friend how lives in Hadeth (sub division of Dahiya) but somehow I ended up in Hay es-Seloum, one of the poorest parts of the suburbs. These are all one-way alleys, with cars driving both ways, half of the times, you can touch the walls of the houses, I couldn’t turn around even if I had wanted to, got terribly stuck, and saw wondrous things.

The suburbs of course were not always there. These used to be sleepy villages, mixed Christian and Muslim, on the outskirts of town.
However, an Israeli invasion, fighting between different factions, on top of a poor economical development of the Southern region of Lebanon overall created a rather gigantic influx of Shiite Muslims to Beirut, who for the most part decided to settle in the southern outskirts of the nation’s capital, hence the name Dahiya, meaning ‘southern suburbs’.
My professor at Journalism School – when I told him I was going on assignment to Beirut – made sure that I understood not to go to the Southern suburbs ever. This was in a time when Hezbollah was still in the business of hostage taking. “When you get out of the airport, go straight to Beirut, DO NOT go to the right,” he said. Which is where the Southern suburbs are situated; on the right side of the airport. So where did the guy who picked me up from the airport take me? To the right. Pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini were flashing by during my first ten minutes in Lebanon. “I might have been kidnapped, and wouldn’t even know it,” I remember thinking.
However, the experience, two weeks with the Slim family in Bourj Barajneh, a sub division of the Southern Suburbs, turned me into a convert. I love the Southern suburbs.
I enjoy the chaos, the messy roads, the dust and the pandemonium. It’s the real Middle East for me. Great shopping too. You’ve got to rummage, and you’ve got to love rummaging, you have to love going local, but if you do, this is one hell of a part of town. I spent a good two hours there this afternoon, and took some shots.

I was there, because I had to pick up a bed. In Ouzai. Ouzai is locally known as part of the Dahiya, or ‘Southern suburbs.’ Ouzai is famous for cheap furniture; beds, closets, dining rooms and the likes. Hubbie has had this bed for 18 years, and I inherited it when I married him. It was a fine bed. My son used to use it as a ‘WWF Wrestling Ring’ with his friends ‘cause it bounced so well. So of course, one day, he comes to tell me that ‘something popped off the bed’. I checked it out, and it turns out that one of the four wheels had indeed ‘popped off’. It didn’t bother me much, it was not on my side anyway, but hubbie has been complaining ever since about sleeping lob-sided. Yesterday night was the proverbial straw; he did not sleep well, and when he got out of bed this morning, he announced, that since I had an interview at 3:30, and wasn’t going skiing, I should go out and buy a bed.
As I am Dutch, and therefore notoriously cheap, and decided to buy the cheapest bed possible. Ouzai is the perfect place for that. So out I went, and found a fantastic bed for $200. The showroom model was in the store, the actual bed had to be brought in from the warehouse in another part of Ouzai. So I sat in front of the store, in the middle of a plethora of garden furniture, and looked around. I must have sat there for an hour, but it was great fun. The world passed by.