March 15, 2007

Rain in the Middle East

Looks like we’re having rain tonight. The showers are hanging on the horizon, waiting to move in at night fall. Last night we had some fantastic showers. Hubbie once wanted to buy something on Ebay, but the owner, a guy in the States, mailed him back, and said: “I’m not selling to you guys, go ride your camel in the desert.” He thought it was funny, the ignorance of people, thinking we have camels and deserts in Lebanon. I’ve seen several blogs in the region reporting on that ignorance lately.
Here’s one from a Syrian man doing his intern ship in the US.

An excerpt from a conversation I had at the US hospital where I am training with a cardiologist who knew nothing about me but my name, Mohammad Ayman, as it appears on my lab coat:
M. A: It's amazing how many cocaine-induced heart attacks we've seen lately
Dr. R: You don't see much back home?
M. A: No. Cocaine abuse is uncommon there.
Dr. R: I bet it's because you behead everybody who uses it.
M. A: Well we have capital punishment for dealers, but it's not beheading.
Dr. R: Yeah you execute drug dealers, but export drugs to countries where infidels live, like the US.
M. A: ...
Dr. R: Am I right?
M. A: No, you are absolutely wrong.
Dr. R: Well this happens in Afghanistan.
M. A: Well I am not from Afghanistan.
Dr. R: But you are from a Muslim country, right?
M. A: Yes and it's very different from Afghanistan.
Dr. R: Where are you from?


So no, we do not live in the desert, no camels around either, and we have rain. Lots of it. Check out this short clip of an early morning shower in Beirut I shot a couple of weeks ago. The rain was literally ‘coming down in sheets’.

3 comments:

Leila Abu-Saba said...

I used to hate the camels remarks, too. I only saw a camel once the whole time I lived in Lebanon as a child. BUT, my father told me right before he died last year that our family homestead was on a piece of land commonly referred to in our village as Place of the Camels.

Why? I asked. "Oh, I guess somebody used to keep camels there..." Dad said. Mysterious.

But no, no camels in my lifetime, and I'm 44. The last donkey was sold out of the family 35 years ago; it has been nothing but automobiles since then.

Anonymous said...

So, no camels then. But the donkeys is true, you do have donkeys in Lebanon, right?

desmond said...

Anonymous,

Yes, but no more than anywhere else!