'Fad-dal'

Summer is now definitely on the way. It’s good to know that some things still move, because politics has come to a grinding halt. There is absolutely no movement detectable between the two sides; they have dug in so deep we can no longer see them. The term ‘stand-off’ is appropriate. ‘Siege’ might be even a better word. In the Crusader days, some sieges lasted for months. Or even years. King Guy of Jerusalem laid siege to Acre for three years, until they capitulated in 1191.
We’ve been going on since December; that’s a good 5 months now, so we still got ways to go. And so it is good to know that, even though everything else has come to a stand-still, summer is moving along.

Today's was a fund-raising BBQ; shish-kebab, kafta and lahme mishwe by the meter.

Summer is prime-time for weekend-barbeques, big lunches, and gatherings with friends and families around tables laden with food. If you accept all invitations, you’re booked solid every Saturday and Sunday all the way until the end of September. Lebanese love to wine and dine, but what they like even better is to invite their friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, family of friends who happen to be in town, foreigners they met on the street last week and their friends, coworkers, people they happened to run into that week, and whoever happens to drop in, to join them at the lunch table. Nothing is as good as throwing a party.

In summer the focus is usually the lunch table, in winter time these gatherings seem more centered around on dinner time. And Lebanese dinner time is not the Dutch 6 o’clock sharp thing. Guests might show up at 8. Those are the early birds. More likely that by 9 it gets a little crowded, and by 10 you’re company is complete. By the time dinner is on the table, you are looking at 10:30, 11 o’clock, and you are not home before 1:30, 2 o’clock.

I remember one time, many years ago, In Holland, when I happened to be with my brother in the car, and he mentioned that he was invited for dinner at a colleague’s house. “Come along,” and so I did. I will never forget the face of the man’s wife as she opened the door, and said, “Oh dear, now I have to go buy an extra chicken schnitzel, and the shops are closed. Now what?” She actually said that.

This would be inconceivable for Lebanese. There is always enough food. You prepare more than you are actually going to eat. What is someone drops by? You don’t even ask if he joins in for dinner, you automatically assume he will, and will get really upset if, just before dinner time, he’s about to take off. (Another reason why we should send some Dutch over for some lessons in life) Today's was a fund-raising BBQ; a real lemonade stand.

I hear from foreigners that are send to Lebanon by their company, and live here for two or three years, that they are absolutely stunned by the demands of their social night life. In the beginning they are simply amazed by all this friendliness, and they happily accept each and every invitation. But pretty soon they get to understand that you cannot get up and go to work at 8:00 in the morning if you barely made it to your bed the night before at 3 o’clock after a marathon session of food intake. An Italian friend of ours mentioned that doing the dinner circuit was almost a more demanding job than his regular day job. Not to mention the access weight he acquired along the way.
In the end he had to narrow it down to three invitations a week only, and no more alcohol.

You may think that this is only an issue with the more affluent crowd in Beirut, but that is not the case. I’ve joined in more lunches than I can count down south, while on assignment for the newspaper. Every time you walk through a village, looking for cluster bombs, uprooted poppy harvests, confiscated dope and the likes, there is the smell of chicken, while someone is fanning – in a vast cloud of smoke - the barbeque with a little piece of cardboard. And the first things they say when they see you is “Fad-dal”. I’m not sure what the exact meaning of the word is, but they say ‘please, you are welcome, you must come in and sit down, and join us’. And it is not just being polite. They mean it.

And cotton-candy for the kids

And that is what summer is about in this place; weekend-barbeques, big lunches, and gatherings with friends and families around tables laden with food. Last summer the Israelis screwed us royally out of our summer. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the coming one.