On Oma’s, Grandmothers and Tetas

A conversation with H. in the car this morning.
She is celebrating her fifth birthday today, and is all excited about being 5. But somehow the conversations shifts to grandmothers.

H. has a grandmother. She also has an oma in Holland. She does not have a teta. Hamoudi, the boy from downstairs, has a teta, with one eye, no less, she says, but he has no grandmother. She’s not quite sure if he has an oma. “I don’t think so.” Her friend Reem in school does have a grandmother and a teta, because Reem has told her so.

H. (on the left) and her friend Parel after a day in the woods.

Her friend in Holland has no teta, but she does have a grandmother, who – quite miraculously – is also called oma. That is odd. When we were at the airport last year, she met a lady who also had a grandmother that was named ‘oma’. “How come all people call their grandmothers oma in Holland?” she wonders.

She is pretty sure that oma’s, grandmothers and tetas are not the same thing. “Tetas are all squished up with one eye, like a witch,” according to H. I think she’s got Hamoudi’s teta in mind. Grandmothers are, well, like grandmothers. “They make chocolate cake.”

And oma’s? She sighs. That is a deep question. “Oma’s, they’re like grandmothers, but different,” she philosophizes, “They don’t speak English.” And tetas know how to speak Arabic. But some tetas speak French.

Life is good when you just got 5 and you have grandmothers and oma’s and tetas.

Romance is in the Air

I lifted this picture from this blog, and he got it from here. This is the situation we are in now. And to quote a fellow Dutch blogger in this mysterious country; ‘it would be funny if it weren’t so damn sad.’
Which gets me to the following topic (I hope she doesn’t mind me publicizing it but it’s sooooooo romantic); Romance is definitely in the air. This same fellow Dutch blogger in Lebanon got blog-proposed by a Lebanese blogger living in Holland (no, they do actually know each other quite well) . I don’t think it gets any better than that. Which just shows you; Make Love, Not War.

Lebanon in Fall

Lebanon in fall (at an undisclosed location)

So here we are, leaderless, and none the worse for it, I might add. Let's see how long we we'll be able to keep it up. I suggest we try some time without a government as well. And a parliament. I suspect it is the politicians creating our political problems, and therefore no politicians should result in no problems. You may disagree with my prediction, but at least I predict something. Better than this guy; 'Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir said Sunday that conditions in Lebanon could lead to stability or fighting.' No, really. Stability or fighting, huh?

The weather agrees with us. It was fantastic fall weather this weekend; nippy (as a British colleague of mine would describe it), brisk, sunny, blue skies, and wonderful light. The colors are beautiful at this time of year in Lebanon, definitely the best season (although spring’s pretty good too. And summer. And winter, of course)

Lebanon in fall (at an undisclosed location)

And so I went off into the mountains, but somehow ended up in a valley. You cannot buy a good road map in Lebanon, as only the main roads feature on most, and most of those maps are outdated anyway. But who wants main roads? It’s the back roads and alley ways that are interesting in this place. There’s a new site that apparently helps you organize your road trip through Lebanon, but I was not impressed by it, as it didn’t help me much.

I basically need military maps, but I have the feeling that this request would not go down very well at the Ministry of Tourism, or Information. In France you can buy those so-called ‘blue’ maps that show every little trail, some only as wide as one person and you can really get off the beaten track with those (ask my brother, even the GPS loses him).

Lebanon in fall (at an undisclosed location)

But in Lebanon there are no military maps available to civilians, and so we just follow little trails until they narrow down and than narrow down some more until in the end you can no longer turn around and get stuck at an obscure little shack – smoke coming out of a chimney pipe and mud up to your elbows - where the kids don’t speak Lebanese (or heavily accented), the men wear their woolen sweaters tucked into their pants, the women invite you for coffee and the goats nibble at you sweater.

Lebanon in fall (at an undisclosed location)

And all this less than 35 kilometers from Beirut. To all of you guys living in Beirut and surroundings; you should go out and explore this country. I will not divulge you the location of this place is, as I intend to explore it further on my own and do not desire to see the plastic plates piling up in the bushes.

How About Me for President?

I finally got that presidential election story off my chest and into the paper, and as far as I am concerned, a therapeutic one that was. It’s out of my system now (I’ve been choking on that one ever since September), and so are the presidential elections.

I’m going for a couple of days to the mountains, as I’ve just about had it with presidential pooha. Personally, I think you guys should all vote for me for president. I’m almost maronite (Roman catholic comes pretty close, no?). I promise I’ll go to church every Sunday if I get elected, if that makes you happy. Or not, if that makes you happier. They’re all looking for a neutral person. I’m neutral.

What do you think? Sietske in Beirut for president?

Presidential Elections & Going Solo

A chair in Hamra; So who's going to be the new man in the chair tomorrow? (nobody even talks about a woman here)

The elections are such a mess, you don’t even want to hear about that. I think that by tomorrow - after a fifth postponement (From delay comes cancellation, say the Dutch – ‘van uitstel komt afstel’) of presidential elections - we’ll be the only nation in the world to have no head of state.

Personally I don’t think this would be a great loss; it would make the current government illegal, and thus we are a country run illegally. This would suit the Lebanese spirit just fine. You may argue over the ‘run’ fact’. I don’t think Lebanese are easily ‘run’. We thrive on ‘lack of rules’ and so no president won’t be that big of a deal. We (the Lebanese) will just keep the show running, president or no president, government or no government. We probably do better without. Let’s see.

What was a big deal today, is that my son went solo today in the Lebanese ‘service’ system. Well, it was a big thing for me. He’s only 13 (not yet), and he’s getting more independent, so he’s got to learn to get around town on his own.

A ‘service’ is a shared taxi. You basically find a cab with other passengers that happens to go in the direction of your destination. It’s probably one of the quickest and most ecological efficient public transport systems in the world. You never have to wait, you do not need to memorize the duty schedule, you don’t have to worry you’ll miss the bus, and it’s absolutely cheap (well, for some). 1,000 for a ride. Sometimes a destination may be further, and you’ll need to pay for two rides, or hop into another ‘service.’

This is all I get to see of him these days.

Anyway, A’s always been the passenger in my car, but I’m pretty much done chauffeuring him around town, especially since his social life is about a 100 times more active than mine.
But I don’t think he knows the lay-out of the town, and as a mother, you see wolves lurking behind every lamppost. So off he went, from Hamra to Sodeco, with his cell phone. Strict instructions from Mom obliged him to phone once he got into the service, then call me to pass the license number, another call when he’d get out, and another call once he arrived at his destination. Hey, I’m paying for the phone card as well, so what if he’s got to call 55 times to his mommy to make sure he didn’t get kidnapped? No matter that kids do not get kidnapped in this place. Still.
He arrived. He thought it was no big deal. I think it was the biggest deal in the world. Screw the presidential elections; my son took his first service ride solo!

Mom & her body guards

Beirut Marathon 2007

Today was the annual Beirut Marathon. It was quite uneventful, but these days, we actually like uneventful. We love uneventful. The only downside of ‘uneventful’ is that the longer nothing happens, the closer we are to somebody being blown up or something.
The pink bride was there again, and my dad (92) met his Lebanese counterpart, an 84 year old man who was also walking the 10K, and at the finish line they gave us medals dating from the marathon of 2006. Now how’s that for getting screwed?

I think we improved our time with 5 minutes (2:27). As I said; uneventful.

Too Slow

I think it was going to slow for him, so he decided to take charge and push the chair himself. He wasn't going too fast though.

The Insolent Dogs

My Mom is in town. As she walks through the house, she looks at a couple of framed notes in Arabic that are hanging on the wall.
“What are those?” she asks.
“Eviction notes.”
“What do you mean, eviction notes?”
“Well, when the Israelis want to bomb us, they drop flyers first, to give us time to get out of the neighborhood. We’ve collected them and framed some of the nicest.”

She looks at me in disbelief.
“No! You’re kidding!”
No, we’re not kidding. We’ve got some really old ones, dating from 1982, but the latest ones are from the 2006 summer war.

Well, have I ever, what impertinence!” she says. “The insolent dogs (In Dutch ‘brutale honden’).”
This is as hard an insult as you will ever get out of my mom.

My husband thinks this is very funny.
“Look at your mom. She is upset with the Israelis.”

And although the economy, and everyone I know, is in a depression, the construction industry continues booming. Can someone explain me the mechanism of this?

A nice quote I lifted off this blog: ‘If you are not confused by Lebanese politics, then the subject has not been explained to you properly.’

November

It’s that time of the month; presidential elections. And they got postponed again. Didn’t I tell ya? I don’t think anyone believes there actually will be elections anymore. My guess is that the 40-something anti-Syrian parliament members that are holed up inside the Phoenicia Hotel for safety reasons, won’t believe it either, so next time they announce the presidential elections, no one will show up because they all assumed it would be cancelled anyway. It fits with the mood of the month; November. It isn’t fall, and it is not winter. I wanted to go out for a walk with the dog, and work got me to Sbaniyeh (home of a former president; Sarkis), so I took a walk there.

The dog (almost 14 now) lost his hearing some time ago. I used to be able to have him follow by whisteling, but that does not do the trick anymore. He relied on eyesight than, but I've noticed he's slowly going blind. He's developed cataracts in his eyes, and only sees during broad day light. So he constantly loses you, bumps into fences and bushes, or walks the other way.

We got caught in the mist, and lost the way. But the weather was nice; November nice. Reminded me of home.

Halloween Beirut Style

I know Halloween is long gone, but look what I saw today. Talking about cultural fusion! The Lebanese understand the concept of Halloween; scary costumes, and so they developed their own line of horrific creatures. No Freddy Kruger or Scream for us. Just get a line up of politicians, and that should frighten the wits out of you.
Scary Halloween Masks, Beirut style: Osama Bin Laden (Not-Lebanese, I might add) - Rafic Hariri - ? (fill me in) - Saddam Hussein (or is it is Minister of Information?) – George Bush (?) – Samir Geagea – Walid Joumblatt – Saad Hariri – Nabih Berri.

In case you’re fed up by all this presidential stuff, join the club. Nicolien saw this note: “Jaajaa is out,
Aoun is back,
Sanioura has become greedy,
Lahoud is staying,
I am leaving,
and the car is for sale.”

Hanging Out

Some men hanging out in their local haunt (a Lebanese tea house somewhere up north), watching the women walk by.

So are we having presidential elections on Monday or not? Did we agree on a candidate yet? (Read; Have we yet found the most nondescript, colorless, nonaffiliated person in the history of Lebanon?) We still have until November 23. I suggest we postpone. Why not postpone? Keeps tradition going.

Strive In Order to Thrive

This post has nothing to do with ‘life in Beirut’. Still, I thought it was interesting to share. Sometimes you notice something that you hadn’t noticed before, even though you passed by it almost daily, and suddenly you see it everywhere.

I saw these four trees all in a time span of 3 days. They are the epitome of the Lebanese spirit.

Despite all difficulties, and all obstacles, and all things going wrong, they have no intention of giving up. Survive they will, and survive they shall and survive they must. Just like these poor trees. Maybe this is how they thrive best.

On a side note: Once, when speaking with an Israeli this summer (In Europe, you can relax now), he mentioned that the fact the entire Arab world was after them, was actually the sole reason why the state of Israel still existed. “Jews hate each other, and when you leave them in peace, eventually they will go for each other’s throat. The Ashkenazi (European jews) hate the Sephardic (jews with Arab roots), the Iraqi jews hate the Iranian jews, the jews from Riga distrust the jews from Odessa, and on you go. It is just that the Arabs keep us too busy for that. But the moment you give us peace, I assure you, within a couple of years most jews will have left Israel because of internal fighting.”
He was, of course, highly exaggerating. Still, strive seems to run in the semitic blood. They need it in order to thrive.

Garbage, Global Warming & 1000th Day

The Teller on 999
On several places in Beirut, large billboards are reminding us of the number of days that have passed since Hariri’s murder. Every day the teller adds a day. And as you can see, it’s been a while. We're on 994 now.

When I stand in front of the traffic light, facing this particular billboard, the same thoughts always come up.

For one thing, I realize that this is probably the ONLY traffic light in Beirut that is actually functioning, and functioning without a police officer standing on the intersection (some of the time, that is).
I’m also reminded of the number of my blogging days: it’s billboard minus 1.
And then I am reminded of the fact that it’s been 'caza' days since I was standing on the roof when this massive explosion took place, and that I first thought that it was this yellow helium balloon in downtown that had exploded. I remember where I was on 9-11 (in the Hezbollah car wash, no kidding), and I remember where I was on the day of Hariri’s murder.
I remember the mood on that day, and the days after. The mood was upbeat in those days. We were outraged, and insulted, but upbeat. That mood has been replaced by one of complacent apathy.

And everyone standing in front of this board must have been wondering about this one; what will happen on the 999th days of Hariri’s murder? Will the teller jump back to zero? We’re getting pretty close now – only 6 more days to do.

But today I noticed that they solved that problem. They just added a little box on the left that will mark 1 on November 10. I checked my files to make sure. And yes, they added that little box only recently. It wasn't there on day 986 (Okay, you've got to look real hard for this one, but it's there). So now you can stop wondering about that one.

On Garbage & Global Climate
The garbage collector in the picture, by the way, is another poignant reminder (besides the barbed wire, which is a pretty sad one, too) ; A reminder of the fact that we do not like to pick up after ourselves. Although the unemployment rate is massive in this place, we’ve got to import our garbage collectors from India, Bangladesh and the likes, ‘cause Lebanese won’t do it.

I was out picnicking somewhere in the mountains today, alongside a river, with a Dutch person, and she was absolutely appalled by the garbage left behind by former picnickers. It is as if people – after lunch – get up and go, leaving practically everything behind them. Bottles, plastic cutlery, plates, cups, cans, Kleenex, plastic bags, aluminum foil, you name it. Her comment was; “no wonder they’re in this shit. People that treat their own country like this, don’t deserve any better.” A bit harsh, admitted, but there’s some truth in it.

This guy must have been flicking the middle finger to the wrong person.

And while I drove home, I came upon this initiative to remind us what will happen if we do not do something about pollution, and the global warming that follows it; the sea level will rise all the way up to Hamra. ‘Draw the Line, December 09, 2007’ it reads. What happens on that day can be read here. You can sign their petition here.

Now on one hand, that’s definitely something we need to do something about.

On the other hand, it would mean that my house will become beach front property, and its value will increase 10-fold. And that, I might add, would mean I can retire right now. Which just proves that every cloud has a silver lining.