“T’is the Season to Be Jolly’, but not over here. The kids are home. No school today. I don’t even know why. Maybe there are elections today? A day of mourning for the general that got blown up earlier this weekend? A parliamentary session? Security issues? Who knows.
It’s dog weather and it is raining. I ask the lady from downstairs why the school is closed. She’s got a child. “Who cares?” is her reply. And that’s the shape we are in. We don’t care.
Schools close, people get blown up, we still don’t have a president and won’t have one before the end of the year and we haven’t had a normal country since the summer of 2006. Or spring of 2005. How much more pathetic can we get? But we don’t care.
We’re in bad shape, here in Lebanon. Yesterday in the evening, I was walking in Hamra with H., picking up some Christmas present for her teachers. For some reason she got into the issue of ‘real people’. Where can we find some real people, she asks? I have no idea what she means by real people, and I am not really listening either. But her voice is rather high, and quite piercing, so everybody around us can listen in on this conversation.
And suddenly a man stops, turns around, looks at her, and says to her in English: “If you are looking for real people, you have come to the wrong place. You will not find any real people in Lebanon,” and on he walks.
Now how’s that for the shape we’re in? If we start telling complete strangers that this place has gone to the dogs, we're in pretty deep. The Lebanese are fed up. Thoroughly fed up.
It’s dog weather and it is raining. I ask the lady from downstairs why the school is closed. She’s got a child. “Who cares?” is her reply. And that’s the shape we are in. We don’t care.
Schools close, people get blown up, we still don’t have a president and won’t have one before the end of the year and we haven’t had a normal country since the summer of 2006. Or spring of 2005. How much more pathetic can we get? But we don’t care.
We’re in bad shape, here in Lebanon. Yesterday in the evening, I was walking in Hamra with H., picking up some Christmas present for her teachers. For some reason she got into the issue of ‘real people’. Where can we find some real people, she asks? I have no idea what she means by real people, and I am not really listening either. But her voice is rather high, and quite piercing, so everybody around us can listen in on this conversation.
And suddenly a man stops, turns around, looks at her, and says to her in English: “If you are looking for real people, you have come to the wrong place. You will not find any real people in Lebanon,” and on he walks.
Now how’s that for the shape we’re in? If we start telling complete strangers that this place has gone to the dogs, we're in pretty deep. The Lebanese are fed up. Thoroughly fed up.
But I’ve got most of my Christmas shopping done, and if you look at the copious amount of alcohol I’ve got stacked for the holidays, it’s going to be a jolly time at least in my house. And with the next storm coming in, it promises to be a White Christmas for me too! It doesn’t get any better than that.
3 comments:
I think there are more real people in Beirut then Amesterdam can ever muster. People that can deal with adverseties and unfortunate situations thrown at them and still go on.
Trust me. The Lebanese will trade its friendly neighboring countries with the ones the Netherland have any time of day.
Wonder how real the Dutch people will be in such a situation.
lebanese can only blame themselves
Have you read this article from a Dutch newspaper???:::
trouw.nl/degids/gidsartikelen/article870113.ece/Over_kerstmarkten_en_winterdepressies
In all the "Amsterdam" (read: Dutch) luxury life in paece and comfort, people in the Nl are more depressed, according to this article. The last few days we were in Düsseldorf at a Weihnachtsmarkt. People were walking in a row along the sellers, but no one seemed to enjoy. We were …… but it was a weared experience comparing to our visit at Beirut last summer.
The Europian people (Dutch, German, Belguim, France) live their lives far to "flat" in overwhelming luxury.
What's the difference between "overwhelmed" and "overwhelmed". How many impressions can a human being take?
We in person preferr to take an example from the Lebanese people, because they choose to loose not ONE minute of life !! That's more "real", for us as we experienced at Hamra and surroundings. These are the right places where we found real people during our 10-day stay. And that's a lot better than we fin in our dayly absurd European reality.
Dimphy
Post a Comment