When it rains, it RAINS

Welcome back to a new year in Beirut. I understand that 2008 is going to be much of the same for us in Lebanon as 2007. We need to wait for Bush to get out of office before things will change (although not necessarily for the better), I am being told. It’s good to know what’s in store for us, so we don’t keep our hopes too high.

What was I doing this morning? I was out in my Wellies and rain jacket, trying to unplug the drains on my balcony. I tried frantically to keep the water from entering my house (with partial success, I must add). I think that this morning I was joined in this activity by at least half of the Beirut population. Everyone was out in force sluicing the water out of their houses.
We don’t like half measures in this place. When we have presidential elections, we have ten of them (at least), and when it rains here, it RAINS.

I spent my Christmas in the mountains east of Beirut in total isolation. No internet, no CNN or the likes. I was curious to know if anything would have changed by the time I descended upon Beirut. But no, it seems that during my absence the entire town laid still. Still no president.

No Jack Frost nippin’ at my nose either, but I did have the chestnuts roastin’ on an open fire.

I think I added a heavy footprint to my carbon output over the holidays; I burnt myself through the entire firewood supply of the neighbors. Doesn’t matter; they are from Saudi Arabia and they only come to their mountain house in the summer, and they don’t have a fire place anyway, so lord knows why they bought the fire wood in the first place. I benevolently took away their troubles of maintaining the firewood stack.

The Christmas dinner developed itself according to true Lebanese dinner tradition. You start out with 6 people, but then the 6th has actually planned something with someone else, so could he/she come too? And then another shows up with a girlfriend, a third with a housekeeper, and a fourth with a driver, and they all have to sit, so we ended with 13 at the dinner table. The food was pretty awful (I cooked!), but by then everyone had been sitting in front of that open fire, nursing Baileys and mulled wine for so long, that food really didn’t matter anymore.
The kids baked and decorated gingerbread cookies, lost their presents among the mountain of wrapping paper, fights erupted over who had gotten what from Santa, and then they fell asleep.

It was a good ending of 2007. Happy New Year to you all.