Some Scenes of the City

For the homesick among you (who seem to be located mostly in the California region), here are some Beirut city scenes (and surroundings).These guys always remind me of what christian missionaries must have dragged with them into the central regions of Africa when trying to convert all these poor people that already had a religion, but never mind that, and so they went, laden with beads and colored trinkets and mirrors (at least that was what I was taught in school). Their transport must have looked a little like this. These men sell pretty much everything, from super glue to soccerballs to hair removal cream.And this is how we sell our carpets. You’ve got to wonder why – when you tell people that you live in Beirut and their reaction invariably is "Ooh, is it safe there?”- we would be hanging our $500 carpets over a car outside on a busy city street for advertisement. I know many places in Holland where this thing would be gone faster than the speed of light. When I passed in the evening, the thing was still there. Talking about safety.
Ah, another one on safety. Riding your bike on a 3-lane highway (which sometimes is used as a 4 or 5 lane highway depending on the traffic, or as a highway with no lanes at all, we tend to ignore the lanes) is not safe! A good thing he’s wearing a helmet (har har). A banner hanging above the very appropriately named Bliss street (Bliss was one of the founders of the American University in town).

For those unfamiliar with tawassul and tubarrak (such as me), this is what the Internet tells me: Tawassul (Arabic: توسل ) is an Islamic religious practice in which a Muslim seeks nearness to Allah through prophets and saints and seeking blessings deriving blessing from relics and something once owned or touched by a holy person and Tabarruk The commutation for an offering incumbent upon a religious mendicant holding some endowment (waqf).

I’m not sure why it is in English, as I doubt you’ll find many non-Arabic speaking muslims in this town. But as I understand it, it is a practice that is frowned upon by a number of Islamic streams.
Lebanese grandfathers.

This one is a good example of how families work here. Although only one is an actual grandfather, the other two are considered part of the family as they are the grandfather of a cousin and the grandfather of a nephew of the cousin. Grandfathers in Lebanon seem to have an unlimited amount of 1,000 pound bills stacked in their wallets which they forever keep handing out to their grandchildren.

Another interesting detail is that the 3 grandfathers also represent 3 different religions. Although this is not very representative for most families, is is very representative for Lebanese society.