Tupperware Politics

Nothing much happening these days, if you are not following the news. Beirut is very quiet tonight. My city block is unusually dark; the street lights are out. It must be our turn in the electricity rationing cycle. That makes walking the dog a bit of a hazard, as the municipality has dug holes some three months ago all along the sidewalk, and then abandoned the job.

There’s fireworks’ going off here and there. It’s too early for the wedding season, so some politician must be giving a speech on TV. The different parties are announcing their candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections on June 7th.

A garden in Shimlan. (Also written as Chemlan, Chemlane, Shemlan, among others. Very complicated if you want to find it on your GPS).

I’ve been receiving calls from a number of parties inviting me to come and drink coffee with other ladies while ‘someone’ talks about the elections; Tupperware politics. I’ve been too busy, but maybe I should go, just for the heck of it. I wonder what they have to say. I've never had calls like these, and I've been eligible to vote for some 3 parliamentary elections now. I wonder what's the difference. This upcoming election isn’t really about who you want to vote for, but rather who you want to vote against. I have nobody to vote for, yet so many against.

But I am more interested in hanging out with friends and families on Sunday lunches in the mountains; yep, the season has started again.

Catching tadpoles in Shimlan.

The houses in the background are still abandoned, more than 20 years after the inhabitants fled conflicts in this neighborhood. You'd think it was about time to come back.

And studying tadpoles with my daughter. I guess politics will have to wait.