December 29, 2009

Some Not So Nice Things . . .

. . . in this place. Children hanging around traffic, trying to sell roses or chewing gum. We don’t have a lot of beggars in Lebanon. There’s the usual wheelchair brigade, people on crutches and elderly people fallen on hard times.
And then there are the bedouins, which would be called gypsies in other cultures/places. The men often work in agriculture, are day laborers, and in some areas the women do the harvesting as well. But the children are often sent out to beg for money on the streets of Beirut. Bedouin children have a flax-like quality to their hair, and their hair color is sometimes unusually fair in comparison to the skin color. They’re very street smart in general.
But these children were not bedouin children, they seemed to be regular Lebanese children. Lebanese in general are not prone to begging. And these kids, walking between cars on the highway, it’s dark, it’s wet, and they’re quite short, so very difficult to spot. They should be at home.

2 comments:

Angie Nader said...

how sad. i have seen many of these children.
the most odd experiance i had was on a street near borj hammoud..and little boys would just start washing the car windows and then ask for money for their service.

i never seen a public school in Beirut...most likley because everyone sends their kids to private..i spent more money on my sons school each year than i did for my rent.

if their was a good public school system...maybe the parents of these children would send their children to school and to work.
the goverment should be doing more to make sure that every child within lebanon is in school...and living a normal childhood.

DragonToes said...

Awww that's so sad! they're babies!