November 20, 2013

How Odd

It is odd how easy things pass these days.

 
Two suicide bombers (one on a motorcycle; Now there’s a new twist on ‘how to blow up things’)  attempt to blow up an embassy, some 23 people die, 145 are wounded, extensive damage in the neighborhood and the already frayed nerves of the sunni and shia communities in Lebanon unravel a little further.

 
 
Yet nothing really happens.
 
 Nobody is picking up their kids from school (as is the standard thing to do when you think shit is going to hit the fan), there’s no closure of government offices, no day of mourning, no burning tires, no protests and no strikes.
 
Nothing at all.
 
Maybe traffic was a little lighter yester afternoon.
Otherwise, it was business as usual.  I live a couple of neighborhoods over, so we did not hear the explosion, but a friend of mine did.
It sounded like an explosion, but also like a door slamming close, so we left it at that,” she said. It is that I saw it on the news, otherwise the whole event would have passed me by. No ambulances, no sirens, nothing at all.
 
An acquaintance of mine, who’s working in Syria right now, asked me if I could verify if his son was okay. And I am thinking, 'if from a Damascus perspective things are looking bad in Beirut, than it must really be bad'.
 
 But we’re one day further. And nothing really happened.
 
Isn’t it odd,  how easy things pass these days?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is really strange, I had the same feelings about it. It's like nothing happened. And I wonder if that should make me more nervous about things?

Anonymous said...

this week we had some problems with the district heating system. no warm water for a couple of hours.

people went mad

dutch perspective
regards Anne

Gray Fox said...

Apparently the Reuters writer of this analysis of the situation in Lebanon considers it to be very serious!

http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-beirut-blast-jolt-past-omen-dark-future-213809849.html

There are quotes from Rami Khouri with whom my grand-daughter interned while at AUB. Best regards. Hope the pup is healing!

Anonymous said...

I called my uncle in Zgharta, since they travel to Beirut regularly, to check up on him and he basically said the same thing. Terrible for the people who were directly affected but it will pass like the others.

sorry I post as anonymous, the system won't let me log in with my google account.
I continue to pray for my beloved homeland.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I just wanted to say that I recently found your blog. I am a Finn living 9 years in the Netherlands and married to Lebanese. I am blogging (in Finnish to keep up my native language) on topics such as Dutch culture, expat stuff, cultural differencies, relocation etc... Thank you for a great blog. I really enjoy reading it! Can't wait for the next visit to Beirut. It is such a special city :)- Kati
http://wanderlustmanaged.wordpress.com/