Fall

A little orchard along a mud road in the mountains

Not much news these days. While Paris is still in pieces and CNN sounds like a broken record, Beirut, in the meantime, has recovered. It licked her wounds and continued. It’s called resilience. Not out of choice, but out of necessity.

Not that this resilience is helping us much. It has taught us to bend and bend and bend, but we never break. And so what we allow, because it doesn't break us, will continue.

Cherry trees give red leaves, fig are yellowish

One million and something Syrian refugees definitely is having its toll on Beirut. Although most of them live in the Beqaa Valley, and never make it to the big city, Beirut is overloaded with everything, except money. Too many people, too many cars, too much garbage. Not many people are making money these days; most are just hanging in there, waiting for better times. How come all this construction is still going on is a financial/economical mystery to me. I currently have a ‘chantier’, as we call road works/construction here, on three sides of my house.

The pre-teener is attracted to green grass. We don't get grass this green that often.

ne of the roads near my house floods when there’s a heavy down pour. Last month, water reached up to the car doors in a matter of half an hour. I was rather surprised when I noticed yesterday they were actually digging a hole there and installing sewer pipes. I did not know anyone was actually paying attention to these things, but apparently some people in the government are still working. There’s hope.

My work is steady, and so is my study. I’m slowly preparing to get back into writing.
It gets dark early these days; my favorite time of the year. Fall is in full swing, and the few deciduous trees that we have - mostly fruit trees - produce a nice Indian summer effect in the mountains.

Fall makes me happy.  If you like colors, than now is the time to go out and hike. Not in a pine tree or cedar reserve, but choose one of the forests up north, near Akkar, or Laqlouq. But you better be fast; one storm, and everything is gone.