My Blog, one year!

One year since my first post on this blog. One year for this blog actually. It was on July 20th, 2006. I wanted a way to express my frustration and anger towards what was happening in Lebanon, and blogging was a great way. And to my surprise, I discovered many other bloggers, there was a Lebanese bloggers community, all together expressing and reaching out, and trying to show the world that there is another side of Lebanon besides the war.

The best thing that came out of blogging, was reading other blogs and reading visitors comments. Seeing another point of view or having someone agree with you, is just amazing. Having readers is also amazing. It's just an amazing feeling to know people read you daily!

So, I realised I should look up synonyms of the word amazing because I use it a lot, and second, is that I think I am going to try for another year of blogging.

Happy blogging,

Liliane

Some festivals are still on-going

Different from what I wrote a while back about the fact that there are no festivals in Lebanon this summer, it turns out that some festivals are still on-going such as Byblos Festivals. Small concerts and gigs are taking place in several pubs and restaurants. And unlike what a lot predicted for Lebanon's summer to be dead and boring, night-life in Gemmayze street (Beirut) is back, and wild hot beach days are getting hotter and hotter. Several local radion stations are hosting the music in several resorts, creating an environment of strong dancing on house and electro music.
In conclusion, a lot of events are taking place, beach parties, many organizers are hosting games and such, concerts and gigs and so on. It's not as wild as previous years, nevertheless it is still more than anyone expected and Lebanon is still fun.

Blend performing at Nova on July 30

Blend, a local Lebanese band, will be performing at Nova (Sin El Fil - Beirut) on Monday July the 30th.

Check out the video clip of one of their songs, Belong.

Lebanese christians are celebrating Saint Elie

Tomorrow is Saint Elie holiday in Lebanon, and as the tradition goes, people celebrate a holiday on its eve. This is the most celebrated holiday in Lebanon when it comes to fireworks. In Lebanon, and unlike the US for example, everyone has access to buy fireworks, even little kids. And every year, on this night, the fire extinguishers work a lot.
I like looking at fireworks, who doesn't? However, I think it is applied and used in a very irresponsible way. In many cases, children have hurt themselves. I I personally keep checking if a burning arrow went into my balcony or under my car, so I can act quickly and call the fire fighters. Exploding dynamites (the fireworks of course not the real ones) blast very loudly and are really annoying.
Fireworks are also widely used in weddings, yes, when two people get married they forget that other people exist and they want to go to sleep.



Same day last year, not much celebration happened, as the "real" fireworks were blasting in the year when Israel was bombing Lebanon. As much as fireworks annoy me in general although they're nice to look at, I still prefer them over bombs.

What happened since July 12, 2006?

A year since the damned July war between Israel and Hezbollah (although some prefer to say between Israel and Lebanon, however last time I checked for a country to be in war, it should've at least had an opinion or known about it), anyway things have only got worse since.

Political conflicts, a new war between the Lebanese Army and the Islamic Militants Fatah Al Islam in Naher el Bared palestinian camp in North Lebanon (started on 20 May, and is still on going), a lot of martyrs (RIP) civilians, red cross and soldiers, a lot of tension, two UN resolutions, the 1701 to end the July 2006 war and 1757 declaring the decision to hold an international tribunal to investigate the Hariri assassination, one camping of Lebanese opposition (Hezbollah, FPM, Marada and others) in Downtown Beirut since December 1, 2006 in order to topple the Saniora government, another two assassinations of MP Pierre Gemayel in November 2006 and MP Walid Eido in June 2007, several explosions occured in many regions, in Ain Alak, Verdun, Ashrafieh, Alay, Sid El Bouchrieh and Zouk Mousbeh, more and more division among the Lebanese politicians, more and more groups having no color trying to bring the Lebanese together such as March 11 and other.

Tourism is almost dead, schools ended early this summer, some Lebanese are here for a vacation, great weather, people are starting to go out again, but you can still feel the tension as we know that this time a year traffic would be much more severe (yes we measure life in Lebanon by traffic). Usually in summer the prices of prepaid lines, clothes, shoes, luxury items go up, however this year they barely went up (prepaid lines prices did double, but usually their price reach an increase by 80% taking advantage of our fellow Arab Tourists, who by the way, did not come this year, how do we know? well they usually come to Lebanon by land using their cars, therefore we can see the plate numbers of these many cars on which is written Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE...), I can also see discounts on clothes and shoes just about everywhere (Reminder to self, should go shopping, take advantage of bad situation in Lebanon).

Bashar Al Assad, Syrian President, has demanded from all syrian workers to go back to Syria before July 15 as he expects the situation to get worse.

Lebanese presidency election is right around the corner, scheduled to take place in September 2007.

And of course, immigration of Lebanese youth increased even more. Prices of houses (due to increase in cost of building materials) have also increased. In general, there are a lot of weddings in Lebanon during the summer, however, and this is measured by how much honking we hear on Saturdays and Sundays afternoon, this year seems less. Why? Still asking Why?

P.S. For more details, check the archive of this blog.

A commercial is not enough

While I was coming back from a near-by friend's house, who had given me an original Lebanese meal, "Loubieh b zeit", as my parents are abroad trying to build a future for my siblings and I, I was thinking while walking, should I stay in Lebanon? And I kept seeing this image of me quitting my job, saying good-bye to everyone and going to where my folks are.
As I arrived home, I put on the news, and saw the new commercial for Fransabank, which is about people taking a picture with a picture of a Lebanese landscape set as a background, and each person is pondering about something, the future bride and bride-groom thinking whether they should postpone their wedding or not, the grandparents thinking whether they should tell their relatives to come visit Lebanon this summer or not, the student thinking of staying in Lebanon or leaving for a job abroad, and so on and so forth...
Questions all Lebanese are familiar with. I had tears in my eyes when at the end of commercial, they all said: "I am staying, We are staying"
We Lebanese are so patriotic and sensitive to this issue... but a commercial won't change anyone's mind would it?
I can't forget how happy I was to land in Beirut's airport on September 6, 2006, it was the last day of the Israeli blockade. I was so happy to see the traffic and hear the honking, and feel the humidity of our Beirut.
But, I still don't know whether I should look for a house, get married, raise my children in this country.