Lynnś Weblog

Things were pretty active earlier. We went up on the roof after seeing bright white flashes of light only to be relieved that it was lightening zapping across the Mediterranean as gun battles waged on below. After a bit we came back down and ended up watching Eddie Izzard for entertainment and to drown out the explosive sounds around us. Odd, once the dvd was over there was silence. Beirut and  silence, kind of unsettling. No street traffic noise, no sirens, no explosions, an occasional crackle of gunfire. Its only 1:30am.

Around nine or so earlier this evening there was a news story online about how 2 people had been killed — a woman and her son when a grenade hit their apartment. Another woman was killed from celebratory gunfire and several people wounded during the street fights. I believe the death toll has gone up a bit since.

Sounds like a lot was accomplished and perhaps all the brave street fighters have called it a night. They have gone home to their loved ones and are mulling over the utter uselessness of their big day. A woman and her son…Bravo. 

Please, no encores. 

We close the evening with a rather loud thunderstorm rolling in – or maybe God is just pissed off. Its been asked several times now — ‘uh…that was thunder right?’ I believe its time for some sedatives and a little prayer before they kick in that tomorrow will bring back a touch of sanity to this place.

Peace

 That song has been playing over and over in my head…a continuous loop of David Byrne.

Was suppose to go meet a Lebanese friend for a lecture on Climate Change at the AUB. That got cancelled. Not a surprise seeing how we were able to sleep with the balcony door open — quiet, none of the usual heavy, loud traffic. Was in the middle of a really long email diatribe to my favorite Dr. Dolittle and the electricity went out half way thru the rant. Then the cabin fever took hold of me and it was off to the bedroom for some pointless sniffling. With the electricity cut at 3pm it meant no watching of Nasrallah’s speech at 4pm. Convenient…?

Jibril and I decided to go for a walk.  

We stopped at the sandwich shop nearby to see if the TV was on there, he has a generator. Nope. So we hit the empty streets. We heard gunfire to the east and decided to go west and south – cant get any more north then where we are. There is a heavy presence of soldiers and tanks. Civilians were few and far between and scattering rapidly. We walked on. Suddenly walking thru the downtown “souks” things seemed rather surreal. All the glitzy over priced stores with their fancy window dressings…gaudy sequined gowns on faceless mannequins, buildings under construction – on pause for the moment. All I could think of was the actor from “Suspended Dreams” mocking the pointlessness of the ritzy glass and steel structures going up during reconstruction and asking what about the reconstruction inside the human being after surviving the hell of war.

Is Lebanon really going to sink into civil war again? As we walked Jibril mumbled a couple lines from Leonard Cohen’s “Waiting for the Miracle”…’Lets do something crazy, something absolutely wrong…’ OK, lets continue to walk then. Barely anyone out. Official looking black SUV’s occasionally zipped by, the odd taxi beeping to see if we wanted a lift, and of course the guys on mopeds. Again lots of soldiers and tanks, roadblocks everywhere. We walked thru some cramped neighborhoods and found a corner shop with Nasrallah speaking on the telly and planted there for the gist of the speech/press conference. I don’t understand Arabic but I think I can put on a pretty good show of pretending. After we headed out Jibril gave me a summation of the speech. We decided to head back in case there was the stupid act of celebratory gunfire. Don’t want to be out in the open when the bullets come back down.

We were definitely in an area I wouldn’t want to be in once the sunsets. Roadblocks and neighborhood militia guys with walkie talkies hanging out, waiting, anticipating…Keep walking. Nobody gave us a second glance. Gunfire is becoming less sporadic, more constant and close by and new sounds are being heard. RPG’s, and a couple explosions further south. We got to the Hezbullah campsite and were told rather nicely there was no cutting thru their turf. We crossed over a blocked off bridge occasionally stopping to see where the fighting sounds were coming from. Got back to the apartment without any real hassles and have settled in.

I have to say I am not panicked, not jumpy just rather depressed. The soldiers faces are all young, the faces of the guys on the streets – young. Has reason hightailed it out of this country thru some blocked off road? Do people really want to suffer thru more of this insanity? And right now, if you said maybe it would be wise to go back to Amman and ride this out I would laugh at you. I don’t want to leave Lebanon. Perhaps working thru a depression leaves one with a fatalistic streak in its place…

I have been told I am a glass-is-half-empty person, lets try a glass-is-half-full on for a moment. The only good thing that can come from this is…The two Techno clubs that throb the apartment all weekend long until the wee hours of the morning will be closed. The only thing that will vibrate the beds now will be the occasional mortar shell going off nearby. How’s that?

Fisk has some fun facts about the current situation.

http://http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-lebanon-descends-into-chaos-as-rival-leaders-order-general-strike-822840.html