First of all, I wanna wish all Christians a holy lent, hoping this month will be blessed for them.

I always tend to fast on things I like in this month, and find it as a good occasion to test my will to do a thing I set myself to do. This year, It will not be chocolate or bread or a specific food but I plan on cutting down having dinner outside for the next 40 days as I am practically addicted to it.

That will be a good occasion to explore what other things one can do in Lebanon except going to a restaurant or drinking in a pub specially after working hours, and most importantly an incentive for me to go more frequently to the gym!

Feel free to share whatever you are stopping this month, that is if you have any.

[Picture from Maya's Amalgam]

Nasawiya is a collective of feminist activists that’s been asking women all around Lebanon about the challenges they face in Lebanon and what changes they would like to see in preparation for Women’s Day on the 8th of March.

You can watch the video here.

It is quite funny that a lot of Lebanese women I’ve discussed this matter with think it is men who should claim back their rights lol! Of course they are referring to the fact that Lebanese women generally have a strong character and tend to control their men or at least have a heavy influence on them, but that doesn’t mean those archaic laws should be kept “16 ta7et el zefet” as they currently are.

I was introduced to this campaign few weeks back and I felt like taking part of it from the first second. It is a truly tremendous campaign initiated by Picon with the collaboration of Arc En Ciel and consisting of “a group of socially responsible and environmentally aware students from all across Lebanon for the upcoming 6 months, dedicated to improving Lebanese society and making Lebanon a better place to live.”

There are 6 characters, each covering a certain topic:

1- The Recycler, whose goal is to to turn trash into treasure.
2- Great Grand Hero, on a mission to turn the tetas & jeddos of Lebanon into the kings and queens of memories.
3- Eco Hero, whose aim is to make Lebanon green and beautiful one tree at a time.
4- The Shining Heart, whose goal is to provide poor families in Lebanon with necessities.
5- Extraordinary Hero, who wants to recognize the heart of a champion in everyone and ot show case the extraordinary powers of kids with special needs through sport.
6- The Restorer, on a journey to collect books and restore the environment where students learn.

There is an individual blog for each of the 6 characters showing updates on their latest events and tips on how to become one of those heroes.

What I love most about this initiative is that it is working closely with students from schools all across Lebanon, making them more socially aware at a younger age and inciting the schools’ principals to become more socially responsible and environment-friendly.

I’ve already expressed my willingness to be part of one of their campaigns by giving lectures to students on a certain topic like the Internet or any other activity they might require assistance in.

I was on my way back from Zahle today morning and had one of the best Labneh sandwiches in Lebanon, at Hedwan stores in Mraijet before the Dahr el Baydar highway.

Funny thing that Zaatar W Zeit is promoting now the Aarouss Labneh on the highway, which costs 5250LL and is nothing compared to Hedwan’s, which only costs 2000 LL and is 3 times bigger.

I will post later on about my trip back and forth to Zahle.

I wanted to comment on this article a week ago but I wrote a draft and forgot to publish. Nevertheless, I still insist on posting it because I believe it is a very important and sensitive issue.

Imad Atallah from the Daily star wrote an article on how he scanned and photoshopped legal parking stubs from the park meter and replaced them with new expiration dates, without getting caught. This experiment for him proves the prevalence of the rig ‘n rob syndrome in the country among all government institutions and politicians.

Having said that, I strongly believe that what Imad was not only wrong but very destructive and pointless. He has indirectly shown people a new way of tricking the system without getting caught and has shown himself as a bad example for others to follow, knowing that many many Lebanese read the Daily Star everyday. If there are few decent Lebanese citizens left out there, they should show themselves as responsible and abide by the law, not twist it to prove how bad the system is. The crime Imad committed was against his own belief rather than against the Lebanese system. What’s next? Stealing a car and going to Brital and getting away with it?

What he should have done and what should have been both ethical and appropriate to do is to cheat for one day, then report this as a responsible Lebanese citizen to the park meter company, which is a private one if I am not mistaken, even though working for the Lebanese government, and post about it later to force them to do something about this flaw in the system.

Speaking of the system, I don’t believe you could have gotten away everyday for a year since the meter men rotate every now and then and you would have been caught at one point. [Article]

PS: Hope that answers your questions Mustapha as well!

You hear a lot of funny stories about tantet el Achrafieh but nothing beats engaging in a discussion with one of them.

I was walking back to the office from Gemmayze today and had reached the small road leading to Kahwit Leila ( Previously Kahwit El 2zez or Kahwit el Gemmayze) when a car with two girls inside was going illegally downards on Road1 (see pic above). They reached the end of the road and could not go left or right as cars were coming from both roads 2 & 3.

The girl driving asked me how to get to Paul claiming she’s lost but a 4×4 coming from Road 2 was getting impatient and started horning, so I told the girl to move the car to the front a bit so that the 4×4 passes.

The woman driving the 4×4 had all the specifications of an “Achrafieh Tante”, as she was smoking, talking on the phone, makeup and her puppy on the right seat. Anyway, to make things worse, she decided that her car cannot pass and wanted the two girls to go all the way back in reverse. I assured her that she has over 2 meters of free space on her right and that she could pass easily, but all I got was: “Chou bta3rif a7san minne dimensionet siyyarte?”

And to prove me wrong, she kept turning the same way without using the empty space she had left and bumped into the other car and yelled “Chefet?”.

To make things even worse, the two girls did not know how to go reverse in their car, so they asked me “iza ba3rif sou2 arriere?” as if that’s an optional feature for drivers. I pulled back the car and redirected it on the right way and let the tante pass, noting that she didn’t give a damn about hitting her car, neither did the other two girls.

The end.

It seems to me that Riad Salemeh went to the United States and came back with a different opinion, or maybe he didn’t want to cause any crisis due to LCB’s money laundering allegations and found a neat exit out of this mess.

In all, The Lebanese Canadian Bank was apparently indeed laundering money and the only way to save it is by selling it to another bank. This other bank will be SGBL as it won the bid yesterday for over 550 million dollars.

Very smart move by our Central Bank governor to say the least.

According to Badoo the compilers of the world’s largest ever study on online flirting, Beirut ranked 7th in flirtatious behavior online. We beat the likes of Paris, Milan, New York and came in 7th over 200.

Top 10
1 Athens
2 Moscow
3 Kuwait City
4 Baku
5 Tunis
6 Kiev
7 Beirut
8= Turin
8= Rome
10 Bari

Here is a link to the article [Link]

Today is “khamees el Sakara” or the Thursday before fasting (for Christians)begins on Monday. I never knew why it was called that way, but all I know is that we are supposed to get drunk on this day.

Anyway, I googled it a bit today and it turns out it is more a tradition than a religious date, whereas rich and poor people would celebrate by drinking and partying.

As far as Lebanon in concerned, Christians usually have diner (raw meat usually) at home with their families and drink a lot. It’s gonna be Arak night for me tonight.

Happy Drinking Thursday everyone!

I’ve started carpooling with an old friend who recently became a colleague of mine and happens to be living near my house. I think it is great as it is very tiring to drive sometimes specially in the morning plus you get to save gas. The only inconvenient is that our working hours are not fix and I rarely leave on time, which could be problematic.

Anyway, there’s a Lebanese website now dedicated to carpooling in Lebanon and to finding car mates. I am not sure how much it will work but I think it’s a great initiative.

PS: We carpooled using my car today and I won’t be going back home straight forward. Sorry R!

I just read that we’re finally getting 3G in Lebanon. 3G is basically mobile broadband internet only I highly doubt it’s going to be fast and even if it is we will get some ridicules download bandwidth restrictions. I guess if you look at it in a positive way it’s a step in the right direction but I would rather we get better and faster DSL connections with a lot more download bandwidth. [Link]

I was checking out some pictures on Beiruting’s fb page of the Lingerie show that took place at Rikkyz in Faqra a week ago.

It is me or are the girls posing old and ugly?

Seems that we only get the expired Playmates and top models here in Lebanon. [Link]

I am not sure no one among us has not encountered a situation where one of his friends of relatives is in love with someone from a different religion. This is common and very natural to happen in a society such as the Lebanese one.

And for those who think those clichés are old fashioned and over, I think they are increasing by the day specially with the new generations that are facing increasing sectarian divisions.

Ivy says had such a story to share with us few days back, a story which unfortunatelly ended with the couple breaking up, because the guy wanted his gf to turn Muslim and felt betrayed that “Maya wouldn’t do such a “small formality” to be with him”.

I personally believe It is the couple’s mistake here, mainly Karim’s and not the parents or society in anyway. Parents may be demanding, but two people getting into a serious relationship should know better how to handle this matter from the beginning.

- If they are too attached to their religion, and are against any sort of civil marriage, it is better they break up than drag the relationship to the point of no return. Proof is the guy got engaged few weeks after leaving the supposedly love of his life.

- If both are not that religious and love each other, they could simply ignore their parents’ and move along with a civil marriage.

- If the parents are too demanding or annoying, and the couple is not that religious or at least attached to their religion, one could turn into the other religion and make everyone happy. Afterall, if you don’t go to church or to the mosque that much and are living a “sinner’s” life, it won’t make any difference whether you’re Christian or Muslim.

- Last option is dropping your religion and enrolling in the Jedi Church in Canada.

I spotted this key chain in an artisanat shop at City mall. Kuwait has been free for the past 20 years or more if I am not mistaken?