I’ve been in Montreal for over a month now and the majority of my outings with Brian were to two nearby parks that have a large outdoor playground area. Needless to say, we visited the major parks frequently as well but you can’t spend every day running after your kids next to a lake or in the woods. The best part about these playgrounds is that there’s almost one on every corner here, nothing too fancy but big enough to accommodate a small neighborhood.

The playgrounds are well thought-of obviously and some games are quite challenging, yet I could easily let Brian play there for hours while watching him from a distance.

My question is to all municipalities in Lebanon: Why can’t we have such small playgrounds in every town? No one’s asking for fancy gardens designed by people we haven’t heard of, but simply a small and safe playground with a bit of greenery where children can come out and have fun.

There are plenty of spaces especially outside Beirut and the cost is minimal when compared to the colossal budgets municipalities put on festivals and fireworks etc. Arguile places have more outdoor playgrounds than municipalities here which is absurd! Even in Beirut, we can have small playgrounds in every neighborhood instead of having one or two gardens for a million Beirutis.

Why are we always looking for much larger projects when all that’s needed are small things that can make a huge difference on everyone’s everyday lives?

Check out some of those playgrounds and tell me why it’s so hard to have 10 or 20 similar ones in Beirut only?