“Celebratory”

It’s time to celebrate. Or not.  June is the season for weddings. So along with the hot weather and tourists from the Gulf States and Europe descending on Beirut, there are plenty of fireworks as well.  Over the last couple of days the “celebration” seems to really have picked up though, what with Nabih Berri’s appointment as Speaker of the Parliament and Saad Harriri’s election by the Parliament as Prime Minister of Lebanon. And so there’s been a fair amount of celebratory gunfire during the day along which sounds a lot like the fireworks at night.  And probably a couple of RPG’s from the sound of it.  Kind of reminds me of the New Year’s “celebrations” in Higley, Arizona when I was growing up.  It’s just as illegal there as it is here.  And just as reckless.

Interestingly, the issue of “celebratory gunfire” was brought up as a question posed to one of the Miss Lebanon contestants on Friday night (unfortunately, her answer wasn’t very well prepared).  If you do a google search for the term, the number one hit that it returns currently is an article from the Daily Star newspaper here in Beirut highlighting Nabih Berri’s condemnation of the practice.

posted by: caleb

Apparently the girls think I am about 80

The other day we were in the van coming home from the beach with the girls, when Miss S asked me (for about the millionth time), “how long are you going to stay in Lebanon??”  So I explained (again) that we live here now and we will go home to visit our families, but this is our home.  I was trying to figure out how to make this stick in her head (she has nightmares about us leaving), so I told her that we would be here so long that I wanted to come to her wedding.  She looked at me with this strange look and said,

“Wait.  You will be dead by then.”

What?!?!  Okay…. maybe she’s thinking she won’t get married for a long time.  “When do you think you will get married,” I ask.

“Oh, in three years.”  (She’s 12, but that’s another story)

“Three years?!?!” I say, “Okay, let’s say you get married in 6 years.  You will be 18, and I will only be 33.  That’s not that old, I won’t be dead!”

“Oh, but Amu Charlie (our pastor who is not old at all) will be dead.”

And that was the end of the conversation.

posted by: nicolette

cool whip – to good to be wasted

I can never seem to find things at the grocery store when I actually need them.  Remember the pumpkin pie experiment at Thanksgiving?  Since T-day, the supermarket must have received a huge shipment of canned pumpkin, so now we have several cans saved for next fall.  Tortillas are another one, brownie mix…etc, etc.  A few weeks ago, I saw Cool Whip for the first time, so I decided to buy a tub and stick it in the freezer for a rainy day.  Well, apparently today was that rainy day.  No, we haven’t seen raindrops in over a month, but our power went out yesterday and so we were salvaging what we could from the fridge and freezer today.  All the meat got cooked and stored in a friend’s freezer, most of the dairy products were thrown out, and then their was the Cool Whip.  It was thawed but not spoiled… yet.  I just couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, who knows when I will find it again, so Cool Whip for lunch it was! :)

posted by: nicolette

How much does your time cost?

Yesterday we decided to head to City Mall to do a little shopping.  We needed some supplies for the summer program with the girls, I am in desperate need of clothes that actually fit me, and we thought we’d start exploring what our options are for baby stuff… strollers, cribs, carseats, etc. (Random side note, most babies ride on laps here… even laps of motorcycle-driving dads!)

We use taxis and services (shared taxis) a lot, so we thought we’d try out the bus this time.  Buses here don’t run on a set schedule, and there aren’t set stops.  Just a general route with a start and end point.  So you stand on the side of the road, and when you see the bus you want you flag it down and hop on.  It is by far the cheapest mode of transportation here – 1,000 LL per person, which is 33 cents.  We found our bus quickly and settled in for what we expected to be a half hour ride, maybe 45 minutes since there was a lot of traffic.

But our bus driver was in no hurry.  He crept along at about 5 mph, honking at anyone walking by to see if they wanted a ride.  He was determined to fill his bus.  At most of the major intersections we crossed he pulled over and stopped, just in case someone wanted to climb aboard.  He also seemed to have lots of friends along the route and had no problem stopping and having a chat.  Finally the bus was nearly full and he started driving a bit faster, but only a few minutes later several people got off, so it was back to the snail’s pace.

An hour and a half later, we finally arrived at the mall.

We checked out all the shops, had a yummy chocolate croissant, and decided to take a taxi home.  $6.50 and we were home in 12 minutes.

posted by: nicolette

News of the day

Went to the doctor and the doctor said…

We’ve still got to wait till late October to meet her!

posted by: caleb

Bojangles in Beirut?

Okay, not really, but almost!  Nicolette was with the girls on a field trip of sorts last night, so I went out.  After walking for a while and trying to break a US $20 bill that no one will take because it has a little tear in it.  And then I spotted Hardees (aka Carl’s Jr., for you west coasters).  The western burger poster in the window was calling for me, ans so it was decided.  Quite randomly, an expat friend of ours who happens to be from South Carolina stepped into line behind me.  We sat down and caught up while we waited for the food to come…and when it finally did, a very peculiar thing happened.  Apologetically, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a little seasoning jar…with this label on the front of it: 

And proceeded to coat his fries in some Bojangles goodness.  And he shared!

The wikipedia article has some pretty interesting info about the franchise, particularly regarding how they work pretty hard at maintaining the “crave factor” for any of their menu items.  Nicolette’s looking over my shoulder and personally authenticating the “crave” that they’ve perfected. And she doesn’t even like Bojangles! Hmmm, flaky golden bisquits, cajun fried chicken, and syrupy southern sweet tea!!

posted by: caleb

Protected: Playing “phone” with pre-schoolers – or, Why I’m glad I studied bad words, too

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From the mouth of babes…

Twice a week Caleb rides along in the van to pick up the girls from school.  One of his rules is that the windows can be open, but as soon as any body part is put out, that window gets shut.  One of the littler girls seems to have a really hard time remembering this.

Yesterday I was sitting in the kitchen talking with Maria, who helps out a couple of times each week.  She was showing us her finger that accidently got smashed in the window of a bus.  Perfect object lesson.  “Little G, if you stick your arm out the window, maybe a car will come and maybe your arm will get cut off!” (!!!)  And then we were talking about all the things she couldn’t do without her arm… eat, play with her doll, write, color, draw, and on and on. (Okay maybe we were exaggerating the point a little bit…. :))

She got really quiet and was looking at her hands for about a minute.  Then she held up her right hand and announced to us all that this is the only hand she really uses so the other one can get cut off, no problem!

posted by: nicolette

Lost in translation

Caleb and I have had our fair share of funny language mistakes.  From putting the meat in the mail to pushing all the vocabularly against the wall in order to clean the floor to forgetting my teacher in my desk, laughter basically follows us wherever we go… or at least wherever we speak.

We also get a good laugh sometimes at some funny English we hear.  The other day one of the girls and I were playing a word game.  I would pick out a bunch of letters from a stack of flashcards to make a word or phrase or sentence, mix them all up, and she had to unscramble them.

On one of her turns, she meant to spell out “The school is boring” but somehow it came out “The school is war.”  :)  Coming from a girl who has been counting down until summer since March or so.  We both got a pretty good laugh when I explained the difference between boring and war, although in her heart of hearts I think she probably thought war was a better choice.  :)

Another example that got us giggling:

posted by: nicolette

Ruins in Springtime

I’ve never lived a place before that had such old ruins.  To be able to see the changes that those seemingly static ruins undergo with the seasons blows me away sometimes.  Like when we had a chance to visit the Jbeil (Byblos) with some of our friends from Stonebriar recently.  Lebanon in the spring is quite a sight.

I don’t really know that much about the more “modern” history at Jbeil…as in the last 3-400 years.  It looks like there used to be some kind of narrow gauge rail that carried goods from the port below down into the city.  Anyway, the old rusted and twisted remains of that era intertwined with the annual wildflower bloom set against the backdrop of the citadel built shortly after the city fell to the Frankish invaders in 1108 makes for a pretty interesting scene.

(Props to Priscilla for this last one!)  We had some friends from one of our churches in Texas, Stonebriar. Mark and Priscilla Young and Kathy Clegg were here and we bummed along on some touring with them. It was a joy to spend some time with them.  We’re so appreciative of Stonebriar’s partnership with us!

pics by: Nicolette

posted by: caleb