Author Archives: eliefares

Ramadan in Tripoli

A friend of mine was sitting in a restaurant in Tripoli, waiting for the Iftar. At the first day of Ramadan, Iftar is a big deal. It had been a very tough day of fasting in the scorching July heat. The restaurant he was sitting in was abuzz with talks about a little girl named Jana. Everyone wanted to make sure she was doing well, that she was eating, that she was well-seated, that she was well-taken care of.

My friend, who wasn’t from Tripoli and was visiting the city oh so cautiously, was intrigued. He started asking who Jana was. She was the homeless girl selling flowers to the people having Iftar on the first day of Ramadan. As he told me the story, not knowing whether it was true or not, I decided that I must try and live – to the best of my capacities – parts of Ramadan in Tripoli.

My best friend being from the city made this quite easy. Soon enough, his mother was asking when I’d come visit. I very gladly obliged. So on a Saturday of Ramadan, I was standing at the doorstep of one of the kindest and most hospitable people I know, breathless as I was racing against a sinking sun, worried I wouldn’t be there on time. We sat on a breezy balcony that overlook a desolate street.

Tripoli might as well have been a ghost town at that point. Everyone was busy eating. I was served some soup, followed by fattouch then some mloukhiye the likes of which I had never had before. I daresay the food passed by quite fast for what I had in mind but I didn’t mind. The mloukhiye was coupled with some rice and chicken and other Lebanese mezze items. Soon enough, we found ourselves drinking jallab and other kinds of juices while the smokers puffed on that cigarette that had been sitting in their pockets waiting for such a long time. The chit chats grew louder. The conversations veered toward the medical as my med student status was revealed. The women started asking me questions about C-sections and normal deliveries. Cake was served. I didn’t feel like an outsider at all. In fact, I might as well have been part of the family, all to the backdrop of the tarawih chants emanating from the many minarets surrounding us.

A few minutes later, I found myself at the footsteps of a shabby bakery that did what I was told was incredible nammoura. “How much is the kilo for?” I asked. “6000LL,” the old man replied. He then took a sealed box, weighed it, looked at me and smiled: “It’s 1.5 kilos, but it’s okay – 6000LL it is. Have you tried the coconut-based pastry?” I shook my head. So the next thing he did was take one that was freshly baked, handing it to me to taste. I tried to decline. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I smiled as my teeth sank into it, taking pictures of the place in the process while one of the employees pointed out to things I should include in my frames.

After buying enough sweets to last our household a month, we walked around the busier streets of the city towards my favorite cafe, Ahwak. The place was unusually empty. We ordered some oreo cheesecake and carrot cake while we forcibly listened in to the conversations taking place around us. Two guys were discussing politics fervently, which is quite normal for a city whose entire current strife is based in those politics. Two girls were discussing keeping their figure with Ramadan fasting. We spoke about how things could have been in the city, in the country. Nothing like demotivating conversations to take you through the night, which was ironic given that the cafe we were in was pillaged a few days earlier by Islamists who accused its owners of serving alcohol. Then we saw her, a little blond girl in a blue dress, holding flowers in her hand.

A couple of friends then decided they were craving some Hallab sweets. So we walked to where Hallab originated, the only place where I find you can get the authentic experience of those Arabian sweets. We don’t take any of those Jounieh wannabe franchise places and their ad wars. The place was busy as well, though nowhere near as busy as in years past. Those friends had some ice cream and mafrouke.

The clock was ticking the night away as we made our way to Azmi street. I was told about its shops opening way past midnight to allow the city’s residents to buy all their Eid’s new clothes and gifts. As we got closer, the music grew louder. I jokingly said this was obviously emanating from a convertible 1980s BMW. I wasn’t mistaken. After all, who else would blast some horrible Arabic music at near 2AM?
The shops were open but mostly empty. The streets were stuck between wanting to be lively and succumbing to the reality of a city that is coming to terms with how economically dead it’s being forced to become.
“I expected more,” I told my friend as we walked past the coffee sellers, clinking their cups to attract those passing, and impromptu stands selling cheese kaaks hoping the smell of their sandwiches would bring in some hungry people in for an early Sohoor.
“I expected the same,” he replied. “But I guess this is what happens when a city has had the year Tripoli had.”

We made our way up the street, wondering what to do next. It was around 2:30AM and nearing the Sohoor time for the city’s residents. “Do you wanna go to Bab el Ramel for a typical Sohoor setting?”
I shook my head. My circadian clock was nowhere near equipped for the rhythm Ramadan required. I was getting tired. So we returned to my friend’s house where we saw his mother sitting on the veranda, quietly looking over the city as she was waiting for dawn to break.

As she offered us tea to get time to pass, we told her about how Azmi street was much different than the year before, how Ahwak had much less people than when we went last, how it didn’t really feel like Eid was approaching, only eleven or twelve days away. So she told us about the city she once lived in, where she had a Christian friend who used to be closer than a sister to her. We spoke about how things changed from my mother being able to go to Bab el Tebbane alone a couple of years ago to how the city feels today. We spoke about the politicians of the city who couldn’t care less. We spoke about the Syrian civil war/revolution whose hold on the city seems won’t know an end. She told us about how she fears the Islamists ruining her city more than everyone else. She told us how she is considered a kuffar because she’s one of the many who don’t agree with what they do. She told us how she is ashamed of the reputation they have forced on her and her family and the people she holds dear. She told us how she is worried about the future of her children in the city she can barely recognize. We spoke about life in general, our families, our aspirations, our hopes for the future.

It was then that we heard a faint explosion sound. I looked around, intrigued. “Don’t worry, they said. It’s the madfa3 announcing dawn getting nearer.” A few minutes later, an ominous voice rang across the city to tell the people to stop drinking water. Soon after that, the minarets started chanting again.
“Here we go again,” she said before going up to her feet to go to bed. “Do visit again, okay?”

I nodded. It was the first time I attended all Ramadan-related proceedings. We talk about how we are a country of coexistence and whatnot, but how many of us have truly attended another person’s religion-related practices? Almost no one. “I would love to,” I replied as the first streaks of sunlight slithered over the concrete walls.

Why Haifa Wehbe (And Her Pranked Friends) Get No Sympathy From Me

Disclaimer: This is not about the starving children in many places of the world.

I guess you can say I’m very late for this. Haifa Wehbe’s prank happened last week. In blogging terms, that is way too passé. But like many things in this country, many seem not to have gone over it. Isn’t that why a surgeon, a resident and a nurse spent 20 minutes discussing it over a woman’s open abdomen yesterday? Or is that a doctors only thing?

For those who don’t know what happened to Haifa Wehbe, here’s a brief summary: she was led to believe she was filming something related to Egyptian tourism when she was taken to a newly discovered tomb where she was taken down underground tunnels only to be locked in a dark room where they let loose a snake, bat and a mummy on her.
The show of that Egyptian pharaoh-named wannabe person Ramez Ankh Amon is despicable. He wants to be the Arab version of Ashton Kutcher. What he does to the celebrities he pranks is near terrorism.

What happened to Haifa Wehbe is not acceptable. She had a panic attack, which – although not life threatening – gets the person to believe they are about to die, which only serves to increase their fear. Then you find out some Egyptian lawyer wants to sue her for not appreciating Egyptians enough, whatever that means. It’s all so sad and it sure gets you to feel sorry for her. After all, why don’t we stay in a room with a snake, a bat, a mummy and no vision whatsoever?

A similar prank took place last year with Cyrine Abdel Nour whose bus was fake-hijacked and she was forced to get off of it, get blind-folded while a fake battle raged around between the “terrorists” kidnapping her and the police. In what world is that acceptable celebrity pranks? Or are hijacking scenarios too far out to be plausible in these parts of the world?

It sure gets you worked up deep inside when you hear those celebrities go on and on about their tragedy: how they felt they were going to die, justifiably so; how they believe no one should ever go through what they went through; how this has made them better people who can encompass human struggles; how you can insert any Miss Universe answer here and it will make sense.

And for a while, the rhetoric works. I felt sorry for Haifa, for Cyrine, for the celebrities that were pranked. And then it dawned on me.

Q: Why hasn’t this ridiculous show been stopped yet?
A: Because celebrities like Haifa and her friends don’t want it to.

A day or so after Haifa’s prank took place, the video of that prank gathered almost 2 million hits on YouTube, which she even flaunted on Twitter. That’s more hits than some of her “music” videos. I didn’t bother to check so I might be mistaken. In those few minutes of them being “exposed,” the show gives them back tons of exposure, more fame and more money.

Haifa Wehbe and her friends don’t mind that despicable show. They don’t mind it extending to other famous people who will be pranked, in possibly worse ways, and of whom we might not know because they’re not “in” enough on our social media circles or our repertoire of famous people. They could have simply decided not to let their episode air for the public. They could have stood up against that despicable show and actively killed it. They certainly have the legal capacities and resources to do so. If enough celebrities refuse to air their episodes, as only few have done, that “prank” show won’t have any material to survive with. But many celebrities won’t have a reason to fuel in order to get more exposed, more known. So tell me again, why should I feel sympathy for them?

The Wolverine (2013) – Movie Review

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In a summer of superhero movies overload, it is a shame that none of them has managed to really cause a dent or become relevant enough to stay in the collective conscience of moviegoers, Iron Man 3 was disappointing.
Man of Steel was all kinds of meh. Add The Wolverine to the growing list.

You might need mutant powers to follow-up with the timeline of all these X-men movies. The Wolverine happens after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand. It has very few elements that relate it to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And quite frankly, I just don’t get the infatuation with this X-man, out of them all, to give him movie after movie. Yet again, the only reason The Wolverine was made is apparently to draw in some serious cash. The good thing is that unlike other superhero movies, Wolverine has been played by only one actor – Hugh Jackman – who has gotten his character down to a science.

The script, which I bet was written in less time than it has taken me to write this review, starts with Logan flashing back to surviving the Nagazaki atomic bomb and saving a young Japanese man in the process. Flash forward to present time and Logan is trotting it in some woods, trying to stay away from civilization until he is sought out by a Japanese woman who wants to take him back to the man he saved those many years ago, now the head of Japan’s leading corporation and dying of cancer. That man, Yashida, offers Logan something he had been seeking for a long time: a way to die.

The cast, most of which is Japanese, does a good job. But that’s not saying much because the material they’re given is dismal at best. There are too many villains. None of them is memorable enough. Even the big bad villain reveal, aimed to be shocking, comes off on the cooler side of tepid, predictable, boring, uneventful. None of the characters are engrossing. They are all there to advance a movie that’s seemingly going nowhere interesting.

Despite some strong scenes interspersed here and there, The Wolverine comes off on the weaker side in the X-men series. For a casual viewer, the movie might prove entertaining and different enough (it takes place in Japan, not New York) to watch. But for those who had high hopes that this would be their movie of the summer or at least keep up the momentum that X-Men: Origins started, be ready for one big fest of claws coming out, the big bad guys panicking and you yawning.

2/5

The Cuckoo’s Calling – J.K. Rowling (Robert Galbraith), Book Review

The Cuckoo's Calling - J.k. Rowling Robert Galbraith
If there’s any proof to the power of a name, it’s The Cuckoo’s Calling. Released back in April under the name of Robert Galbraith, a man who supposedly served in the military and has turned an author, the book managed to get good reviews and sell a few thousand copies.

Flash forward to July and to a mishap at a law firm, the person behind the Robert Galbraith pseudonym is revealed. It took the book 15 minutes to run from the bottom of the Amazon charts to the very top. That is the power of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

The Cuckoo’s Calling has since been much better received than her previous outing “The Casual Vacancy,” a book I thoroughly enjoyed but can understand not being accepted by all.

Cormoran Strike is a British war veteran who, having lost a limb in the Afghanistan war, has returned to his homeland to work as a private detective. He is the bastard son of a famous rockstar. He burns through secretaries faster than the cigarettes which never exit his lips and the latest addition, Robin, doesn’t seem like she’ll last. He is down to one customer and even lower on funds. Creditors are knocking on his door and he doesn’t think he’ll last that long in the profession of his choice. Until his door is knocked by John Bristow, the brother of Lula Landry, a supermodel who jumped to her death on a cold January night three months prior to the events of the book.

Bristow is convinced his sister’s death wasn’t a suicide. He is alone in thinking as such. Many think his pursuit is that of a bereaved man who can’t seem to let go, including Strike whose only reason to take on the case is the money in it. What he will find, however, is a world of dysfunctional families like his own, celebrities, models, designers, film producers, paparazzi and tabloids, the likes of which he had never seen before.

The Cuckoo’s Calling – J.K. Rowling or not – is a great book in itself and a return to basics for the author. She is here doing what she has proven she does best: work with a mystery, compose a plot that works flawlessly and build on characters that are engrossing in their insecurities, flaws, pursuits and aspirations.

The detective work is excellently mapped. Each witness leads to the next in a systematic way that keeps the flow of the logic with which Cormoran Strike is working intact. The book’s spine is decent, running at 469 pages. But it never feels redundant. On the contrary, it moves at a breakneck pace despite it dwelling on all the different theories, alternative explanations and scenarios of the detective work at hand. This proves to work – simply because Rowling has this capacity to get you invested in the pages she has set forth.

The theme of the book – celebrities and fame – aptly summarized with quotes from infamous books preceding each of the book’s five parts, is not exactly new. However, Rowling’s take on an issue which she knows very well is witty and is considered social comedy at times, especially with her intelligent use of different speech methods to convey how different characters behave, giving each of them – especially the ones you are led to believe are shallow – depth.

I hope the revelation that Galbraith is indeed Rowling means we’ll see more novels of Cormoran Strike. Because underneath the detective work, the cut-throat aspect of many of the novel’s facets, lies a story – like Rowling’s earlier offerings – of characters, of blossoming friendships, growing trust, hardships, heartbreaks, of growth. I’ve read many detective novels. This is one of the better ones.

A

The Lebanese Fathers Who Hate Their Daughters

I didn’t believe when I was told she was getting a divorce.

The initial thought that crossed my mind, in sectarian Lebanon, was the how, given her sect. I then asked the why. They said her husband was beating her up. I would have never told. I knew her for a very long time. I knew her husband for considerably less but he never gave the impression of being a wife beater.

Or that could have been the reason why she liked wearing longer sleeves than usual during the times when long sleeves were intolerable.

What will happen to the children? I asked. Nobody knew. They said they might split custody. Others said their father didn’t have time to take care of them. In a few weeks since she took her decision, she became a single woman with children to support in a country that doesn’t accept cases like hers.

And I couldn’t have been prouder of her: standing up for herself, her body, her bruised arms, her children, their sanctity and all of their well-being.

I figured things could only get better for her now: she had family that should help her get back on her feet, she had the support needed to recuperate from months or maybe years of abuse, she had the strength to make herself whole again.

How wrong was I?

Her father was a man of ambition. He sought office many times. Sometimes through proxies whose campaigns he orchestrated, other times by running directly. His ambition surpassed the confines of the town in which he acted but he knew he wouldn’t get farther than that. He tried nonetheless, expanding his repertoire of friends to a growing list of much more influential men who gave him purpose, who gave him lists to drop in conversation, who gave him fake importance which he mistook as influence.

And her father beat her up as well.

He beat her up when he knew she was getting a divorce.

He beat her up when he knew she was going through with the divorce.

He beat her up when he knew she had custody of her children.

He beat her up when he asked her to stop the divorce and get the children back to their father and she refused. He beat her up so much that her ailing mother came to stand between them and was slammed across the floor, as she was withstanding for years, despite the chemo coursing through her veins and the cancer killing her insides.

He beat her up because he felt it gave him power, because he figured it would straighten her behavior.

She feared he’d beat her up if she visited her mother in the hospital. So she didn’t visit.

She feared he’d beat her up if she visited her mother to take care of her on the days her husband had her kids. So she’d wait in the car until he left before she’d sneak in.

She feared he’d beat her up if she did anything that he would think was out of the ordinary so she never did.

Her husband beating her up was something. Her father, on the other hand, was something else.

His abuse diffused to her siblings who mentally abused her as well. He rendered her a doormat on which they stepped every time the woes of life overburdened them. And she took all of it anyway.

Then, when it all became too much to bear, she decided to seek help. So she went to a lawyer. How can I sue both my father and my husband, she asked while clutching the medical reports detailing the abuse she was withstanding. The lawyer advised her not to. If you sued them, he said, the law will say there’s something wrong with you because they both beat you up.

There was nothing she could do. So she kept on taking it, hoping that one day things will get better.

That father is one of the Lebanese fathers who hate their daughters, who don’t deserve their daughters, their wives or any of the women of their lives. Those are the fathers who should stand by their daughters, forcibly weakened by society and by law, regardless of whether their daughters are in the wrong or the right, but not only fail to do so, they stand against their daughters forcing them to go down to where society put them. Those are the fathers who perpetuate the weakness that society has inflicted in our women.

I hope for a day when she wakes up and find the strength she has, despite it all, somehow rewarded. Until then, may her god be with her.