Category Archives: Random

The Lebanese Help: An Ethiopian Maid Beaten Up In Front of her Embassy

After initiating a new section on this blog called The Lebanese Help, the details of which you can check out here, LBC has procured a video of an Ethiopian maid being beaten up in front of her embassy by a Lebanese man.

I won’t comment on the content of the video. I’ll just leave you to judge.

The whole anti-racism movement in Lebanon is so weak it grasps at straws, even if it’s a harmless comedy skit. We also tend to get up in a fit the moment something like this video surfaces. We never see the maids as people who are coming here because they really have to, not because they want to.

We think with our $150 we can own them. We think with the miserable salary we give them, we can silence them.

But the maids have a story. And I will tell it. Those who will read them, good on you. Those who don’t, you’ll find company in darkness.

The Lebanese Help

As I was sitting with some family members who were visiting my mother after a recent surgery, the issue of the “help” in Lebanon came up.

I sat and listened as the “grown-ups” spoke about the maids that entered their homes and left. One of my family members, however, had never had a maid. With her turning 40 and an increasing backache, she was considering the idea – especially with one being available at her disposal the moment she says yes to her sister’s offer.

But that woman was worried. The cause of her anxiety? She only had one bathroom at her house and God forbid the maid uses the same bathroom she uses.

I snapped.

I never thought the passages present in the book, The Help, would actually pop up in such dramatic fashion in a Lebanese society. I never thought for a moment the bathroom issue was actually an issue in Lebanon. Aren’t those maids cleaning the bathroom to begin with? Aren’t we, in 2012, at a level of culture and knowledge that is sufficient to know that, unlike popular belief, those maids are not bringing in with them a ton of foreign viruses the like of which Lebanon has never seen before?

I replied to my family member. I was strict and somewhat rude in my reply. I think she was offended but I didn’t care. I knew Lebanese society was racist but you never think it goes on in your family until it actually takes place in front of you.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Flash forward a few days later, I was having dinner with a couple of friends my age. And if you thought the older generation, with its minimal contact early in life with “the help,” may be justified somewhat in the racist ideas that swirl through their heads, then what “excuse” could you come up with when a twenty two year old agrees with my 40 year old family member about the bathroom issue? The justification given was: but they are “dirty.”

And it is then that the need for a Lebanese version of The Help became obvious to me. Many people had spoken about how that book, and movie, were very relevant to our society today. Most of those people had thought about that only fleetingly, for the few moments after having finished the book or the movie. Some had even blogged about its relevance

But then I thought, why not have an online version of The Help, adopted to Lebanese society, that tells stories of the maids that come to our homes, before something bad happens to them and their story becomes top news and activists get outraged at the injustice in our society when it comes to “the help.”

If you have your own maid story you want to share, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll start with telling the story of one of the maids that came into our home really soon.

Winter in Lebanon: Real Pictures from the March 2012 Blizzard

The recent storm to hit Lebanon has been said to be the strongest in over a decade. And according to satellite images of the country, I think it shows.

The picture is from the previous blizzard. A newer one from the most recent snowstorm has yet to arise. But it should be even more impressive.

Pictures from the other snowstorm can be seen here.

And with this turning into more or less a series of posts where I expose a side of Lebanon that many do not get to see, I figured I’d continue with it and collect pictures from friends of their hometowns during the storm. The pictures range from towns in the North such as my own, Ebrine, to my grandma’s hometown, Dar B3eshtar, to Baskinta, Achkout, Aley and even Sidon.

I tried to encompass scenes from all over the country and with the recent Wall Street Journal article about Lebanon’s Mountain Trail, I figured it’d be appropriate to post this today. Some of the pictures going around are FAKE. These are totally real. So without further ado, we begin.

My hometown:

The picture was taken at the beginning of the storm. We were not lucky enough to have snow accumulations. No idea why.

Douk, a village in the Batroun Caza. These pictures were taken by my friend Agnès. You can follow her on Twitter here:

This picture was taken by a friend of Bazbina, her village in Akkar:

And these are pictures taken by my friend Hanna in my grandmother’s hometown in Koura, Dar Baachtar:

The statue of Ishtar, at the entrance of the village.

This is a picture of Kobayat, taken by Rita Zreiby:

Beit Chlela, in the Batroun Caza:

The Cedars:

The Cedars – as photographed by the Daily Star

Moving on from the North, we reach Mount Lebanon. And these are pictures of Achkout, taken by my friend Roland of his hometown:

These are pictures of Aley, taken by my friend Howaida:

Hammana:

Baysour:

The village of Jeij in the Jbeil Caza:

The village of Baskinta had its pictures taken by Marie Karam, a frequent reader of my blog who decided to share the pictures with me for inclusion in this post:

The village of Bater, in the Chouf caza. They haven’t had snow since January 2008. Pictures provided by my friend Maggie:

And last but not least, to conclude Mount Lebanon, a picture from Bekfaya via BlogBaladi for the statue of Pierre Gemayel:

Moving on to the Bekaa, I figured it would best to have that are represented by Zahle via two pictures taken by professional photographer Clement Tannouri. Both are absolutely breathtaking if you ask me.

Other pictures of Zahle, taken after permission from the Lebanon Weather Facebook page:

And the most impressive picture from the South was the one taken by The Daily Star for snow at the beach in Sidon:

Spring is coming up in just 17 days. Get ready for a new series of Spring in Lebanon – that is unless I come up with material for one last Winter in Lebanon post to wrap up 2012’s winter with. This winter has been quite awesome, hasn’t it?

Good Luck Lebanon!

Update: For those asking how to watch the game online, you can use the LBC live stream link. Or this link in case LBC’s bandwidth dies.

Lebanon is playing the UAE today in a very crucial game on its way to qualify to the 2014 World Cup, to be held in Brazil.

After a surprising and very exciting win against South Korea last November, Lebanese football has gained great momentum with people and officials. You only need to look at any Lebanese’s Facebook timeline to see how enthusiastic everyone is about this game.

Lebanon needs to draw or win against UAE to advance to the next and final round where we’ll have to play eight extra games over the course of 2012 and 2013 in order to qualify. For a full analysis regarding the situation, check out this link.

As it stands, the ranking of all four teams in group B is as follows:

Wikipedia has everything

Even if we lose and Kuwait doesn’t win, we’d still advance. I’m not sure if we have an upper hand in any of our games. Don’t call me unpatriotic but I don’t want to be foolishly optimistic.

Either way, the Lebanese national football team has proven itself to be the little team that could. Hopefully its recent streak of victories will get sponsors to notice it more and start to splurge in giving it the proper equipment and training it needs to shine more than it is currently doing.

Good luck Lebanon. Let’s kick some Emirati as*!


Samsung Street Challenge: Galaxy Note vs iPhone – Big Failure!

It looks like Samsung isn’t bored of taking on Apple’s users with its ads. The latest is a street challenge where they got an iPhone user with a Galaxy Note user and asked them to perform three different tasks with the phone.

Needless to say, the Galaxy Note performed all three. The iPhone? None.

Let’s get a few things straight.

1) There’s a simple app to crop someone’s face on the iPhone.

2) The maps app actually allows you to draw trajectories. It’ even automated. You don’t have to hold a stylus to draw a road.

3) Keynote, anyone?

The only thing this “ad” does is expose the iPhone user as pretty much clueless. Not only does she have absolutely no freaking idea what to do with her phone, I don’t think she should be owning a smartphone in the first place.

Either way, if your idea of an awesome phone is a brick against your ear, then fine by me. But these ads that insult a viewer’s intelligence need to stop. Oh and did Samsung forgot to get the memo that styluses are not “in” anymore with modern day technology?