im leaving on friday. thats in like 4 days o:

Mohammed Al-Amin Mosque by sonofwalrus on Flickr.

that went by fast affffff

I love Beirut because...

Two women dressed up in men’s suits, c. 1920 (Marie al-Khazen)

#rawshe #Beirut #Lebanon (Taken with instagram)

#man #Jesus #statue #Lebanon (Taken with Instagram at ????? ?????)

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Don’t kill your language

Tyre, Lebanon

Location: Qadisha Valley, Lebanon

#beirutstreetart remixed w/ #lemecam #iphone4 #iphoneography #lebanon (Taken with Instagram at Sodeco Square)

Female Lebanese emcee Malikah.

#Israel invasion of #Lebanon in 1982. ???????? ?????????? ?????? ??? ????

I love Beirut because I see a girl in a mini skirt and her sister in a  Tchador.

I love Beirut because it is neither West nor East: it is both.

I love Beirut because you can party till 6 in the morning and not realize that it is Tuesday.

I love Beirut because in Beirut you can live as if you are going to die tomorrow and party as if you are going to live forever.

I love Beirut because I have never seen the sun this strong anywhere in the world.

I love Beirut because I can see 6,000 years of history.

I love Beirut because every Beiruti has a political opinion and will share it with you

I love Beirut for all the conspiracy theories and how many people actually  believe them.

I love Beirut because any night I can find a friend to go out with.

I love Beirut because I do not need to call my friends to go and see at home, I just stop by.

I love Beirut because as soon as I arrive at one of my friends’ houses their moms take me to the kitchen & introduce me to everything in the fridge.

I love Beirut because one can smell gardenia and jasmine.

I love Beirut because strawberries taste like strawberries & fruits taste like fruits.

I love Beirut because the food is so good that you end up gaining even as you’re trying to lose .

I love Beirut because Lebanese women are the most elegant women I have ever seen.

I love Beirut because everyone knows my name. (a la cheers)

I love Beirut because I don’t have to explain myself.

I love Beirut because of the traffic jams and the people you meet because of them.

I love Beirut because of the noise pollution from cars honking.

I love Beirut for the spirituality of the people whether Muslim or  Christian.

I love Beirut because I’m the first to call my Muslim friends on Ramadan and they are the first to call me on Easter.

I love Beirut because on May 1st I see Muslims visiting Harissa (statue of  the Virgin Mary ) just like I see Christians.

I love Beirut because on the 22nd of every month I see Muslims going to St. Charbel and believing that a miracle will happen.

I love Beirut because women look like they’ve just stepped off the pages of  Vogue.

I love Beirut because you eat to live and live to eat.

I love Beirut because you leave one cafe to go to another and can do this all day.

I love Beirut because all the Lebanese living outside want to come back and the Lebanese who are in Lebanon envy the ones who are living abroad.

I love Beirut because a girl or a guy can easily tell you I just had a couple of Lexo or Xanax as if they just had some gum.

I love Beirut because for every Lebanese we have a singer.

I love Beirut because the Lebanese star singers sing in nightclubs.

I love Beirut because women go into the swimming pool with full make up on.

I love Beirut because guys go in with their cigars.

I love Beirut because it has been destroyed 7 times in History and has risen.

I love Beirut because since 1975 the Beirutis have withstood the PLO, Syrians and the Israelis.

I love Beirut because the Beirutis will not accept anyone to occupy them and rule over them.

I love Beirut because we feel that it is better to die on our feet than to  live on our knees.

I love Beirut because each street is a two way street even if it’s officially one-way.

I love Beirut because one can park anywhere and not get a ticket.

I love Beirut because one can go as fast as his speedometer allows.

I love Beirut because MEA lands there.

I love Beirut because on MEA we can clap in unison when we are about to  land.

I love Beirut not because it is my city, but because it is everyone’s city.

I love Beirut because it welcomes every exiled freethinker,independent mind of the Arab world.

I love Beirut because we have hundreds of newspapers and our press is free.

I love Beirut because when I explain Beirut to my Western friends, my friends see the passion of Beirut in my eyes.

I love Beirut because when I tell my friends that I’m going to Beirut they tell me can you take me with you.

I love Beirut because we argue over who is going to pay the bill at a  restaurant since everyone wants to pay it.

I love Beirut because although everyone complains about ‘not making enough money’ everyone is living.

I love Beirut because we accept our differences as we disagree with each other.

I love Beirut because it serves as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the Arab world.

I love Beirut because to paraphrase what Gibran said about Lebanon ’ Had Beirut not been my city I would have chosen it to be.’

I love Beirut because there is no city like it.

I love Beirut because even if Beirut is being destroyed, it is still beautiful and will remain beautiful no matter how disfigured it is.

I love Beirut because although we’ve been knocked down numerous times, we never loose hope…

I love Beirut for no reason.

I love Beirut for all the reasons of the world.

Photo

You’ll see it.

It pains me that this is actually in Lebanon…

You have your Lebanon and its dilemma.  I have my Lebanon and its beauty.

Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East.

My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.

You have your Lebanon and its people.  I have my Lebanon and its people.

Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they are as ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea…. They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon.

Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, “When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born”?Who among them dare to say, “My life was a drop of blood in the veins of Lebanon, a tear in her eyes or a smile upon her lips”?

Those are the children of your Lebanon.  They are, in your estimation, great; but insignificant in my estimation.

Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.

They are farmers who would turn the fallow field into garden and grove.

They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.

They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.

They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin the silken yarn.

They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.

They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.

They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.

They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.

They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.

They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.

These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.

They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty, and truth.

What will remain of your Lebanon after a century?  Tell me!  Except bragging, lying and stupidity?  Do you expect the ages to keep in its memory the traces of deceit and cheating and hypocrisy?  Do you think the atmosphere will preserve in its pockets the shadows of death and the stench of graves?

Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a dress?  Verily, I say to you that an olive plant in the hills of Lebanon will outlast all of your deeds and your works; that the wooden plow pulled by the oxen in the crannies of Lebanon is nobler than your dreams and aspirations.

I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me, that the songs of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you.  I say to you that you are achieving nothing.  If you knew that you are accomplishing nothing, I would feel sorry for you, but you know it not.

You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.

- Gibran Khalil Gibran (c. 1920)

I miss my Lebanon.

Lebanon • juin 2011 by du bruit dans la tete on Flickr.