Dog Days

I don't really know what the phrase "Dog Days of Summer" is supposed to mean, but whatever it means, I think we're in it. Although the website we check for the forecast is always several degrees lower than the temperatures given in the newspapers here, beginning August 17, for example, the recorded highs in Fahrenheit on it have been 95, 99, 99, 95, 88, 88, 90, 88, 93, 99, 97, 100 and 97. In Celsius, that's 35, 37, 37, 35, 31, 31, 32, 31, 34, 37, 36, 38 and 36. Today it's supposed to be 94/34. Next week the forecast calls for highs in Fahrenheit of 93, 93, 95, 101, 101, and 99. Or, in Celsius, 33, 33, 35, 38, 38, 37 and 36. What I'm trying to say is, August has been hot.

It's been tough for the cat too.

Some Days Are Like This

A few days ago we were walking not far from our apartment when an empty Coke can landed on the street behind us, having been flung from the rooftop of the building at our side. Several months earlier a rock thrown from the same rooftop had also just missed us, so I shot into the building and ran full speed up the stairs, ready to catch the perpetrators before they could flee to the safety their homes. When I arrived at the top I could hear several voices behind the door to the roof, fumbling for keys and excitedly whispering, "hurry, hurry, hurry!" I thought they were on their way out, so I didn't open the door. Instead, though, they locked the door to prevent me from coming onto the roof. So, silently, I waited.

After just a couple minutes, the keys grew active again, the lock clicked, and I readied myself just inches from the door--for full theatrical effect--to startle whoever was behind it when they came out. And when they did come out, they were indeed startled. However, I was startled too, for walking through the door with a young boy and young girl was a woman wearing shorts and a t-shirt--an outfit she would never wear on the street--who appeared to be their mother. "Don't come in! Don't come in!" she said, jumping back behind the door. She may have been a little frightened at seeing a strange man standing there, especially considering the state of her somewhat scandalous attire in front of a man she didn't know.

"I don't want to come in," I said, "but I want to know why a Coke can just came from this roof and nearly hit us on the street" (I couldn't remember the word for "throw"). She played dumb at first, insisting she had no idea what I was talking about. Then, after I persisted, she said that yes, the can had originated from the rooftop, but it was an accident that it had almost hit us. I brought up that this was the second time something originating from that roof had landed near us on the street, with the first projectile being a rock. "Really?" she said, looking surprised while glancing at her son. "Yes, really," I replied. "I wouldn't be so upset if this wasn't now the second time."

She eventually left the safety of the roof and with her children we began walking down the stairs. She apologized for the flying Coke can. She also said such an incident wouldn't happen again. Both apology and promise, though, came without any admittance of guilt on the part of any of the rooftop pranksters. I wasn't entirely satisfied with this, but I decided it was all I was going to get, so I left.

A couple hours later we were at home waiting for a new mattress to be delivered. We had agreed on a price beforehand and paid half at the shop, so when it came we just had to pay the other half, plus the 5 dinar delivery fee we had also agreed on. Things are never this easy here, though, and when it came and it was time to pay the rest, the delivery charge had suddenly jumped to 20. Now, relatively speaking an extra 15 dinars is not a huge sum of money, but a prior accord had been reached, so 5dinars is what I was going to pay.

"I'm not going to pay 20," I said. "We made an agreement."
"But I came from far away," said the driver, who was probably in his late teens or early 20's and was not present when the deal was made.

We continued with these basic arguments for some time in broken record fashion until the driver asked to call Ali, the man at the shop with whom we had made the aforementioned agreement. So, I called Ali's cell phone. No answer. I called it again. No answer. The driver then called the office land line. No answer. He tried it again. No answer. I tried Ali's cell several more times, with still no answer. The driver called the office several more times, until finally someone answered. He gave the phone to me. Ali was not there, though; he had gone home for the day. And after I started explaining the issue to the person who was there, I mysteriously lost the connection. When I called back, there was no answer. Another try, and no answer. It appeared the office would be no help in sorting out the issue.

After some seconds of confusion, the driver and I shared our main arguments a few more times. Then, after several awkward seconds of silence, I finally decided it was over. We had an agreement, and five dinars was all he was getting. I felt bad, since he was not involved in the original bargaining process and could very well have sincerely been expecting 20. This is difficult to gauge, though. It isn't always easy here to tell who is being a cheat and who isn't, so I went with what I had expected from the beginning. Begrudgingly, the driver took his 5 dinars and left.

A few hours after this I left the house to run an errand. By the time I finished it was late in the evening, and I went to a busy section of road to wait for a taxi to take me home. When I got one, though, the driver didn't turn on his meter, even though it is against the law not to. This is not unusual, and many times when this happens I tell the driver politely not to "forget" abut the meter. Sometimes they turn it on, sometimes they don't, sometimes they claim it is broken. This time, though, I let it go, since I travelled the route often and knew basically what the fare would be.

Unfortunately, when we reached our destination and I asked the driver how much he wanted, the price he quoted was at least twice what it would have read on the meter. So, a confrontation ensued yet again. The distance was short, I said, and I wasn't going to pay so much. "And why didn't you turn on your meter?" I asked. He argued back, angry that I was refusing to pay his price and telling me why I should. These arguments can go on for a while, but at this point in the day, after the previous events that had occurred, I was tired. So, I just put the money I owed--the real price, not the fake--on the passenger seat and walked away, not saying another word. Some days are like this here, but on this day, I had had enough.

The View from Our Apartment

Every time we look out the front windows of our apartment our eyes are inevitably drawn to this garbage bin, which sits directly in front of our building. Often it is overrun with wild cats, occasionally it is the source of stale smelling black smoke when a certain neighbor boy sets fire to its contents and almost always it is overflowing with trash. One time I even witnessed our next door neighbor fling a bag of trash from his third floor balcony in the direction of the bin in lieu of actually walking down and placing the trash in the bin. He missed.

On this particular day, however, it seemed to be overflowing with more trash than usual, so I took a picture. It was water day in our neighborhood, so probably while everyone was busy sweeping and mopping their apartments, they were also throwing out a lot of accumulated trash, not all of which made it into the bin. If you look closely, in and around the bin you can see at least three of the aforementioned cats, an old chair, a pile of brush and a stream of water which is either run-off from someones cleaning or unfortunate overflow from the tanks on our roofs. Enjoy the view.

Why Not Non-Violence?

Several posts ago I described discussing at a conference I attended in Lebanon how dispossession was the root cause of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and not Islam, as others may think. I also mentioned in that post my general support for the Palestinian cause. As I alluded to, though, I have serious problems with the way Palestinians fight for their cause, which was discussed at this same conference in sessions about peacemaking.

During the conference there were two joint sessions with representatives from the Muslim community in Beirut, and both times the question of peacemaking in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was raised. I went straight to the point in the first session, asking one of the Muslim representatives this question: "Why has there been no large scale movement of non-violence in the Palestinian community against Israel, such as the movements of Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States and Gandhi in India? I believe such a movement would bring Palestinians the desired results more quickly." My question was serious and sincere, and in the absence of a serious movement of non-violence in the 60 years of bloodletting since the creation of the state of Israel, I really hoped for some thoughtful reflections on this topic. Who knows, maybe there were perfectly good reasons for the lack of such a movement. The answer I received, though, disappointed me, as the gist of the response was this: Israel has attacked the Palestinians, so the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. That was it. End of story, next question. No reflective consideration as to the merits or effectiveness of non-violence was given. Just a brush off.

The second joint session was held a few days later at an Islamic center in a Shi'ite neighborhood that was heavily bombed by Israel in their 2006 war with Hezbollah. The imam of the center discussed Palestinian resistance to Israel, but his consideration of non-violence was also disappointing, as it basically mirrored that of the previous session: Israel has attacked the Palestinians, so the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. He even compared the use of violence on an enemy to the use of chemotherapy on cancer. Although both chemotherapy and violence cause all sorts of unwanted, undesirable side-affects, he said, they can also bring about positive results.

Now, I wasn't necessarily expecting any of the representatives there to side with non-violence and/or call on Palestinians to begin a non-violent movement. I'm also not saying their responses--basic statements on the right to self-defense--were anything out of the ordinary, or different from what most people in this world would have said or believe. After all, pacifists or adherents of non-violence are a minority in this world, and more than likely you are not one of their number.

As I said, though, their responses were still extremely disappointing to me. However, they were disappointing not so much because I didn't like or agree with them, but more so because so little thought went into them. I believe there is a place for non-violence, but in each case the question of non-violence was swiftly whisked aside and instead violence was defended, without even the tiniest reflection as to whether non-violence had any merit at all, or whether the more acceptable violent tactics were even working to better the lives of Palestinians or helping them to reach their goals. I mean, as I alluded to in my question from the first session, non-violent tactics worked for Gandhi against the British and for Martin Luther King, Jr. against the American government. Meanwhile, the Palestinians have been fighting the State of Israel with bombs and guns now for 60 years and their situation has only gotten worse. Again, I believe the cause is just, but how long will it be before new methods are used to fight for this cause, and how long will it be before non-violence gets a serious look, and not just reflexive rejections?

Taste the Reconciliation

Just before we went to Lebanon at the end of June about 18 months of struggle between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government--followed by a couple weeks of violent fighting in the streets of Beirut--ended. What brought an end to this struggle were talks initiated by Prince Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani of Qatar, which were held in the capital of Qatar, Doha. The work of Qatar and the prince to help bring an end to the deadlock was not lost on the Lebanese people, and we saw signs all around Beirut thanking them for their involvement. Below are two of them.

This one says, "We all say thank you Qatar."

Even Haagen-Dazs got in on the act with a new marketing campaign, offering the "Doha Agreement Cone." It was tempting, if only to have the opportunity to say "I'll have the Doha Agreement Cone please," but we just took the picture instead. Tasting the reconciliation required spending more money than we were willing for ice cream.