Thursday, August 03, 2006

That famous Lebanese humor

My colleague is from Beirut so every night we can go out with Lebanese and talk to them about the gossip on the streets. Tonight, we went out to a french restaurant that was fabulous. It's on the famous street where all the good all restaurants are - many are still open but have almost no customers. This is such a fabulous city - I hope that it survives this siege. The menu was limited but they still managed to have profiterole for dessert (decadent!)

One always hears about the 'world weary' cynicism of the Lebanese who have weathered these wars before. Boy they were telling some dark dark jokes tonight. Such as:
This famous Shia Muslim singer from Beirut (I can't remember her name, think Madonna) who went to the border and had sex with an Israeli soldier. She got pregnant and the head of Hezbollah said - HEY what do you think you are doing? She said "Making a hostage"!

Did you hear the real estate prices in (the part of town behind the suburbs bombed by the Israelis) has risen? They all have a sea view now.

Everyone was discussing the bombing that is supposed to start tonight. The Israeli Army sends text messages and voice mails to the areas they are planning to bomb warning everyone to leave. This freaks people out. It's almost like a form of psychological warfare. Leaflets were also dropped in the south of Beirut. I'm a little nervous about tonight but we have a plan in case things get bad. Her friends live very close so we can also go and hunker down there. They have all taken up playing poker - Texas Hold'em.

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