Monthly Archive

Yesterday Beirut was almost empty. I cam back from church at around 8 30 pm and very few cars were on the road and certainly no people along the sideways. Of course we knew the reason: precautions and security knowing that the International Court Session was going to take place in some hours.

An interesting search but not so joyful one you can see at: http://www.visionofhumanity.com/rankings/

Click on the link and see where we stand in the list of countries regarding peace!

Meanwhile in here life continues. Today as it’s Thursday the drawing class talks and draws about peace with their teacher Teressa.

Saturday we were not able to go along with the Spring Fair but we did cook for 100 elderly. You can see what the dish was: the famous Lebanese “Kibbé biseniyyé, yogurt with cucumber and garlic, bread, fruit and biscuits.

I mean, we keep busy

Yesterday, Pentecost, I attended the mass at the Basilique of Harissa where lots of people were gathered to celebrate eucharist. Msgr. Luigi Gatti, Archbishop of Santa Giusta and Nuncio in Lebanon celebrated. He gave a sermon (French) in which he stated that “everyone fears, but we should not isolate ourselves with our fears”. These are indeed wise words now, in a Lebanon that yesterday night again was shocked by an explosion…

After mass, while going up the pathway out, the Nuncio kindly greeted children standing beside the aisle to say hello. This was a real nice gesture towards the kids. In here it’s not so evident that pastors and bishops find it important to greet children. Not just only church men but ordinary grown ups do usually not really greet kids when greeting their parents.

This is a picture, just click on it: harissa1

In Arabic, means “ENOUGH” . It’s the name of a NGO against violence and exploitation against women, it’s also a name given to girls. But this is not what I want to talk about.

KAFA unsecurity in this country..I overheard a child’s conversation with his mom: Mommy, is it safe to play outside today or not? The child is 10.
KAFA innocent victims…
KAFA  fighting, hurting and destroying of properties people work for their whole lives.
KAFA destroying the  co-existence of people who lived together for years without problems and now start observing one another.

KAFA….feel free to add…

A third bombing in four nights struck Lebanon yesterday night at 9 PM as a blast wounded  at least seven people in the mountain town of Aley, about 15 kilometers east of Beirut. According to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., the device went off just 100 meters from the local serail, which houses government offices, courts and the Internal Security Forces. I heard the blast. It’s strange that ones ears are getting trained=used to hearing such noises though other noises may be around such as TV, kids, cars passing by…Immediately I knew and zapped to the LBC channel and after a while I heard the bad news.

Fighting between the Lebanese Army and Islamic extremists intensified in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp outside Tripoli on Monday, with the death toll in two days of clashes rising to at least 79. Heavy black smoke hung in the air as the army reinforced positions around the camp and rolled in heavier equipment. Daily Star

Then a bit later a new explosion at Verdun, in which - thank God- nobody was killed. Are these explosions becoming our daily bread? People already are leaving the country.

The violence that broke out Sunday in the North has further battered Lebanon’s reeling tourism sector, although industry insiders held out hope that some visitors might yet arrive this summer if the unrest is quickly snuffed out. Airlines and hotels reported a minimum of canceled bookings on Monday.

But we should not give up…

The big event we were planning to have on Saturday May 26, was postponed but NOT canceled. We hope to have it as soon as possible!

What do you say about the following story?
Legal limbo makes complaints difficult to address, and runaways are frequently accused of criminal acts
By Lysandra Ohrstrom
Daily Star staff
Monday, May 21, 2007

BEIRUT: Sableh had worked as a maid in a middle-income Lebanese household for one year when she stopped receiving her monthly salary of $100. After a few months without pay, the 24-year-old began asking her employers for the money she was owed. “I said to Mr. and Madame, ‘Please give me my money. My parents in Ethiopia are old, they need money, and there is no work in my country,’” Sableh recounted in broken English interlaced with Arabic. “They said, ‘tomorrow, after tomorrow, next month when our brother comes from America, we are short on money right now.’”

She continued her work, she said, but every time she asked about her wages there was a new excuse, another increasingly heated argument with the male head of the household, and her family in Ethiopia grew more worried about their daughter’s safety.”I called my mama and baba and they said, ‘Why are you in Lebanon when there is no money? Work in Lebanon for money or come home,” she recalled. Though her employers did not have a phone in the house, and Sableh was rarely allowed outside without their supervision, she was able to call the recruitment agency that brought her to Lebanon and the Ethiopian Consulate to lodge complaints. Both made numerous phone calls to her male employer, she said, but he began to block their calls when he recognized their numbers. After having continued to carry out her duties for more than a year without pay, one day Sableh refused to clean the house. When her employer returned from work to find things exactly as he had left them that morning and the maid firmly planted in a chair, he screamed, demanding that she clean up. “I told him: ‘If you don’t pay me, I won’t work. Khallas.’”

When he could not force her to budge, Sableh said, he sent his wife and two children out of the home, closed the door, and punched her in the face. The blow sent her 45-kilogram frame to the floor, where he continued to pummel her. The next morning while the family was still asleep, Sableh escaped - like most “runaways,” without her passport or work permit - just a few months before her three-year contract was set to expire. She moved into a one-room apartment with her sister - who also works for a Lebanese family in Jounieh - in Bourj al-Barajneh, and laid low while the Internal Security Forces (ISF) searched for her in response to allegations of theft from her former employers.
Like many other female domestic workers who were able to escape abusive or neglectful employers during last summer’s conflict, the July-2006 war was an opportunity for Sableh. The ISF temporarily diverted its attention away from illegal foreign laborers, released migrants detained in Adlieh without proper permits, and granted Asian workers amnesties allowing them to leave the country without their passports - and for the most part without the salaries they were owed - at their government’s expense.

Following the mass exodus of much of Lebanon’s migrant labor force, demand for workers, domestic and otherwise, was high. Sableh is now “happily” employed at a household in Ouzai, where her new “madame” convinced the previous employers to drop the charges of theft. The family is now negotiating, via the recruitment agency - which has been noticeably more active mediating the current dispute between Sableh’s employers than it had been protecting her from abuse - to retrieve her passport, and sponsor Sableh’s new work permit. They have so far resisted the abusive employer’s extortions of money in exchange for Sableh’s passport, considering such a transaction too much like “paying for another human being.” Obtaining new documents for Sableh to live and work legally in Lebanon will cost between $3,000 and $4,000, a price tag the family does not think it is in a position to pay. So like countless other female migrant laborers in Lebanon, Sableh has found herself in legal limbo, not recognized or protected as a worker under the law and subject to detention by the ISF as a criminal. Aside from a few non-governmental organizations and charities, there are no organizations to protect the interests of Sableh and people in similar situations.

At least 41 people were killed yesterday in a fierce battle in the streets of  Tripoli between the Lebanese Army and members of an extreme Islamist group, in the deadliest clashes involving the army since the Civil War.

On Sunday a small, seemingly marginal group of Islamist militants in North Lebanon demonstrated just how precarious the security situation is in this country. A rag-tag band of gunmen belonging to Fatah al-Islam resisted the authority of security forces who had come to arrest them, sparking off a series of deadly clashes. Daily Star May 21.

Then, at night just before midnight an explosion in Achrafieh. I jumped up because I heard it very well, but first thought it was thunder. Only this morning I knew it was another catastrophy.

Where will this lead us? Summer is approaching, people need to relax after last year’s experience.  Right now when coming down from Harissa to Beirut, there was almost no traffic. People are worried and frightened.

Last Saturday we went on a trip with the kids of Ayadina. We explored the  interesting Dino city and then played and ate together. It’s a huge responsibility and I’ m always happy when we’re back safe and sound. Most of the kids do not go on outings and even the ones who do, were very much attracted by the Dino city, a new initiative in here.

Last night the NGO’s working together in the neighborhood gathered and received the certificates for their Rapid Participatory Appraisal executed last year from World Vision. We would have wanted to meet earlier but, having finished at the end of June, the July war destroyed more than one plan and so we postponed it till now. It was good to see one another back and share experiences. Of course the most important issue is what happens now in the area after the assessment???