A Lebanese Welcome
2 Oct 2022 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wayfaringwordhack After a lovely--but strangely surreal*--trip to our home in France, we are back in Lebanon.
Before leaving France, Farmer Boy asked, "Is it going to stink in Lebanon?"**
"Probably," I replied.
And yes, before we even landed, I caught the distinctive stench of sewage that festers in the Beirut air next to airport, mainly, I have been told, because there is a slaughterhouse over there. But everything went smoothly at the airport, and our taxi was waiting for us as planned. We had him drop us off at J's work so that we could pick up our car and scooter, so we had to reload the baggage into our vehicle and drive the rest of the way home with our less-than-stellar headlights (<--this applies to both car and scooter). Despite the heat, the roads were wet going up the hill to our village. A bad sign. Sure enough, our first day back, we learned that all of our village was out of water and had to ration dishwashing, food-prep, showers, and toilet flushing accordingly. (Situation was fixed today, appaprently, after 4 days of no water. For the "no water" to have lasted 4 days means there was no incoming water for longer because our building is equipped with a 20,000L cistern.)
When we arrived home, there was no power,*** so we only took the necessary luggage up the 5 flights of stairs to our flat. Upon reaching our landing, the electricity came on, so J and I decided to bite the bullet and have done with unloading the car. Down we went in the now-mostly-functional lift. We loaded it with all the remaining bags, hit the button...and nothing. We unloaded a couple of bags and tried again. Nothing. We took all but two of the lighter bags out, and J tried again. Nothing. In the meantime, our natour (concierge's) light had come on, so J, with his rudimentary Arabic, went to ask him what the trouble was and if the natour could help. The natour said there was no problem and insisted J try again. J tried again, and surprise: Nothing happened.
To which the natour shrugged his shoulders, went back into his flat, and LOCKED the door (clouded glass door) in our faces.
O.O
That would never have happened in Egypt. There, the building supervisors would have volunteered to help carry up the bags and would have, of course, received a tip for doing so. I guess we have different expectations because of that, but from what I hear from all our friends here, their natours are friendly and helpful. This guy is new and is very lazy and unprofessional compared to the lady who had the job when we arrived. It is maybe only once a month that he cleans the stairs, and even then he does a lousy job. We always try to help him out and take down our garbage ourselves, but after his rudeness last night, that is one service we will no longer being doing for him.
The icing on the cake was that J had let the lift door shut while we debated what to do. And guess what? The lift locked itself, with 2 of our bags still inside. I started lugging stuff upstairs while J went to mess with the electrical switches that control the lift. Nothing worked, so he went back to the natour and made him understand that he needed to help. More switching levers insued until finally our bags were liberated. But the lift was still out of service.
And we had the nice surprise of discovering that our light bulb on our landing had been taken by our neighbors since theirs had apparently burned out in our absence. Argh. Not the sort of things you want to have to deal with at 5 a.m. after an overnight international flight that was preceeded by driving halfway across France.
All this feeds into our desire to find a new place. *sigh*. Our current landlord will be manifesting soon to collect his next three months of rent, so we are stuck here, I think, until December, unless we want to kiss our money goodbye.
In other news, it is heat, humidity, and pollution as usual, which is a bit ugh since we came from a nice start to cooler fall temperatures in France.
In more upbeat news, I am going to do Artober, having been reminded of the challenge bygreen_knight 's entry on that subject. I will draw something or someone from life every day for the month of October. This entry is already long, so I won't share any sketches now. Maybe I'll do a daily post, or if life gets away from me, a weekly one. Anyone else joining the fun?
_______________
* In all our overseas living, we've never gone back to our own place for holidays. It was a very bittersweet experience, finding home and garden, getting everything back into shape, all the while knowing we would have to leave it only two weeks later. But it was excellent to potter around my garden again and tend my plants. :) I might do a post with some pics of our place so that I can revisit it in memory.
** When we got off the plane in Lyon, the kids inhaled and simultaneously exclaimed, "It smells like France."
*** There seems to be a new schedule for the power-cuts, which we have yet to pin down.
Before leaving France, Farmer Boy asked, "Is it going to stink in Lebanon?"**
"Probably," I replied.
And yes, before we even landed, I caught the distinctive stench of sewage that festers in the Beirut air next to airport, mainly, I have been told, because there is a slaughterhouse over there. But everything went smoothly at the airport, and our taxi was waiting for us as planned. We had him drop us off at J's work so that we could pick up our car and scooter, so we had to reload the baggage into our vehicle and drive the rest of the way home with our less-than-stellar headlights (<--this applies to both car and scooter). Despite the heat, the roads were wet going up the hill to our village. A bad sign. Sure enough, our first day back, we learned that all of our village was out of water and had to ration dishwashing, food-prep, showers, and toilet flushing accordingly. (Situation was fixed today, appaprently, after 4 days of no water. For the "no water" to have lasted 4 days means there was no incoming water for longer because our building is equipped with a 20,000L cistern.)
When we arrived home, there was no power,*** so we only took the necessary luggage up the 5 flights of stairs to our flat. Upon reaching our landing, the electricity came on, so J and I decided to bite the bullet and have done with unloading the car. Down we went in the now-mostly-functional lift. We loaded it with all the remaining bags, hit the button...and nothing. We unloaded a couple of bags and tried again. Nothing. We took all but two of the lighter bags out, and J tried again. Nothing. In the meantime, our natour (concierge's) light had come on, so J, with his rudimentary Arabic, went to ask him what the trouble was and if the natour could help. The natour said there was no problem and insisted J try again. J tried again, and surprise: Nothing happened.
To which the natour shrugged his shoulders, went back into his flat, and LOCKED the door (clouded glass door) in our faces.
O.O
That would never have happened in Egypt. There, the building supervisors would have volunteered to help carry up the bags and would have, of course, received a tip for doing so. I guess we have different expectations because of that, but from what I hear from all our friends here, their natours are friendly and helpful. This guy is new and is very lazy and unprofessional compared to the lady who had the job when we arrived. It is maybe only once a month that he cleans the stairs, and even then he does a lousy job. We always try to help him out and take down our garbage ourselves, but after his rudeness last night, that is one service we will no longer being doing for him.
The icing on the cake was that J had let the lift door shut while we debated what to do. And guess what? The lift locked itself, with 2 of our bags still inside. I started lugging stuff upstairs while J went to mess with the electrical switches that control the lift. Nothing worked, so he went back to the natour and made him understand that he needed to help. More switching levers insued until finally our bags were liberated. But the lift was still out of service.
And we had the nice surprise of discovering that our light bulb on our landing had been taken by our neighbors since theirs had apparently burned out in our absence. Argh. Not the sort of things you want to have to deal with at 5 a.m. after an overnight international flight that was preceeded by driving halfway across France.
All this feeds into our desire to find a new place. *sigh*. Our current landlord will be manifesting soon to collect his next three months of rent, so we are stuck here, I think, until December, unless we want to kiss our money goodbye.
In other news, it is heat, humidity, and pollution as usual, which is a bit ugh since we came from a nice start to cooler fall temperatures in France.
In more upbeat news, I am going to do Artober, having been reminded of the challenge by
green_knight 's entry on that subject. I will draw something or someone from life every day for the month of October. This entry is already long, so I won't share any sketches now. Maybe I'll do a daily post, or if life gets away from me, a weekly one. Anyone else joining the fun?_______________
* In all our overseas living, we've never gone back to our own place for holidays. It was a very bittersweet experience, finding home and garden, getting everything back into shape, all the while knowing we would have to leave it only two weeks later. But it was excellent to potter around my garden again and tend my plants. :) I might do a post with some pics of our place so that I can revisit it in memory.
** When we got off the plane in Lyon, the kids inhaled and simultaneously exclaimed, "It smells like France."
*** There seems to be a new schedule for the power-cuts, which we have yet to pin down.
no subject
Date: 3 Oct 2022 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Oct 2022 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Oct 2022 02:36 pm (UTC)Your dual senses of (1) equilibrium and (2) humour seem to be intact, so you get high props from me.
no subject
Date: 3 Oct 2022 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Oct 2022 02:51 pm (UTC)Here's hoping the housing hunt yields a good place soon. And I look forward to your Artober posts!
no subject
Date: 3 Oct 2022 06:53 pm (UTC)