My dad leaves on Saturday and I want to spend time with him before he leaves. The kids don’t have class today and Friday so I went up to the village today with my dad and cousin. Today, more than any other roadtrip we’ve taken so far, I’ve noticed how rampant child labor is in Lebanon. Well, not exactly child labor. But there are a ton of kids selling goldfish on the streets or cold water bottles or tissue boxes. They zig zag in between cars during traffic trying to make even the most mundane things appealing to some drivers. It’s sad to see that but it’s even more difficult to see kids who are simply beggars. I saw most of them in Saida, the big city south of Beirut.
So here I am at my grandparents’ house. We just came back from a miniroad trip with my cousins. They were showing me some of the villages in the South. It’s unbelievable how different one can be from another. Shaqra is a bustling village, the same exact size as Majdal Selm, but it sits lower in the mountains and seems to have a lot more people. That’s because, my cousin explained, it has a lot of more expatriates, mostly in Kuwait. They all come back all at the same time during the summer. The town looks like Kuwait threw up all over it. From the car, I could tell who was a regular and who was a Kuwaiti expatriate—from makeup, dress, talk, hairstyles, etc. It’s interesting to just sit back and observe a crazy mixed-up Lebanese culture.
Mariam and I are planning on staying up all night to watch the sunrise. I’ve been feeling very dizzy the last few days. Probably from heat exhaustion or dehydration. Oops.
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