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Fishing boats
Blog: ginger beirut - 21 January 2012
I love the guy in the white vest and shorts. I bet he has a moustache. It was a lot warmer a couple of weeks ago when I took this shot. Looking at it now makes me shiver.
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A mezze just for me?
Blog: ginger beirut - 17 January 2012
I love having visitors here. It’s a wonderful thing to share Lebanon with them, especially when they are first-time visitors with so many surprises in store. Apart from helping them discover a fantastic new country, I also enjoy the whiff of a former home they bring with them. It has been over ten years since [...]
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Hard as nails
Blog: ginger beirut - 17 January 2012
We thought we were quite brave going up in the cable car to Harissa with a baby. This tin bucket looks scarier. These guys are just fearless. And here’s what they are working on. The modern church behind the monument-chapel is said to have been designed as a cross between a cedar and a Phoenician [...]
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Beirut in miniature
Blog: ginger beirut - 24 December 2011
As I write, half of Beirut is in the supermarket stocking up for the weekend. The experience will be hurried and crowded and reminiscent of this time last year and every big holiday before that, when the same shoppers swore, “Never again.” But there are a couple of variations on the theme, because there are [...]
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By the sea
Blog: ginger beirut - 14 December 2011
The cold bright weather has been fantastic for walks – like this wonderful coastal promenade near Solidere that my in-laws introduced us to. Just head north of the Beirut Souks across a bit of wasteland and some heaps of gravel, past the little guard hut with the guard feeding a cat, until you get to [...]
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Slatey stripy sky
Blog: ginger beirut - 25 November 2011
Looking over the port. A great day to wrap yourself in a blanket and watch the horizon.
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Weighing in on weight
Blog: ginger beirut - 19 November 2011
A fellow mummy blogger recently raised the prickly question of whether being told you’ve put on weight is a good or a bad thing in Lebanon. In my decidedly bump-shaped past 12 months I’ve certainly had my fair share of comments about weight gain, weight loss and a surprising number of stages in between. Yet [...]
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Nationwide Firewall?
Blog: ginger beirut - 14 November 2011
I just witnessed some funny behaviour on my Ogero Internet connection. Any website I hit would return a message saying that access was denied due to “policy” and invites me to contact Ogero for assistance. I called Ogero and they immediately acknowledged the problem and said they were working on fixing it. Fair enough. But [...]
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Goodbye summer
Blog: ginger beirut - 5 November 2011
Autumn moved in on the Levant with great aplomb last week. No hesitation, no second thoughts. Just gusty winds and earth-shaking thunderstorms. So I thought I’d take a moment to celebrate the tail end of the summer sun just a couple of weeks ago. Strictly speaking this was already autumn, but as it was warmer [...]
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Mundane luxuries
Blog: ginger beirut - 20 October 2011
And here’s the text of the piece the BBC aired in September, or you can listen here. There is an old saying here in the Middle East that a woman’s grave remains open for forty days after childbirth; so I guess now is a good time to reflect on my recent experience of the maternity [...]
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Public space and personal questions
Blog: ginger beirut - 19 October 2011
Here’s the text of the piece I had broadcast by the BBC back in May. You can also listen to it here. In a city like Beirut where road intersections are a free-for-all, it is only to be expected that any attempt to regulate public behaviour is regarded by locals with ambivalence. In a country [...]
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FOOC take 2
Blog: ginger beirut - 21 September 2011
Just heard from the BBC that my piece on the rapport the Lebanese have with luxury will be aired today, Thursday, at 11am (UK time) on Radio 4 as part of the programme From our Own Correspondent. It will also go out on the World Service several times. I’ll update with a direct link after [...]
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Lebanon in Paris
Blog: ginger beirut - 16 September 2011
Walking through the streets of Paris today everything felt just so… Parisian. I was trying to capture just what made it that way – the wide pavements, the tree-lined avenues, the way the café tables spill out onto the street maybe. But mostly the people. It had been a long time I hadn’t heard a [...]
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Eye balm at Barouk
Blog: ginger beirut - 9 September 2011
The oldest cedars in Lebanon are Arz el Rab, in the north near Bcharre and Wadi Qadisha, but Barouk has bigger forests, at about an hour from Beirut. It’s the perfect place to escape the summer heat of the capital and soothe the eyes after an overdose of concrete and construction. Cedars are particular in [...]
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Job opportunity
Blog: ginger beirut - 4 September 2011
Among the other projects that have been keeping me busy, there have been some developments in my work, which is why I’m now looking to recruit and train a press analyst. It’s a great opportunity, though I’m looking for excellent language skills, so get in touch if you think you fit the bill, send the [...]
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Back to blog
Blog: ginger beirut - 3 September 2011
You loyal readers out there will have realised that my year has been what you might call bump-shaped and, as a result, posting on Ginger Beirut has been rather bumpy too. However, I’m happy to say things are now levelling off and there’s plenty more commentary to come on that topic of which I never [...]
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Five things I learnt in a Lebanese hospital
Blog: ginger beirut - 2 September 2011
Hospital is a great place to go for a full-immersion linguistic experience. The Lebanese discuss literature in French and business in English, but for the murky ins and outs of corporeal function and dysfunction, only earthy, forthright Lebanese dialect really cuts the mustard, even at Hôtel Dieu de France. So if you’re serious about learning [...]
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Update from the Field: New Partners, Country-Specific Microfinance + Stories of a Kiva Fellowship
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 20 June 2011
Compiled by Kathrin Gerner, KF15, Togo This week, fellows located on three different continents were busy writing blogs to share their experiences. Learn what it takes to become a new Kiva partner in Ecuador, experience family-style microfinance in Lebanon, find out about a unique pig loan product in Indonesia, and get the inside scoop about being a Kiva fellow in Senegal.
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Micro-finance Family Style
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 14 June 2011
By Heba Gamal - KF15, Lebanon “It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” – Gibran Khalil Gibran, The Prophet Having grown up in Egypt, I know that family is an important part of daily life in the Middle East. So, when it came to my Kiva Fellowship – I knew that in [...]
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BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent
Blog: ginger beirut - 10 May 2011
I am delighted to share with you a short piece I wrote and recorded for the programme From Our Own Correspondent, which was broadcast on BBC World Service this morning. There are repeat broadcasts until Wednesday morning, depending on where you are in the world, and you can listen to it online here.
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Free ebook by 40 Lonely Planet bloggers
Blog: ginger beirut - 3 May 2011
It’s finally here: the very first project produced by an amazing group of travel bloggers, all featured by Lonely Planet. The eminent travel guide publisher has, over the past few years, been selecting certain bloggers to be featured on its web site. In 2010, I was invited to join this fortunate band, dubbed the BlogSherpas, [...]
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Now you see it…
Blog: ginger beirut - 30 April 2011
Over the past year I have often gazed at a lone house on the slopes of Achrafieh. It is only a lone house by a matter of a few meters, but the tufts of green undergrowth separate it out from the background of concrete colour blocks of flats which flank it. And while bright laundry [...]
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Social graces in Lebanon
Blog: ginger beirut - 17 April 2011
As a newcomer in a foreign culture, the last thing you want is to make some major gaffe that shocks the social sensibilities of your host country. In France I soon learnt to keep my hands on the table rather than my lap at dinner and to wait for the hostess to start for each [...]
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Middle Eastern Oddities
Blog: Ottsworld - 14 April 2011
The big billboard ad looming over the highway read “Expect the unexpected” as a man in camouflage held a shiny rifle and smiled at the cars passing by below. I thought to myself – I hope this is advertising hunting, but quite frankly in the Middle East I’m not quite sure – anything goes! My [...]
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Travel to Lebanon
Blog: Ottsworld - 11 April 2011
With one month in Lebanon, you can cover a lot of ground. However I can’t say that I really traveled the country thoroughly and I certainly didn’t get to all of the traditional tourist sites. Instead I was too busy sinking into the culture of Lebanon. Thanks to my GeoVisions cultural exchange program who placed [...]
