After a year of hard labour, Mitchell “graduated” the other day. Not that this really means much, as he stays in the same year at pre-school next year too. But he and his colleagues did look very cute in their trencher hats and they had lots of fun singing their graduation songs.
The week earlier, Daddy got to spend a few hours at school with all the other daddies, to mark Fathers’ Day. Normally this is a painful affair with chaotic activities and parents pushing their kids in front of others and a frenzy for cake at the end. But this year the pre-school was a bit better organised and I almost survived the proceedings with my sanity intact!
Mitchell enjoyed playing games with his mate Alex, who sadly leaves pre-school this year for primary school (in Lebanon this starts at 3-4yo). He especially enjoyed painting on the wall, and even managed to avoid wearing too much of the paint!
We’ve posted before about Mitchell’s first attempts at photoblogging here and here. I was just uploading some photos from the digi and discovered a bunch of pics that none of us were aware he’d taken. Turns out last Friday he was roaming the flat with the camera, cataloguing some of his toys and furnishings.
Better be a bit more cautious wandering about in the nude - who knows when you might get snapped!
It was bound to happen, and at least for the time being it’s done in jest. Yep, Mitchell and his school chums have learnt that it can be fun to say rude words.
Their favourite phrase is “kaka tastoos”, which pretty much translates as “pooey bum” in Arabic. This of course is being said deliberately, so not like a toddler who merely echoes what a parent might say when confronted by a nappy blow-out for example. Mitchell gets great delight running up to an adult, shouting “kaka tastoos” and then running off giggling hysterically.
We’re naturally torn in terms of how to respond. To ignore or to chastise?
At least that’s all he’s saying for now. There’s plenty worse things that you can say in Arabic which might result in a blood feud or worse. I mean, all he’s got to do is add “oomak” to the end and then it’s game on. (”kaka tastoos oomak” would translate as “your mother’s pooey bum”. Never a good idea to insult an Arab’s mother if you want to walk away in one piece…)
You might recall that a little while back Christopher and I visited Aanjar, the principal surviving ruins of the Umayyad civilisation in Lebanon. Well here’s another look, this time taken from the air.
We took Mitchell to the pool this morning for a bit of a paddle. As an Aussie who’s a pretty good swimmer, I feel it’s my duty to ensure Mitchie learns to swim at a young age. Water safety is vital, and swimming is so much a part of the Australian way of life that even if we’re in Lebanon I think he should be a bit of a water baby.
Unfortunately however I’ve yet to come across a decent swimming instructor here, so have been teaching him myself as a stop-gap measure (with the assistance of some online teach-the-teacher videos). We go to the pool occasionally, but not as often as I’d like so Mitchell is perhaps not quite as confident in the water as some Aussie kids his age.
Last time we went for a swim he had no dramas putting his head under water without sucking in a lung-full of chlorine, and didn’t cling to me for dear life. Developing the confidence to put his mouth under water has been a bit of a key stage I think.
Today however it was like the little guy was channeling Ian Thorpe. He initially clung to daddy as we did a few laps and practiced kicking at the pool’s edge. Then we popped his swimming vest on and had another go. He’s generally not been that fond of the vest, as it’s getting a bit tight on his fat tummy. But we made him wear it and what a difference it made to his confidence.
With the vest giving him a bit of extra bouyancy he was happy to hang on to a kickboard and kick away without any support from me. (There was another kid in the pool and Mitchell was trying to run him down with the board…). He then tried letting go of the kickboard, and found that with some vigorous kicking and a bit of a dog paddle he could not only tread water, but was able to swim about the pool! Naturally I hovered next to him throughout. We were so stoked that Mitchie’s made this step, and he was sure loving it!
I’m very mindful that he doesn’t get a false sense of confidence near water, and will make sure he also spends time in the water without the vest. One of the best features of this vest is that you can gradually remove the foam inserts so that it becomes progressively less bouyant. Hopefully I’ll be able to get him treading water on his own in no time.
Sadly though there’s no photos - like most pools this one forbids photography, so you’ll have to accept my prose instead!
The Atlantic magazine has an interesting examination of the Lebanese obsession with unripe fruit - one of the more unusual aspects of visiting the green grocer here. You can get absolutely fantastic strawberries, cherries and apricots (”mish mish” in Arabic) when they’re in season, but some of the other fruits like lowz are just plain weird…
At long last, today’s the day. We’ve had months and months of electioneering by the political parties. We’ve had even more time spent by the Interior Ministry planning Lebanon’s first ever national elections to be held on just one day. The security planning has been meticulous, as has the traffic management.
What a relief that this day has come. Soon it will all be behind us, so that we can get on with the next drama!
Watching the elections has been really interesting as an outsider. The process is amazingly complicated, and would take a whole year of blogs to explain fully (assuming I understand it all, which is not likely). There are so many little quirks to the Lebanese system which you don’t really see anywhere else.
Take the ballot papers for example. Lebanon doesn’t have pre-printed ballot papers. Officially, a voter is supposed to go to the ballot box with a blank sheet of paper on which they write the names of the candidates they’re supporting. In practice, voters are handed little pre-printed ballots by the different parties as they go in, usually with no room to make any changes. According to some of the election monitoring NGOs, these ballots are often printed with a certain colour or font depending upon the family voting - making it easy for a party to work out afterwards if your family voted for them or not (so that they can then either reward or punish you). Here are a few ballots that I picked up today:
So it has been fun to watch the goings on here in Achrafieh, which as the core of Beirut 1 district, is one of the most hotly contested.
This morning I took a wander up to Sassine Square, the heart of Achrafieh. This was clearly one of the identified flashpoints: around the six-road junction there were just as many armoured personnel carriers, together with around 80 special forces soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces. Cars cruised past in every direction with huge Lebanese Forces (Geagea), Kataeb (Gemayel) or Free Patriotic Movement (Aoun) flags on display, the drivers honking out the signature tunes for their chosen political party. Basically it felt like I was outside a major football match. Everyone in the area behaved like fervent supporters, energetic but otherwise calm.
All of the posters above are around Sassine Square. All of these groups are part of the March 14 alliance. Before anyone accuses me of being pro-March 14, can I just point out that this part of Achrafieh is predominantly March 14. On the other hand, my own part of Achrafieh, heading towards downtown, is much more pro-Aoun (of the March 8 alliance) - an example being these posters, which are outside the Aounie electorate office next door to my apartment building.
Anyway, here’s a little bit of video I took this morning of the boys in khaki at work. Not very exciting, but some local colour for you.
Update: the Aounie office next door has taken over the adjacent carpark and has a bank of concert speakers set up blaring out motivational Lebanese music. Presumably the FPM supporters will congregate here in the hope that Interior Minister Baroud announces the outcome soon. Could be a long and loud night for us…
