We woke up this morning to gunfire but no, let me explain.
We woke up this morning to hear a strange random banging sound somewhere outside, and then we heard our hosts calling for us to come into the centre of the house. They are Syrian refugees and the noise was a like gunfire, they wanted us to get away from the windows and join them where they were gathered with their children. Outside there was smoke drifting across from the petrol station on the corner, and shootings at petrol stations have been reported often. Soon it stopped and conversations and traffic resumed, the children put on their shoes and headed off to school as normal. It was not gunfire it transpired it was a series of small electrical explosions lasting maybe 10 minutes. The cause was people who had interfered with the supply cabling and switchgear to try and steal electricity, using salt and water to short circuit the switches. This obviously carries a high risk of explosions and that is indeed what happened.
Thankfully it was not gunfire but I would not have been surprised if it was, this is Lebanon where the normal ways of living have become a luxury enjoyed only in dreams and movies. As one friend said ‘in the past they were living in paradise but didn’t know it’, now the new reality is shockingly different to the paradise that they thought would last forever.
I don’t need to say much more this story contains pointers to many issues about the situation, but above all it highlights how complex life is for humans on this precious world. We are all subject to many variables and our happiness is dependant on a lot of things in our environment and circumstances. When we try to simplify this story for whatever reason we reduce a wonderful beautiful multifaceted existence with many reasons to rejoice and be grateful to a smaller less iridescent existence, and raise up bitter ungrateful hearts full of complaints.
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