Il y a six mois

This morning I went back to Club 43, which was established in the 1960s as a not-for-profit secular association, for the so-called Résto Social. A free Friday lunch is served to dozens of elderly and disadvantaged people from different backgrounds who seem to have gone through a good lot of troubled times in their lives. Volunteers such as Madame Wafa (a lady remarkably looking like a less young version of Emmanuelle Béart) prepare and serve a decent meal and, above all, make these people feel that someone is taking care of them, even if only for a couple of hours per week. These elderly men and women were ready to fight among them to have an additional serving of kibbeh or to bring "home" an additional loaf of bread. Something somehow sometime has to be fixed in a society where people aged seventy brawl to get basic food.

According to guidelines that I've been adopting for a long time, I did not take pictures of these people. This is Jean, Bettina, Rana, Pamela, Madame Wafa and Imad having lunch after the guests had left.


I couldn't help observing how most of the volunteering ladies (not portrayed in this picture) were wearing a Pierre Gemayel memorial pin on their outfits. This matches with a huge display of memorial banners all around Gemmayzeh and might mean a surge of popularity for the Kata'ib party.
After an afternoon at the university and a good dinner at the Hamra branch of Kabab-Ji, I went to a dance-till-dawn upscale student party at the Royal Plaza Hotel.


I had been in the same place six months earlier, watching the explosions around the airport at the beginning of the July war. It was one the first times in my life that I felt really happy to listen ordinary club music among packs of pretentious silver spoon students. Life is back and war is over... for now.