We’re in lockdown here in Lebanon. The borders are closed now (well, sort of — the land border is porous). Only hospitals, pharmacies, bakeries, and supermarkets are allowed to be open now. How beauty parlors were allowed to escape this list of essential goods and services I do not know. Doctors and dentists have been instructed to limit themselves to emergency procedures. Weddings, condolence gatherings, and funerals are forbidden to host more than ten people. So much for the demonstrations of the “revolution”! Churches and mosques are not holding services. Buses and vans are idled. Last Saturday the police dispersed crowds gathered on the Cornice enjoying the lovely weather and are now issuing tickets with substantial fines for businesses not complying with the closures. ( I expect a little baksheesh would go a long way in making the ticket go away.) When I went to the supermarket today they took my temperature and gave me disposable gloves.
This is usually a noisy city at all hours of the day and night. Now there is neither noise nor traffic, just the call to prayer and the occasional siren and church bell. Sounds are coming from farther away now that the din has been silenced. Initially I had a hard time adjusting to this quiet because when I heard sirens or church bells I wondered if there had been a catastrophe but now I know these sounds have been there all along, drowned out by the others. On Monday, when the driver I had employed drove down a one-way street the wrong way – as they often do in a display of hypermasculinity – I did not protest. We both knew it was safe. The nights are darker now as fancy buildings are vacant, the wealthy having packed up children and servants and departed for their “villas” in the countryside. Even Hamra, the main street of my neighborhood, is devoid of people. The beggars have not found it worth their while to sit there now.
This being Lebanon, where everyone is a conspiracy theorist – a tendency I take to be PTSD from the civil war – there is anxiety over the official case count – currently at 206 with four deaths out of a population of about 6 million, including refugees. Why, the thinking goes, is there such hysteria over these numbers? We’ve survived war and invasion with greater aplomb. What aren’t they telling us?
I used to laugh at my Lebanese friends for their dark musings about governments and other earthly powers. Now I’ve come to respect their Calvinistic view of human nature, their conviction of the innate depravity of humankind. Fifteen years of civil war will reveal such hideousness to even the densest optimist. If you have been following the news, it appears that fudging the case count is exactly the problem with the news coming from Iran. The mathematical brainiacs have postulated that the number of cases in Iran is larger by several orders of magnitude than reported officially. Could this be the case here?
And of course, there is the usual conspiracy theory that America is behind the epidemic. I think that the Lebanese need to feel there is order to the universe and someone, however malign, is actually in charge. The thought that bad things happen somewhat randomly is just too terrifying.
We are technically in a state of general medical mobilization, and not the state of emergency that many citizens and media outlets are calling for. The latter status means the army takes control of the country. The newly formed government, with heavy Hezbollah influence, is still very fragile and understandably does not wish to cede control, especially it would shift power into the hands of Hezbollah’s partners in government, the Maronites who dominate the brass.
The first case of corona in Lebanon was announced a month ago today, a person returning from Qom, the holy city in Iran. I was amazed at the swift response this initial case produced here and the immediate recourse to alcohol, gloves, and masks. I asked why this instant frenzy and people said it because they know they are alone in handling crises, that there is no real government and what exists is deeply in debt. Even before corona the hospitals were having trouble obtaining medicines, thanks to that other cluster of crises, the economic one. There is talk that the slowness of the government to close the borders, or at least refuse flights from Iran where so many of the initial cases came from, reflects Hezbollah’s close ties with that country. Everything is so partisan here.
Today is Mothers Day here as it is in much of the rest of the world. There is much handwringing that the store closures mean that they can’t give mom flowers, treat her to a restaurant, or buy her a gift. This is a very social society and the idea of people sitting alone is simply abhorrent. “At least”, as they say, “we used to be able to visit one another for comfort during the war.” Now grandparents can’t even visit their grandchildren.
Still, the Lebanese have managed to summon their wry humor for the occasion. They express the hope that the corona virus will do the work of the revolution and get rid of the political class, although, they add: “if the virus comes to the politicians it will just get corrupted and not do its job.” Then there is: “We are bored of corona! Bring on the meteors!” A friend told me she saw a large rat near a woman on the street (the street cats here are too well fed to be useful) and the woman’s response was: “Now this?”
My classes went online two weeks ago and because the internet is so poor here we can’t use the video component of Zoom. I did a little bit of stocking up of foodstuffs with long shelf life. With the borders closed and dollars scarce, I wonder if the pasta aisle will get replenished anytime soon. Fortunately, Lebanon is a breadbasket. It also produces paper products. I have not seen the kind of buying frenzies at the food stores that are being reported from the U.S. – this may reflect a lack of purchasing power here. One thing I have bought in abundance is water bottles, the tap water being undrinkable. A friend told me her water delivery man told her he might not be able to bring water next week, suggesting to me that there will be further restrictions of movement here.
I am mostly in my apartment now, its lovely view no longer including the graceful and reassuring sight of airplanes coming in to land. I leave only for my physical therapy sessions at the American University Hospital, food shopping, and the occasional walk with a friend. How I miss my evenings spent in the bars and restaurants of Makdisi Street with my friends! My companionable walks on the Corniche with a friend who is also trying to lose weight!
I am trying to content myself with knitting while watching YouTube videos on historical topics or listening to books on tape. I study my Arabic. I read. I correspond. It’s lonely, really. And I worry about my family in New York. I wish I knew how long this period is going to last. I wish I felt confident that it will all be okay here in Lebanon after the virus is gone.
goingfortheguttural 