Archive | Culture

Lebanon Nature Reserves Are Open For Free This Sunday

Minister of Environment Fadi Jreissati announced earlier this week that Lebanon’s nature reserves will be open for free to the public on Sunday March 10th for the occation of the National Day for Nature reserves.

Access to the nature reserves isn’t much anyway, as I recall paying around 5,000L.L when I went to Arz El Shouf few years ago, but the announcement comes as a reminder for us all to actually go and learn about the value of these reserve with all the biological diversity they encompass.

Here’s a list of the available nature reserves in Lebanon from Wikipedia and new other sources:

  • Ehden Forest
  • Nakheel Islands
  • Cedars of Tannourine Forest
  • Chnaneer
  • Arz Jaj
  • Bentael natural reserve.
  • Al Yammouna
  • Arz El Chouf
  • Tyre coast
  • Houjeir Valley
  • Karm Shobat
  • Nature reserves of Ramiyah, Kafra, Beit Leef and Dibil.

Photos via lebanontraveler.com

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8 Radio Stations Will Pay Tribute To Gavin Ford With A Special Show This Week

To all those who loved the late Gavin Ford and tune to his morning show on Radio One, you will will definitely find solace in listening a tribute show for him that will air on the 7th of December between 9AM and 10AM on 8 Lebanese radio stations (Radio One, Virgin Radio, Mix FM, NRJ, Light FM, Nostalgie, Fame FM and Power FM).

There is no doubt Gavin was a quite loved media personality and his show Gavin Ford In The Morning left a mark in the industry, that’s why he certainly deserves this gesture by the participating radio stations.

The pre-recorded show will be produced by Dan Harper and Olga Habre and is going to be available on YouYube afterwards. If you have a memory to share about Gavin or a special recording from one of his radio programs, you email it to Dan on dan@danharper.co.uk so they can try to include your contribution.

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Will Lycée Abdel Kader Simply Disappear?

Lycée Abdel Kader, one of the most reputable schools in Beirut that was established over 100 years ago and a prominent landmark in Beirut, is now at risk of simply disappearing without leaving a trace.

How it all started

To those who are out of the loop of what is happening with the school, here’s a brief summary:

In 1985, Hariri Foundation bought the school and managed along with the Agence pour l’Enseignement Français à l’Étranger (AEFE) and the Mission Laïque Française (MLF). And until 2005, the school AND the land it is built on were effectively under the control of the late PM Rafic Hariri so there was no need to worry about rent.

After his assassination, his wealth was eventually split among his children, and Lycée Abdel Kader’s land ended up going to his girl Hind while his wife Nazik was controlling the Hariri Foundation. So basically Hind got a piece of land that in unable to generate any profit in its current situation, and it turned out she had big plans in mind. That’s why a couple of years ago it was confirmed that she wants to start a project in it and asked the school to seek another location.

No one exactly knows what’s coming next for the school, some claim she aims to build a new mall there even though the area is so crowded already, and others say it will turn into residential towers. Keep in mind that the school has a very old castle within its premises, and no one also knows if it will be preserved or not.

The alternatives

Lycée Abdel Kader is one of several institution that shaped the identity of Beirut, that’s why the suggestions to move it outside the city were rejected by all stakeholders. On the other hand, Beirut has no big spaces left to accommodate a school as large as LAK with all the facilities they need.

Due to that, people in charge thought of renting one of the Makassed schools buildings in Beirut since some of them are currently vacant and big enough for their needs, but they were faced by the Makassed Alumni who refused to have the identity of their old school changed.

This is where things started getting problematic for the Hariri Foundation, and with very little options left they apparently discussed renting the Antonine school campus in Baabda which caused a big fuss yesterday.

One possible alternative now is to completely shut down the school in case they fail to find a place to relocate the school to. And I can’t imagine how it will be like for the students and their parents.

What can be done

It is good that people are starting to express their outrage at the thought of having the school shut down or relocated, and some politicians on twitter are doing the same, but it is not enough. The Eden Bay resort was built in Ramlet El Bayda despite all the legal actions that were taken against it and the movements that people organized in the street. That project was much more controversial since it was built on a seaside that is supposed to be a public space, but it still managed to see the light! So keyboard warriors on twitter will definitely not be able to change the fate of Lycée Abdel Kader.

On the other hand, what should be done is to channel all the energy and effort into establishing pressure groups to force the Municipality of Beirut to buy the land instead in order to keep the school in its place. It might sound like a long-shot but still worth a try.

Otherwise, I personally think that the only practical and affordable solution is for people in Makassed to accept hosting Lycée Abdel Kader because it would be a win-win situation. Makassed have many vacant buildings and are currently going through a financial crisis, so I don’t see a reason for not accepting to rent some of their properties.

What I am afraid will happen

We got used to the government failing us every single day. In order to brighten their image, the ministry of culture issued a statement today denying granting any permit to demolish the school buildings, but we all know that real estate developers can do whatever they please as long as they’re backed by our khara kleib awesome politicians.

I also really wouldn’t be surprised if the Hariri Foundation turned out to be just buying time in order to later tell their students they are out of options and they must search for another school. I know this comparison is unfair, but can you imagine the same happening to institutions like the AUB or USJ for example?

We all acknowledge Hind Hariri has all the right to do whatever she likes with her private property, but the school burned itself into the collective memory of Beirut, and what’s happening will not only affect the current students but also the whole city. If she is insisting on proceeding with her deal, then I hope someone comes up with a solution to preserve the land and the rights of all parties.

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AUB Sets a Guinness World Record By Creating The Largest Mosaic Flag

A group of students at the American University of Beirut set a Guinness world record in a project called “Share the Flag” by creating the largest notebook mosaic flag made of 60,000 notebook that were placed in the green field.

The event took place few days ago on May 9th and it took them around 24 hours to make it possible. Moreover, as a tribute to the Lebanese Army, the son of martyr Colonel Danny Harb (Rayan Harb), completed the Lebanese flag by placing the last red notebook.

The best part about the whole thing though was donating all of the notebooks that were used to create the Lebanese flag to a large number of public schools in Lebanon. It may sound insignificant to some but needful families will definitely appreciate any contribution to their kids education no matter how small it is.

Check out this time-lapse video showing how they did it.

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La Nuit des Musées 2018 is Taking Place This Saturday

The Ministry of Culture is organizing the 5th edition of La Nuit des Musées which will take place this Saturday April 14th. This year, 13 museums around Lebanon will be open for free to the public starting 5:00PM until late at night.

Free shuttles will be available at LibanPark parking in Mathaf area for people from Beirut who wish to visit the museums in the north and south, but reservations are mandatory through Virgin Ticketing box office to secure your place.

I highly recommend you use public transportation to visit the participating museums in Beirut by the way because it tends to get very crowded around them on this day.

Here’s the list of the participating museums:

MUSÉE NATIONAL DE BEYROUTH
de 17h00 à 23h00
“Mathaf”, rue de Damas

MIM, MUSÉE DES MINÉRAUX
de 17h00 à 23h00
Campus de l’innovation et du sport, Université Saint-Joseph

MUSÉE DE PRÉHISTOIRE LIBANAISE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ SAINT-JOSEPH
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue de l’Université Saint-Joseph, quartier Monnot

VILLA AUDI
de 17h00 à 23h00
Rue St Nicolas, Achrafieh

MUSÉE NICOLAS IBRAHIM SURSOCK
de 17h00 à 00h00
Rue St Nicolas, Achrafieh

MUSÉE ARCHÉOLOGIQUE DE L’AUB
de 17h00 à 22h00
Université américaine de Beyrouth, Ras Beyrouth

MUSÉE DE LA BANQUE DU LIBAN
de 17h00 à 23h00
Locaux de la Banque du Liban, Sanayeh

SENTIER CULTUREL À SAÏDA
MUSÉE DU SAVON
PALAIS DEBANNÉ
KHAN SACY
KHAN EL-IFRANJ
KASR OLA
de 17h00 à 23h00

MUSÉE DU CATHOLICOSSAT DE CILICIE
de 17h00 à 23h00
Antélias

MUSÉE DES ORPHÉLINS DU GÉNOCIDE ARMÉMIEN “ARAM BEZIKIAN”
de 17h00 à 23h00
Jbeil

MACAM – MUSÉE D’ART MODERNE ET CONTEMPORAIN
de 17h00 à 23h00
Alita, Jbeil

MUSÉE ETHNOGRAPHIQUE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE BALAMAND
de 17h00 à 22h00
Koura

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Wissam Kamal is Preparing a Stand-Up Comedy Show for The Deaf

It’s always good to see someone putting effort and energy to help people with disabilities, and this is what Wissam Kamal is in his own way trying to do to make deaf people feel less left out when it comes to stand-up comedy shows.

Eight years ago, and in one of his very early shows, Wissam noticed a deaf girl laughing to his jokes by either reading his lips or when her friends where explaining them to her in sign language. So he made it a point to learn the language, which he has been doing for 8 years now, in order to use it to prepare a full show for deaf people and he is now few steps away from making this dream project come true and possibly going international with it since sign language can to some extent be understood everywhere.

With such hard work to make the show possible, Wissam is being such an inspiration and I really hope we get to see his performance the soonest.

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Geography Now – Lebanon’s Episode is Out!

Geography Now is a pretty well known channel on Youtube by vlogger Paul Barbato and it discusses the world’s geography, politics, and culture one country at a time. Paul simply goes through the world countries in alphabetical order and his channel is quite popular because he delivers good information in a fun way within reasonable time (usually 10-15 minutes).

Yesterday was finally the turn for Lebanon to be the subject of his latest episode and I think he did a nice job portraying our country. He even mentioned some stuff that I’ve never heard about before such as the Striped Hyena being our national animal. (Who knew?!)

You can watch the episode below.

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Moussa Maamari of Moussa Castle Dies at 87

Moussa Maamari, the man who singlehandedly built the castle of his dreams known as Moussa Castle, passed away yesterday at 87 years of age.

Moussa Castle, located on a hill between Deir El Kamar and Beiteddine, had its first parts built and open to the public in 1967 but was only officially complete when the final part was done few year ago in 2012. The story behind the castle is both funny and inspiring since Moussa Maamari built it with his own hands just because he was mocked by his teacher at school for drawing a castle plan and by the girl he had crush on for expressing his feeling toward her.

At 14 years old in 1945, Maamari  (originally Syrian) left his school and came all the way from Tartous to Saida to work with his uncle who was involved in renovating the city’s caste. And after several years of hard work between several jobs, he saved enough money to get married and buy a plot of land to build the castle of his dreams between 1962 and 1967.

The best part of the whole thing is that he insisted to show what he did to the girl who mocked him when he was young, so he kep searching for her over the years until he managed to make her visit the castle in 2009, and he made sure to make her get into it through the smallest door in order for her to kneel before him.

The castle is currently one of the main attractions in the Chouf area and is of course accessible to the public, with several museums inside housing a large collection of weapons and artifacts showing the life of Lebanese people in the past.

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Bsharri Soon To Be Home of The Tallest Jesus Statue in The World

According to this article yesterday in Al-Joumhouria, a 58 meters tall statue of Jesus Christ will soon be unveiled in Bsharri by Lebanese sculptor Rudy Rahme and it will be the tallest in the world. The current tallest statue of Jesus is “Christ the King” which resides in a town called Świebodzin in western Poland and is 33 meters tall.

I’m personally not a fan of putting efforts and energy to break world records as I believe they don’t add much to the country… Still, I hope this statue helps attract more tourists and people to northern Lebanon. Bsharri for example has a very nice biographical museum for Gibran Khalil Gibran and it is alone enough reason to visit the village.

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100 Years of Dibs El Kharroub

I usually frequently search Vimeo for Lebanese content but for some reason totally missed this 4 minutes documentary by Nay Aoun about a family that has been making Dibs El Kharroub (Carob Molasses) for over a hundred years now at a village called Ksaibeh in Mount Lebanon!

Fadwa, 80 years old now, was taught how to make molasses by her father and has been practicing the tradition since she was 15. Against her father’s will, she also used to sneak during the night to a guy called Menhem to teach him the correct recipe because he never got it right in his little workshop back then. The two eventually ended up getting married and started working together.

The son George is currently taking over the tradition but is unfortunately having difficulty convincing his children to do the same now.

If it wasn’t for the video I honestly wouldn’t have known making molasses was such a delicate process!

For those who are not familiar with it, Carob Molasses are mostly used in deserts recipes such as molasses cakes or it can simply be mixed with Tahini (Dibs w Tahini) and people usually have it with biscuits or bread. It is also an essential ingredient of Jallab the famous Ramadan drink.

Update:

I just noticed the video cannot be embedded due to its privacy settings so you can watch it on Vimeo here.

via /r/Lebanon

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