Hurricane Irene: A Country At War

As I type this many of my friends are without power, internet, running water, and a whole slew of amenities that come with electricity. Some of my friends even had their homes completely destroyed and will never be able to go back to the way life used to be. I hope this blog post finds them well.

Just about a week ago one of my eldest cousins, Yazane (Yez-AAn), moved from Beirut, Lebanon to Cambridge, MA to obtain his Masters in Urban Planning from Harvard. He was in orientation when hurricane Irene hit. Two days after the hurricane, I called Yazane to say hello and to see how well he faired during the hurricane. He said he was well and that, “he was still waiting for the hurricane to hit.” Haha, obviously it wasn’t that bad.

I mentioned to my cousin about the lack of electricity and how we would be without power for about a week and how so many homes had been destroyed. You know what my cousin said to me. He said, “well, at least you’re not at war.”

Holy shit! What do you say to that that? What the hell was I supposed to say to him?

This is what most of the buildings look like after war.



I think a lot of people felt like we were at war with Mother Nature.



My cousin’s wife, Lama (Lem-aa), once told me about how she watched the apartment building she grew up in, get blown up during the war. The apartment building was leveled.

When I called my dad to tell him about how we were without electricity, he said well, “we’ve been without consistent electricity for 30 years.” What the hell was I supposed to say to that?

While I will always argue that Lebanon is one of these most beautiful places on earth, it has been hit really hard by war. Buildings are still destroyed and the electricity is never predictable. I have been stuck in an elevator, jolted on escalators and taken plenty of cold showers in the dark.

But reconstruction, is ever present in Lebanon.



Just as it is and will be in the wake of hurricane Irene.



There is no FEMA, Connecticut Light & Power and certainly no government to help put Lebanon back together, yet they continue to rebuild.



Just like we will rebuild after Irene.



Maybe we’re a lot more similar to the Middle East than we think.



Hurricane Irene photos courtesy of CTPost.com

Earthqakes and News Breaks

My promise to blog every few days before I leave was interrupted by my adorable one year old niece Madeline. She fell off the bed and bumped her tiny little head. A late night in the hospital, prompted my brother and his wife to ask me to babysit early this morning, so instead of blogging, I went to sleep and took care of my beautiful niece bright and early.

Here is the little ham sleeping in her cow print car seat. She was obviously tuckered out as well.

With that said can we talk about the overreaction to the earthquake.

Yesterday, I received an absolutely frantic call from my dad (my dad lives in Lebanon). My dad’s friend called him to tell him about the earthquake and my dad called me in a panic. My dad was genuinely worried about my well being. Now, my dad is not a funny or light-hearted person so I took the opportunity to screw with him. I told him that the pictures fell off the wall, the china cabinet had fallen over and the house was in utter disrepair. My dad flipped out and started screaming, “OMG, is your brother okay? How’s the baby? He’s not answering his phone. OMG is he okay?!?!”

You can imagine that my laughter caught him off guard. I informed my dad that I thought the washing machine was broken as opposed to an earthquake and I was sure my brother thought that my niece’s little farts probably just shook the room. If you know my dad at all, he was so pissed off at me for joking because he was led to believe that an earthquake had devastated the East Coast.

This is a little lesson in how news travels. This is not the first time news has been distorted from one country to the next. I promised I would tell you about my past trips to Lebanon and this is the perfect opportunity. While visiting my dad in Lebanon this past January, the government collapsed. Hezbollah forced a slew of ministers to resign from the cabinet in an effort to protest the United Nations ruling on the 2005 death of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. (Rafik Hariri spent millions and millions of his own $$ trying to rebuild Lebanon. My dad worked for Rafik Hariri in the 80’s. And for my HOBY friends, the Hariri Foundation sends a HOBY ambassador to WLC every year). A UN tribunal found both Hezbollah and Syria to blame for the death of Hariri yet Hezbollah denied any involvement and said the tribunal was an Israeli-American tool of hate. Blah, blah, blah. Whoever is to blame is not up to me to decide or even care about. What I do care about though was the sheer panic the American news media made about the collapse of the Lebanese government.

I read article after article stating that there had been “riots in the streets of Beirut,” and frequently about how “the unstable government was going to disrupt life in Lebanon and the country would fall apart.” Listen, I was in Beirut when the government fell. I had to read American news to hear about any riots. I was eating birthday cake when the government collapsed. And I consulted my aunt the head of the physics department at Universite Libanese (The Lebanese University) about life was going to be different after the collapse of the government. She said this, “the government changes often. Life will not be any different. We just know the government will not take care of us so we take care of ourselves.”

However the people of Lebanon feel about the collapse of the government may change from person to person but I felt the overall mentality was that “we are going to be okay, just like we always are.” It is interesting how news can become so twisted so quickly. Will you believe what you hear the first time or will you challenge yourself to hear many different views and form your own opinion?

This Actually Happened

Today, I was going to blog about my dad, introduce him to you, tell you all about his life and why he moved back to Lebanon but…the most ridiculous thing happened to me at the bar this weekend and I had to tell you.

As you may or may not know, about a month ago I decided to move back to my hometown of Fairfield. I have been seemingly absent for the past six years, only appearing in public when necessary (yes, like our high school reunion). Now that I have moved home I have tried to embrace all that comes with being back in town. Mainly, running into old friends and having the dreaded conversation; the one where the person tells you about their job and fluffs up what they do to make themselves sound important and then they ask what you do.

Like any other normal Friday night I went out to the bar with a group of friends from college fully knowing that I was going to have to have this conversation with at least seven people. But unlike any other Friday night, I had am extremely unusual conversation that went something like this:

Me: “Hey, how are you? I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Fill in the blank, dude I haven’t seen in at least five years, who didn’t come to the reunion I planned and who I don’t think I’m friends with on Facebook: “OMG, I’ve been great. I’m working at XYZ Company doing _________ (business, marketing, accounting, saving the world from evil wrong doers, whatever, etc. etc.) How are you doing? What are you up to these days?”

Me: “Oh, I’m great. I just moved back into town and I’m going overseas to Lebanon for the next two months to blog about the Middle East. You know, dispel rumors and help introduce people to the real Middle East.”

Random dude from high school: “Lebanon! Oh my god, my parents are from Israel, they hate Lebanese people. I should probably hate you right now.”

Me: “What, okay? My dad is from Lebanon, he’s probably not a big fan of Israel either.”

Random dude: “Well if I’m supposed to hate you and you’re supposed to hate me, let’s have hate sex.”

Me: “Holy shit, I have got to go.”
(I proceeded to find my friends and leave)

I didn’t know hate sex was a resolution for peace in the Middle East.


NOTE*** This conversation actually happened.

Why blog? Why now?

Let me introduce my blog: Farah’s Allocution

For those of you who would have to look up the word allocution, I will give you the basic definition.

According to Wikipedia (the site where I get most of my information) “generally, to allocute in law means "to speak out formally." In the field of apologetics, allocution is generally done in defense of a belief. In politics, one may allocute before a legislative body in an effort to influence their position on an issue.”

My goal is to tell stories and anecdotes from my own life to help challenge what you think about the world.

In a little less than three weeks I am going to Lebanon for two months. I will be living with my dad, working for my aunt and traveling throughout the country discovering new people and new places. I will be blogging daily throughout my trip in an effort to introduce people to the Middle East.

I have spent countless hours reading false stories about the Middle East and all the “terrorists” who live there. Because we all know that "every Middle Eastern person is a suicide bombing terrorist (this is sarcasm)."

My hope in the next few weeks is to give you a better introduction to who I am, where I come from, where I am going and why I am on a mission to dispel rumors about Middle Easterners.

My inspiration: Forgive me if I told you a different version of this story, I was scared to be honest but now I have nothing to lose.

Four weeks ago I, Farah Chanel, was offered a job with the Arthritis Foundation. My background check was clear (minus a speeding ticket) and my credit was okay (minus the bagillion dollars I owe in student loans) btw who doesn’t owe $$ on student loans. As we got along the process, all my references were checked and I was reassured and validated that this was going to be the perfect job for me.

Ten days into the process, I received a phone call from the recruiter at the Arthritis Foundation saying my job offer was rescinded because of my last name. For those of you who don’t know, my last name is Hage-Sleiman, not Chanel. Since I find I am discriminated against when I use my real last name, I gave them my real last name when I was told there would be a background check. You can reference a similar example at this link.

Briefly, the study focuses on the how much name discrimination actually exist. The study has been duplicated numerous times. With the knowledge that name discrimination does exist I opted to leave out my last name on my most recent job applications. Causing, what I believe, to be an influx of call backs for interviews.

Whether you believe leaving my name off an application was right or wrong is not the question. When I received the call that the job offer had been rescinded I was told, “If you’re not telling us your last name, what else can you be hiding.” She might as well have added “terrorist” to the end of that sentence. I honestly, for the first time in my life, felt discriminated against for being Lebanese. Listen, I grew up in Suburbia, CT just like Susie Homemaker’s kids except I also happened to be Middle Eastern.

Be that as it may, I have decided to take on the responsibility of helping to reduce discrimination against people from the Middle East. My stories, anecdotes, tales and travels will be documented here. Over the next few weeks, I will introduce you to the key players in the story and give you some history of Lebanon.

Stay with me, enjoy, and share.