Living in Luxury

Our home phone is not working and it brought back some memories from my visits to Lebanon and Syria. I don't know why it reminded me of Syria and Lebanon. Maybe the reason why I'm a phone person more than email/messaging kind of person has to do with not having a phone that works.

During the civil war and post civil war in Lebanon the infrastructures for electricity, water, and phone lines were pretty much non-existent. I remember when I was 16 (7 years after the civil war ended) and only having electricity for one day out of my 3 month visit in Lebanon. The electricity would only come on for a few hours a day. In Syria, the electricity goes out every now and then. I was told it due to lack of energy sources. It doesn't happen that often in Syria. In Lebanon the electricity may go off for an hour or two during the day.

You would also have to wait and listen for the water to come. It usually came and night and we would stay up all night until we could hear running water. We would filp a switch and this big container in the attic of my grandmother's flat would begin to fill with water. If you over filled it then water would leak everywhere (that actually happened this past summer. It was a mess to clean). Once the container ran out of water it meant that you used up all your water. It could mean not having water for a day or a few. We used to go to this spring and take huge gallons with us and fill them up when we ran out of water. We would go shower at my uncles because his water container was bigger. Running out of water doesn't happen so often but every now and then you'll turn the faucet on only to find out that all the water dried up.

The phone lines in Lebanon are fully functional now. I remember if someone wanted to go visit friends/relatives they would send someone to tell their friends/relatives that they were going to visit [bahti khabar = send news (send someone to tell them we are coming)]. They couldn't call because not everyone had a phone line that worked. After the civil war people began to depend on the cell phone because they were more reliable. Although people no longer have to depend on it anymore, you see everyone from a teenager to a grandmother having a cell phone.

I remember when I was in Syria when I was younger. I think I was 10 or 12. My uncle wanted to set up a phone line for his ice cream shop. He was put on a 7-year waiting list. Can you imagine it taking 7 years to get a phone line?

I want to end this with a message. Don't forget to conserve energy and water and to protect our environment? Why? Because one day we may not have energy resources, clean water, or clean environment. Not everyone in the world has the luxury of electricity and clean water. Yes, both electricity and clean water are a luxury.