Wheelz of Steel: Green Lights All the Way.

Beirut can be a frustrating place. Traffic perhaps ranks near the summit in terms of the most frustrating of Beirut’s character traits. A particularly Lebanese auto-vehicular pre-occupation with believing that a big car (preferably a Hummer) will in fact make up for a lack of wealth in other departments; material- economic, as well as physiological; is merely a facet of this problem.

A casual perusal of vehicles along Beirut’s clogged arteries reveals that at the very least 50% hold but one passenger. Whilst some people have attempted to encourage “car-pooling” to ease the congestion and its detrimental effect on the environment it seems highly unlikely that such outlandish ideas will really catch on in a place where one can actually be reprimanded and face social ostracisation for not littering…

[BeirutStateofMind experienced such a phenomena when merely a newbie in Beirut. Upon attempting to place a “booza” (ice lolly) wrapper within a rucksack to safely dispose of later words and gestures of indignation from local youth led to the removal of the rubbish from the rucksack and its disposal in a more appropriate manner – in the ocean, combined with an assemblage of rubbish accumulated over the course of an afternoon’s light snacking on the Corniche. Later swimming in the aforementioned rubbish becoming a code of practice to which the novice must quickly adapt.]

… given that traffic in Beirut can get so bad that clocking a faster time over 5 km’s travelling by foot rather than by taxi is a distinct possibility – particularly in the summer when the Lebanese diaspora return for a spot of hell raising and temperatures soar into the upper 30’s – those rare moments when one is greeted by a lack of traffic on the capital’s roads are moments to be appreciated. Especially if one is on route to a favoured activity such as haggling a group of “Clean up Beirut’s beaches” activists meddling with Ramlet el-Baida’s established eco-system.

An unveniable task: A Sukleen worker attempts to gather litter 

amongst a group of shabab on the Corniche, where facing

reprimand for not-littering is common. Summer 2011.

Weekend mornings represent an opportunity. Many Beirutis usually found clogging the roads are either at home, outside the capital or putting in similar work elsewhere – the Beirut-Tripoli highway, around Jounieh being a particularly favoured spot. Cruising through the streets of East Beirut, across the Green Line, down towards Ain-Mreisseh along the Corniche up to Raoche in a 1960’s Mercedes discussing Mel Gibson’s accent in Braveheart, Beirut can seem like the unthinkable, a driving city. 

If one is lucky enough to happen upon such an opportunity BeirutStateofMind recommends having a song in mind to accompany the experience, whether through humming, or in the form of a Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell tag-team with the service driver. Greco-Roman Wrestler recently revealed that he favours Tina Turner’s “Eye of the Tiger” for reasons beyond the realm of comprehension. An alternative choice that BeirutStateofMind can often be found getting down to at any given opportunity is Aloe Blacc’s “Green Lights.”