Two years ago and a day, we arrived in Beirut. This morning I woke to the news of the cataclysmic explosion in the city, heard in northern Israel, which has devastated so much of it. Had it been two years ago, the GF and would have been waiting outside one of the destroyed hospitals, hoping for treatment, or perhaps dead. The site of the explosion was not far from where we lived in Mar Mikhail, certainly closer than Cyprus where the explosion rattled windows.
Beirut is perhaps the most magical city I have ever visited. Over the last two years, since soon after we left, the country has been engulfed by wave after wave, some of its making, some not. The decades of rapine, a society fractured beyond trust, living together after decades of trying to kill each other, every group closing in and protecting its own – loyalty or protection rackets? – and then its southern neighbour, its eastern neighbour, its entire neighbourhood, its various colonial legacies, Palestine, Syria, Iran, Iraq, coronavirus, economic collapse, street protests and a moment of hope, then hope dashed, an unbelievable refugee burden, virtual slavery, so much more, wealth, power, beauty, brilliance, its people have it all and yet here we are.