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3. If You Loved the Canals of Venice, You’ll Adore the Canals of Beirut!

Every year, winter brings rain. A statement so ordinary it could hardly be more clichéd. Yet in Lebanon, every downpour turns the roads into rivers. Cars become makeshift gondolas, and honking horns replace gondoliers’ songs. It’s safe to say that romance is hardly in the air. Water covers the gaping holes, which elsewhere are called "potholes," but here, due to their size, they might as well be described as "dinosaur nests".  Among the stranded vehicles, with dead batteries, and those that struggle, sputtering, to make it up the road, Lebanese drivers on this Wednesday are on the brink of a nervous breakdown. This year, the fasting period observed by all religious communities have only heightened the impatience of these road warriors.

One might think that all this rain could replenish the groundwater. But no! It flows straight into the sea, without any retention basins or any useful purpose.

The authorities promise year after year that the situation is under control. Yet, the same causes lead to the same effects, and the monstrous traffic jams serve as a glaring reminder that nothing changes. The car fleet, battered by the financial crisis, shows its obsolescence in such moments. A rusty Renault 12 charges up the Damascus Road, exhaust howling and body trembling. With the slightest tap on the brakes, the "car" could disintegrate or scatter across the slippery road. A tour guide once wrote in his editorial: "When driving in Lebanon, you realize how fragile existence is." He had visited the country in summer. With the rain, he would likely have run out of words.