Day after

Today has been a lot more 'normal' than I thought it would be. Last night especially I thought the whole place was going to, I don't know, change? Go crazy? I was walking around trying to find a store so I could buy a phone card. Impossible! The place was like a ghost town, there wasn't a single person in the streets, all the shops were closed, no cars, just the thrash cats hanging around. Scary!!! The most frightening thing was the silence - something that seems completely impossible in Beirut under normal circumstances. But yesterday my whole neighbourhood was silent.

Today was a bit more lively although I did see the occasional tank in the street on my way to work. It also helped to know that other parts of Beirut were not as shut down as my neighbourhood yesterday. This is because the area I live in, Achrafiyeh, happens to be Gebran Tueni's constituency. So people were demonstrating their disbelief and shock here more than elsewhere I suppose. I actually found out today that at some point yesterday morning, while we were all in the office practically looking down on the hospital across the street, Tueni's body had been taken there for a while, before it was transferred to another hospital. I find that a really strange idea too. But on my way home from work today, I observed one man having a foot massage in a beauty salon, so things can't be so bad I guess.

On TV, I was watching part of a mourning ceremony that was taking place in a church in my neighbourhood. Marwan Hamadeh, the minister who survived a car bomb, was there, as well as Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese forces, and Nayla Moawad, the minister of social affairs who is at the same time president of the foundation I work at. I don't know why I'm writing this down, but it seemed really odd to see all these people, who are starting to look familiar now, and two of whom I have seen in real life already, appear on television when they were really just a few hundred yards away from where I was sitting on my couch. Gebran Tueni's wife was there also, she looked in a terrible state and like she was going to faint any minute.

What makes things seem even more unreal is the fact that every single Lebanese TV station - perhaps with the exception of Al-Manar, Hizballah's own broadcaster - has dug up every tape they have of Gebran Tueni and they're constantly broadcasting it. When I switch on the TV, he's right there as part of a talk show or giving an interview. His newspaper Al-Nahar is also re-publishing every editorial he ever wrote. For me, who had never seen him when he was alive or read his articles, this makes the whole situation even weirder than it already is.

A general strike has been called for tomorrow and the funeral is going to happen. Meanwhile, everyone keeps waiting for the Security Council debate on the second Mehlis report and there's a major government crisis here in Lebanon. Hizballah's ministers have suspended their participation in the cabinet after it adopted a motion that calls for an international investigation into all the recent car bombings. Looks like they're more or less keeping it together, at least the government hasn't resigned yet.