Bezantine Church

This time, during my adventourous weekend, we visited the Bezantine Church in Jieh, where you can find the mosaic of the story about Jonas. This historical ruin dating from 800 years ago, is now wrecked. But instead of taking care of the church, the Lebanese authorites kept on blaming the responsibilities on others. If this ruin was in any other country, it would be clean, and full of tourists. But the ruin was nice. Before all of this, we were in a beach called Jonas, named after the prophet Jonas. For crabs, Saturday is always like a holiday. They were spread all around the beach. The waves were huge, throwing me off my boogie board.

The Scar of Memories

"A dog in a pound is sad and is sitting in the corner of the room, with other dogs running, playing and even more, so which dog should I pick to try and convince my family?" I thought, "Which dog needs me the most?" Then I froze and noticed a dog staring at me. I looked at the dog hopelessly. I did not blink when my eyes noticed a huge scar spread across the dogs leg. A thought crossed my mind, and I imagined myself saying ,"I am so relieved that I chose this dog", while holding a dog tightly in my arms. But the picture of the dog in my imagination was unclear and blurry. Then I took another look at the dog. I made up my mind. I ran franticaly to my family. They saw the dog. Before we knew it we were driving back home with a black cute dog. The decision was not final with regard to keeping the dog. It was to my family, but to me, never. My family had chosen to keep the dog until we had the chance to send it to the United States to find a better home. We called the dog "Shadow". As months and months passed we kept Shadow. Then as a family we agreed to keep Shadow forever. Shadow is a great dog. But her scar still remains, giving me memories.

Lebanon is...

In the Maldives I always heard my dad say: "I saw this before in Lebanon!" while we're staring at a tropical fish. But then, if there are tropical fish in Lebanon, why did we go all the way to the Maldives!! Well, there are sting rays in Lebanon, but tropical fish, no way! I never knew that there are dolphins and turtles in Lebanon until I got on a boat and I saw dolphins and turtles with my own eyes. It was unbelievable! It is hard to find dolphins in Lebanon. All those wonderful creatures hide in the Mediterranean waters. The water was so clear, I felt like I was in the Maldives. To me it is impossible to not swim when I see clear, clean water. Lebanon is now worth gold to me! This is where I belong! The best thing about Lebanon is that the mountains are close to the sea!! Lebanon is changing in a good way!! Press here to see a close up of the water. Lebanon is beautiful!

Back to Lebanon's Beauty

A foreigner might think that Lebanon is a dirty country with war, but that is totally wrong!

We went to a place in Lebanon called "Debiyye". We all hated it except my father! But now I got tricked without knowing by my father. He took me to an amazing river, it was also in "Debiyye"! I was surprised because last time we went to "Debiyye", I hated it, but now I like "Debiyye", just because of that trick! The river is super clean, with crabs, frogs, toads and fish!

We were taking a risk, going down the bumpy mountain to find a path to the clean river! I fell a billion times and hurt myself, but it was worth it!

The village of "Dibiyye" is also beautiful! All the people there are almost related to our family and have the same last name! "Dibiyye" is amazing!

Gone

Now, my hamster is dead. I have all of the sad memories locked in my head, that I will never forget. Now we already designed my hamster's coffin, full of hearts and phrases like: " I will always love you". I really wish we found out he was sick a long time ago, because it was too late to save his life. But being in heaven, resting peacefuly is better than suffering the rest of your life. There is not much I can say other than, "I miss my hamster".

Death is On it's Way

Death again is gonna be roaming around my life. People say that animals are like furniture, but all I do is walk away and not listen to them. Now my poor cute hamster is suffering from a disease called "wet tail". My biggest hope is for my hamster to manage this dreadful disease. My biggest wonder is how did my poor hamster catch that disease! I'm really gonna miss him when he dies, I already miss him now because I am not allowed to see him because he gets very nervous and might die. What did my hamster do wrong! I feel really sad. So I guess the next time I see him he will be buried in soil and with flowers on top.

Chef skills

My housekeeper has great cooking talent! Since we sent her to learn how to cook at a cooking school she is cooking up a storm in the kitchen. She goes every Tuesday and Thursday to the class! The meals she makes are now... I can barely find a word to describe them.....delicious and spectacular. Now she can even quit her job and work as a chef in a restaurant! I am not kidding, I really think she is an amazing cook! She is now cooking stuff that I have never seen before! When I come back from school I always have a big meal that I enjoy! The picture above is of a meal called Pizzeta. If you want the ingredeints of this meal press here.

The Fox

Do you really think that there are foxes in Lebanon?? Well, yes there are. There are even foxes in the middle of Beirut. My Mom got a call from our tennis coach saying that they had caught a fox. This is right here off of Bliss Street!! Can you imagine a fox living in the middle of this noisy city. It's a miracle!! But, instead of admiring this poor fox, the tennis people threw rocks at it and then tied it to a tree.... What a terrible thing to do. Sometimes people can be so cruel. My mom took the fox to the vet and he is trying to help it. This is probably the last fox that was living wild in the middle of Manara. If it survives we will release it somewhere in Lebanon where there are other foxes. I really hope the fox recovers, it's rare to see something so beautiful in Lebanon....