Goodbye, Lebanon
I’m sorry, Lebanon. We love you but we just can’t take it anymore. We’re breaking up with you. We’ve lived in Lebanon, on and off, for almost a decade. Our retreat began over the summer when we decided we couldn’t risk going to the beach with our daughter, who’s almost two. Every year, the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research puts out a report that says that the seawater around many of Lebanon’s beaches is full of fecal bacteria. Raw sewage is discharged into the sea: you are literally swimming in shit. From some beaches, you can see the pipe and a murky flow of streptococci. We tried. We really did. We visited a private beach club that was supposed to have some of the cleanest water in the country.
