Today's General Strike

Yesterday, the bakeries were working overtime.

“Tell your mother-in-law to get extra bread tomorrow. There’s a strike.”

Of course, she already knew. The day before anything happens or whenever the situation feels slightly tense, people walk around with two or sometimes three packs of pita bread, instead of one. Bread is always the first thing to run out.

I went to my meeting anyways this morning, but Joe had to drive me because I knew it would be a pain to find all the buses and vans needed to get to Mansourrieh. The roads were empty, but we did see some red and white government buses running.

On the way back, it seemed every single dumpster was knocked over. Some places had more black smoke than others. It was about noon, and people had been burning tires since the morning. I heard random rumors about soldiers getting killed, the airport closing, and clashes between Kitaeb and Hezbolla at the university. But I thought all schools had been declared closed the day before.

Same old, same old. Except this is supposedly about prices. The world riots making their way to me. But we just take it in stride here. Every couple months, there’s something¬a random assassination, some political speech. The opposition says it's not them, that it’s all the Lebanese people who can’t afford to live with their crappy $300-$400/month salaries, where the price of gas is higher than the U.S. and rice is now $2/kilo (up three times.) But Naharnet is saying it's the opposition. The pro-government March 14 alliance has decided not to participate in the general strike. It's sectarian politics as usual.