When Bambi first arrived to Québec, about 32 years ago, there was a funny French-Canadian joke circulating at her CEGEP (or college): “How many seasons are there in Canada“? Answer: “There are two of them: this winter and the past one“. Although funny or scary, especially for new immigrants from warmer countries (even if Lebanon has snowy mountains), this joke is of course untrue. Indeed, Canadians are blessed to have four fabulous seasons, including a magical North American fall.
Yes, the fall is absolutely charming in our country. She does not know about you, but Bambi loves it so much. Mind you, she is still under the charm of the winter too. If she may, she would like to wish you all a smooth transition of seasons now. She will do so by offering you a French song she adores. It celebrates Canada’s beautiful fall season. Some of you may guess that it is Mr. Joe Dassin’s “L’été indien“.
May your memory be eternal, Mr. Dassin. Thank you for all your beautiful songs, including this one!
Bambi would like to begin by thanking Brittany for generously sharing this wonderful picture of a sunrise in our beautiful New Brunswick!
A magical sunrise moment in New Brunswick, Canada. A picture taken by Brittany
A new dawn. A new day. A new hope.
As readers of this post, may your day be simply good to you/your loved ones. May it be as good as you would like it to be. By good, Bambi simply means making the best out of it. Hopefully even fully enjoying it or simply living it until its end, ideally after moments of true pleasure, despite any hassle.
To conclude this brief post on a positive musical note, first thanks again dear Brittany. Here is a melody for you, and by extension to all the readers of this post, that Bambi has posted on her blog in the past. It is about “the sun of the feastthat will shine tomorow“; thanks to Mr. Marwan Khoury for his beautiful interpretation of the late and great Sabah’s famous Lebanese song. May the sun of joy as well as hope always shine in our hearts and especially eyes, particularly on cloudy, rainy, snowy or… tough days, regardless of any weather forecast!
If she may, Bambi would like to echo the words of Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould:
In a world with increased mediocrity and lack of principles, it was somehow reassuring to have a world public figure with an inspiring sense of duty like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
If only for the above, thank you Your Majesty. May your memory be eternal. If Bambi has a wish for you today, it is to be eternally reunited with the love of your life, your late spouse Prince Philip.
Again if she may, Bambi will end this brief post by offering Your Majesty the Our Father prayer in Aramaic (Jesus’ language). It is beautifully interpreted by Ms. Majida El Roumi from Lebanon.
Sadly, the world of music lost you, Mr. Rachid Taha, on September 12, 2018. You were born 59 years earlier in the month of September as well, precisely like today, that is at the very end of the summer. May your memory be eternal and many thanks for having existed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachid_Taha).
To honour your memory, Bambi would like to post your own beautiful song Ya Rayeh [Hey Migrant, where are you travelling?]. It is sub-titled in English for the readers’ convenience. Mind you, it is for Bambi’s own convenience as well since it is quite hard for her to understand your nice Algerian-Arabic dialect (just a few words here and there). If she may, she will also conclude this brief musical post with Fairouz’ song on the last days of the summer, as a tribute to the timing of your birthday. Thank you for your talent!
Bambi’s heart goes to your parents, Ms. Masha Amini. She cannot imagine one single drop of the ocean of their sorrow and/or anger.
For those who do not know it, in NB, a few weeks ago, a cartoonist from l‘Acadie Nouvelle denounced the awful practices of the Talibans against women through his art. He was accused by some of Islamophobia toward Muslim women.
Of what can we accuse the Iranian regime’s “morality police“?
Today is September 17, 2022. It seems that is National Dance Day in the United States. Well, what a lovely coincidence as this post is about the Mayyas Lebanese female dancers who won America Got Talent!!
Today, they returned to Beirut and they were officially welcomed at the airport with 36 bouquet of flowers, one for each dancer, Bambi just learned from her parents. Wow!
Before sharing the video of their final performance that made them win the first place (coming with US$1 million!), Bambi would like to thank all the readers from as close as a nearby street in Sackville, NB, to as far as Beirut, Lebanon (and through at least 3 different Canadian provinces and the USA) for informing her of all the latest steps of their success: voting process, voting results, confirmation of their victory, etc.
Of course, art is art regardless of who is performing it. Talent is universal. This time America’s Got Talent happened to be made in Lebanon. Bravo to this incredibly talented team!!!
Let’s also not forget about the conditions they practice in with an increasingly limited quality of life in bankrupt Lebanon (e.g., power outages, water outages, hyperinflation, gas crisis, bread crisis, healthcare crisis, etc…).
To conclude this post, following their performance, Mr. Ramy Ayyash’s wonderful Mabrouk [or Congrats] song is a must today. These inspiring dancers, their choreographer, and supporters deserve it BIG TIME! Bambi wishes the Mayyas dancers continuous success in their career. She thanks them for offering their fellow citizens and all of us hope along with magic!
Bambi would have loved to devote today’s post to Mayyas, the inspiring dancers who make Lebanon so proud! They won America Got Talent two days ago. Count on Bambi for a post of congratulations, of course with the “Mabrouk “song :)! This being said, for now she will focus on dramatic surreal economic updates from Lebanon :(.
Bambi learned this afternoon that the Lebanese banks will close for three days. Open or closed? Will it make any difference for the depositors who already cannot have access to their own savings since October 17, 2019? Likely not. However, perhaps this closure would protect bank employees from extra stressors or, may God forbid, real danger. So far no one has been injured in any of the incidents with depositors storming their own banks to ask for their OWN money.
How could they be injured with toy weapons? Some have been toys. Some real weapons. All they are demanding is their savings, as explained in this France24 English article and brief video news (https://bit.ly/3QYrDqU). An earlier post of this blog, shown further below, was about a woman who stormed her bank to get her own savings so her sister can be treated for cancer.
Of course, it is not the fault of bank employees. Bambi has friends and relatives working at banks and she wants to know they are safe and sound too. She also wants to know their citizen rights are protected like the entire population of their country.
So who’s is responsible of this fiasco then? It is most likely the responsibility of the Lebanese “irresponsible” political elite with maybe key figures of the central bank, etc. The official Lebanon did not do any financial reform still for the past three years since the crash of the banking sector (i.e. Ponzi scheme). So how can the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank trust Lebanon then in order to help it get out of its financial hell, Bambi keeps wondering?
To conclude this post, is it fair to say that no one is working to solve Lebanon’s economic disaster? Are some decision-makers working behind the scenes and people do not know about it? Or no one is taking his/her responsibility still? Are they in a public state of collective coma when it comes to responsible governance? Or are they protecting their own financial interests and indifferent to people’s suffering? What is happening in tiny bankrupt yet dignified Lebanon? What will happen next? So many questions, but no answers… yet.
MANY thanks, Mr. Jonathan Kay, for your thoughtful yet both sad and absurd Quillette article about the Green Party of Canada: https://bit.ly/3xs0BRH. From your publication, Bambi learned that the interim leader of this noble Canadian federal party resigned over pronouns misuse. Can you imagine? Not over a political project meant to save species or improve our life in one way or another. Just the misuse of her pronouns… on Zoom!
Well, Bambi does not know if she should smile, laugh, or cry at the level of our collectively insane times and how they are affecting smart people like politicians of great political parties. Related to this, Bambi has a question: Why is it the case, Canada? Why are we doing this to ourselves?
Does this story make any sense to you? It does not to Bambi. Of course, this has nothing to do with our preferred pronouns, if we wish to use those and/or write them on our screens, emails, shirts, and even hearts. The problem does not seem to be the use (or non-use) of pronouns. It is rather their misuse or even abuse, sadly.
Regardless, this story seems to lack both political wisdom and common sense. Mind you, Bambi is saying so without knowing the politician in question. She would have thought the same, even if this politician had been her own sister or even daughter. She would have told the latter that she has trouble following her on this one.
This being said, Bambi will echo Mr. Jonathan Kay’s words, which appear to be sad for the poor performance of this party in Canada. As Mr. Kay wrote: ” In some nations, such as Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Austria, Greens have gained cabinet representation and membership in ruling coalitions. In Latvia, Green politicians have even served as prime minister and head of state”. Mr. Kay is right. She will even add the following, if she may: even her birth country, Lebanon, which is about to literally fall apart, has a MUCH needed Green Party (with a hardworking leader on top of that). Indeed, as Bambi once wrote on this blog, if she recalls well from a visit to Beirut in 2019, the Lebanese political spectrum also includes two smaller new parties with a responsible ecological platform. She does not know if anyone, from these parties, has been been elected in the last Lebanese Parliamentary elections.
To come back to us in Canada, isn’t it heart-breaking to see a respectable political federal party reaching such levels of absurdity, instead of focusing on the real environmental issues it should be standing up for? Why it is betraying its mission like that? Bambi recalls from an older post in June 2021 (shown further below) how members of this same party lost their time and energy fighting over the Middle East, instead of focusing on our Canadian politics. That was also a disappointing moment, at least for her who escaped the Middle East and its eternal issues 32 years ago.
To conclude this post, beyond the Green Party of Canada, can our Canadian politicians, from ALL parties at ALL levels of governance, focus on our serious national, provincial/territorial, or municipal issues please, instead of falling into the trap of sectarian (or identity-based) divisive internal politics? Thank you.
Bambi would like to thank her sister, journalist Roula Douglas, for sharing with her a sad story, which took place at a bank in Beirut, Lebanon. Since this morning, despite a hectic day that is about to end, this story is still hunting Bambi’s mind.
As per the title of this post, the story in question is about a Lebanese woman, armed with a weapon, who broke into Lebanon’s BLOM Bank demanding her OWN savings. Can you imagine? Yes, her own money? Is there anything meaningful that could be said about this desperate gesture meant to pay the fees of her sister’s cancer treatment? She does not know about you, but Bambi is speechless.
In a video circulating online, Bambi even heard this lady, called Ms. Sali H., apologizing to the bank staff and clients for the fear she induced in them. She explained that she did what she did to support her sister.
Perhaps the saddest part of this story is that there has been another one similar to it in Lebanon, just today, as per Al Jazeera‘s reporter, Ms. Zeina Khodr. Actually, Ms Sali H.’s story is the third in total in the past weeks, as per The Guardian (https://bit.ly/3DyZfbs) and Bambi’s earlier post shown further below.
To conclude this post, Bambi keeps wondering what’s next for her birth country? According to the United States Institute for Peace (https://bit.ly/3Ue6XO8), “the World Bank has deemed Lebanon’s economic collapse a deliberate depression because of continuous policy inaction and persistent and debilitating internal political discord”. Whether the latter is true or not, the people of Lebanon have been suffering from this situation since the financial crash of October 17, 2019. When is enough enough for them?!
Sometimes, we discover new songs or artists when we listen to the radio. Indeed, this post features Bambi’s latest musical discovery before going to sleep.
First, the joyful melody of “Habibi Ya Leil” that Bambi learned about from her internet Lebanese-American radio station appears twice below. The first video shows the song’s lyrics, which are (mostly) in French. In the second video, you can watch Mr. Anthony Touma whose most recent song is about how the people of Lebanon are known for mixing languages in their conversations.
While preparing this post, Bambi got intrigued by this young talented artist. This is how she made another discovery. His “Where are you Beirut” [“Waynik Beirut“?] song moved her heart, especially when she read that he started writing it a couple of weeks following the surrealistic, yet still unaccountable, Beirut port explosion of August 4, 2020. However, it took him 9 months to complete it (while processing his emotions).
Thank you, Mr. Anthony Touma, for your creativity, including your fun song as well as your deeper tribute to Beirut and to the victims of its blast. As your song goes, because of the destroyed “houses without lives“, “we are now afraid to say we love you to death Beirut” [“… Sirna halak min khaf nkoul min mout fiky ya Beirut“]. Bambi is now one of your additional fans in North America. Trust that she will follow your work in the future. As of now, she wishes you all the best in your career!
