14 things Lebanese people say everyday

If you're Lebanese (or living in Lebanon), you know that the country is an urban rollercoaster that's enabled you to develop exceptional skills .

You've also developed some daily jargon to relate to topsy turvy living.

A traffic jam in Lebanon are like sun in the desert. It's not going anywhere, but we're always surprised by it. There's an upside though: it serves as a handy excuse for when you arrive late to pretty much anything.

Another thing that's just always at the tip of our tongues is the poor Internet (that's an understatement). It's not unusual to hear echoes of "internet batee'" in an office from 9 am to 5 pm.

Another daily occurrence that we simply can't get over.  From pre-planning your showers to keeping your phone at 100% battery all the time, the struggle is real. 

Before you go anywhere, before you visit anyone, before you head to a new coiffeur, you ask fi moteur?  Anyone who's been to a gym class without a generator in August and lived to tell the tale can attest to the urgency of this.

Water outages have allowed you to develop a level of patience that no person in the world can measure up to.

There's nothing quite as dramatic as that moment of suspense when wake you up in the morning and turn on your faucet...fi may aw ma fi may? Ma 'hada bya'rif.

Because nothing works if there's no "habibi" involved . More than just a term of endearment, habibi is a survival technique. It can lighten any atmosphere and conversation that nearly always borders on an argument in this hectic, tension-ridden city.

That mini-heart attack you have when you hear a bang in the neighborhood. Of course, if you've been living in the country since you were a baby, you've already developed a superpower to distinguish between the two .

Because let's face it, living near a manoushe furn is one of the greatest perks of living in this country. Make the best out of it.

This phrase is jam-packed with irony because it sounds so sweet to the uninitiated...Imagine if you thought someone were telling you to give them a kiss, when actually they're saying 'screw you!' (we're keeping it PG here).

It also comes in handy when explicit cussing isn't an option, and you absolutely have to let off some steam.

OK, fine you're not always waiting for a visa, so this is not a phrase that rolls of your tongue almost every day. But, you do hear it every day from either yourself or from someone close to you, don't you?

Whether it's your friend who got a new job, or your neighbor who got their water leakage fixed, congratulations are always in order.

Yes, this isn't a word that the Lebanese own. It's an overused Arabic word used by people throughout the region. It's supposed to be spiritual, but can be quite anxiety inducing when it serves as a stand in for a simple yes/no answer.

Everyone is talking trash...as they should be. Lebanon's garbage crisis is over a year old, and though there has been a concerted grassroots effort (almost an uprising) to pressure the government to enact a sustainable solution to our waste problems, it's clearly not been enough. If you want to do more than just talk about Zbele, we recommend you check out Lebanese blogger Claude el Khal's 'obvious solution' to the trash crisis. 

Ok, actually we're joking about this one. But we do wish it were the case. The country isn't going to get better if we don't love it properly, people.