'Tis the season to be jolly... until you get stuck in standstill traffic for an ungodly amount of time.
Traffic has been the delectable centerpiece of Lebanese small talk for the past couple of weeks. It has got the most punctual Lebanese (yes, they exist) late to their meetings, university students missing their exams, extroverts preferring to stay at home...
Everyone is out and about for the holidays, including the 700,000 expatriates who, according to some reports, are expected to come home (the traffic is proof they got here safe and sound, so ahla w sahla!).
The Lebanese are fed up with the traffic, and you know what the Lebanese do when they are fed up with something... they joke about it.
1. Traffic travel
2. Just letting y'all know
3. By the time you get home, it's time to write your memoirs
"What I look like when I get home tonight because of traffic."
4. A mannequin challenge that's completely effortless
5. You've always taken the wrong route, no matter how fantastical your zawrabé skills are
"All my attempts to escape the traffic ends with: 'I'm a donkey, I shouldn't have come from here. #Beirut"
6. This Christmas our thoughts are with those who drive manual
7. Bad radio + holiday traffic = inferno
8. The only ones that will "enjoy traffic this Christmas" are billboard companies
9. Lebanese holiday traffic WITH rain is a whole different, fiercer animal
10. Visualizing Traffic
11. Beirut's arteries are clogged
12. Redefining capital punishment
The Daily Star reports that at least one person was killed and six others were injured in traffic accidents within 24 hours on Dec. 19. Lebanese authorities have announced that they are taking the necessary measures to tame the holiday traffic.
Last week, around 1,200 security personnel were deployed across the capital Beirut, Mount Lebanon and the southern city of Saida.
"Measures taken (by authorities recently)...to organize traffic only reduced the problem by 10%," said Lebanon's Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, according to The Daily Star.
Thankfully, the official Lebanese traffic control monitor has been keeping us updated, tweeting real-time news concerning traffic jams and car accidents.