The after Qana effect... While drinking my awfully bad-tasting instant coffee (no electricity in all of Beirut), intense, blurred, uncomfortable, irrelevant thoughts were speeding through my head: Is the ice cream in my fridge need to be thrown, should I water the plants, does my mom need anything, should I shave, what is my ex-wife doing at the moment, I guess I have some pasta left, did they found any more victims in the South, should I go to work or go protest somewhere??? This is the third traumatizing event in my life: There was my father's death, my unfortunate failed marriage and now Qana. Same dirty streets, same generators sound, same faceless people. There is something more on people's faces, something in their eyes that I can't explain... I guess it is the Qana effect...

• Jackson, the American reporter, was sitting on the bench drinking his double shot cappuccino. He looked tired and angry. He told me that his landlord raised his rent due to the higher demand on apartments in Beirut. He and his roommates couldn't afford the raise and he is now looking for an apartment. "Not in Ashrafieh", he said, "I want something affordable in Hamra so that I can be close to your shop".
• Yesterday, Emily from Germany went to the South. She came back with a few stories: She went to see the collapsed building of Qana but she mostly insisted on what she called "the lack of privacy of the victims": Journalists and reporters running all over the place walking over children's school books, family pictures, refrigerator's manual... Then she told me the story of Mohamad, from Sudan, who came to Lebanon two months ago to work with a family in Bint Jbeil, in the South. On the 18th of July, the family was killed and he survived with a serious head injury. He stayed alone for two weeks, suffering from his wound, in the collapsed building until he was found by a BBC group walking in Tibnin, another southern village. Two days ago, he decided to walk, to go anywhere. Emily, with the help of her friend Jamal, contacted the embassy of Sudan. He will be home tomorrow. Please check Emily's blog: www.anecdotesfromabananarepublic.blogspot.com and Jamal's: www.jamalghosn.blogspot.com.
• A Baptist preacher came in to order his usual 200 grams of Colombian coffee with extra cardamom. I felt the urge of asking him: "In these moments of crisis, are people more faithful?" He replied: "No, of course not, they blame everything on God. They believe that they don't need Him and they are better off on their own."

But what I definitely saw, heard and felt on this hot and humid Tuesday, is the fear on most people's eyes, the fear of the future: The war after the war, the war of religions, the war of classes and the war for power. I tried my best to be contagious, to share my optimism. In vain.

Attached are a few pictures of Hamra Street in the morning... So that you can put yourselves in my shoes...