Marouen Bloggin' his Life

An email from a dear friend from Lebanon ..... May God bless and protect all the poor victims of this stupid war.

My fellow humans;

From the heart of Beirut…with the sounds of missiles, explosions and people screaming, being the only background music for the past week…I am writing to you.

Within less than 24 hours…a country that carried the secrets of a wonderful sea, strength of standing mountains, whispers of wide green trees…was turned upside down…leaving its appealing nature hiding below a dreadful artificial disaster zone.

The same airport where we used to land in after every trip abroad..is now closed, bombarded, and on fire. The same bridges we used cross everyday around the country...the same streets we used to walk on everyday are now void, empty, risky..or a bunch of rubble.

This is my Lebanon. It will always be my Lebanon: A flourishing country with strong, kind-hearted people that strive to make their dreams come true. Now, they're only seeing their dreams vanishing infront of their eyes in a matter of days.

I am writing to you…with a tear in my eye so much wanting to drop...as I see my own country getting slowly demolished..bit..by bit...day after day..minute after minute. I only wish, that none of you...really none of you would ever experience this feeling. We've been expriencing it for the past week and until this moment..though it isn't new,it is still overwhelming.

Who started the conflict? Who's fault is it? This isn't the case. Civilians are dying on both sides. And no matter who's fault it was, no matter what happened...nothing justifies the gradual destruction of a whole country and paralyzing it from helping its own self. Nothing justifies the mass murder of citizens fleeing, using forbidden weapons. Nothing justifies butchering tens of families, new-borns, fathers, and elderlies per hour, hitting ambulances transporting wounded citizens, massacring a whole nation ruthlessly, basically destroying my Lebanon, my one and only nation.

As I see the thousands of foreigners fleeing,I call upon whoever is in Lebanon and reading this e-mail: Please be safe. The Israeli war machine is so evil, it does not make a difference between a civilian, a militant, an animal or a child, a church or a mosque. But we Lebanese are used to being resistant, strong and solid...never surrendering even in the most devastating moments. This is exactly what makes us proud.

They can destroy our bridges, level our homes, massacare our people..but they can never crush our strong will to survive, florish and strive. They tried doing that in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2000...they failed in each an every attempt. July 2006 is yet another date for them to fail once again. A date we will make sure they shall never forget.

Proud to be Lebanese;

Nader Houella Still Suriviving

Finally someone remembered me and requested me to continue the chain of "the Musical Baton", thank you Miss Troubadour

Total volume of music files on my computer :

• 5.6 Gbytes , 1494 Files

The last CD I bought was:

• The Ones, Michael Jackson

Song playing right now :

When You Believe (From The Prince Of Egypt) Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston '' Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me :''

• Keep the Faith - Michael Jackson
• 7 Seconds - Youssou N'Dour & Nene Cherry
• Hotel California - Eagles
• Hero - Mariah Carey
• Solitudine - Laura Pausini

Six people to whom I’m passing the baton

• Mariem
• Diana MagaZine
• Tom
• and anyone else reading this post

After missing the first Tunisian Blogger Meetup, I'll be missing the second one which will take place on May 22th in a café in Sidi Bou Said. I think it's a good ocasion for al the tunisian bloggers to meet each other and try to discuss some topics far from the digital life. This makes me remember the IRC users meetings (especially Dalnet) I was attending some years ago. EVen if I was a little bit disconnected from that way of comminication, I saw that a real community was born and was growing. Maybe now it's time for the "Blogger community" ?

Ref: http://www.subzeroblue.com/archives/002374.html

Yesterday I finally decided to use flickr.com services to create my photoblog. It's more easy to use and I'll not have to worry all the time about the hosting space remaining on my account. the URL to my photoblog is http://www.flickr.com/photos/marouen/ . A random picture is shown on every page of the blog. Now I have to make a less easy project : to buy a digital camera

After a very busy month in Mali, I think I should now remember my blog and all the persons waiting for my reports about Mali’s life. I think I have a lot to say but I don’t know how to start. Some days ago I found a good idea : to divide my reports into categories like (ie. The city, people, the food, telecommunications, transports …). Other posts will be related to the volunteer mission I’m doing here in Mali even if, according to the contract I signed in Geneva with my organisation, I’m not supposed to speak about some points but it’s not a problem since it’s far from the global aim of my project. I’ll write about this in My Civil Society Life section.

My next post will be entitled: Bamako, the big village.

I'm pleased today to notice the creation of the first tunisian aggregator for blogs linked to the first Tunisian bloggers directory. It's also a good thing to notice the mixture between french and english posts (and arabic ones ni the future I guess).

Thank you HouHou for this initiative and long life to Tunisian Bloggers Family

PS: I'll be adding this picture to my blog template , beautifull don't you think ?

No I’m not talking about my age because I’m older than that. I’m talking about the years of my life I spent studying. Some of you will think that’s it’s too much, others will say it’s nothing yet but personally I think it’s …. enough. I know that nobody can stop learning but on my case I want to make a break, and what a break!

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No I'm not going to participate in any political election. I’m just asking you to vote for my blog on the Best Arab Bogs Awards . I’m – I mean my blog – is nominated in these categories : Best arab blog (English) – best Tunisian blog and best personal blog. These are the direct links to the pages of these categories

• 2004 Best Tunisian Blog Vote here
• 2004 Best Arab Blog (English) Vote here
• 2004 Best Personal Blog Vote here

I count on you

Marouen

First thing, I wish you all (all my blog visitors and especially frequent visitors ) a Happy New Year. A special wish I want to make it to people affected with Tsunami disaster.

I spent 3 days thinking to send many posts to my blog related to many subjects but I was very busy and tonight I decided to write an “all in one” post because many things happened today.

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Finally my blog is online. Minutes became hours trying to give to this blog a personal touch and understanding how it works ! The problem now is when can I write on that blog. Two days ago, I took a blank paper and I started to write a kind of a report about the meeting I was attending and after some minutes I felt myself very unconfortable since I'm not used to use the pen outside exams hours I think it's time to think of having a laptop. I hope that not having one will not be an excuse for me to not write here.

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Yes finally I decided to dedicate some minutes to my personal page on the net

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