Pussycats & High Heels

There are two things you can count on in Beirut: Women wearing high heeled shoes and feral cats lurking around. The cats are everywhere and they’re not pets. They’re just stray cats that live their lives outside and poke around the city. Some of them will scare away as you walk by and others will come to you looking for a free petting. None of these cats are threatening, but still, you really don’t want to be petting them. I met someone who had accidentally left their window open before leaving for work in the morning and when they returned later that day, they found a feral cat that had wandered in and snuggled up on their bed. The cat shooed back out the window easily enough but the fleas she left behind weren’t going that easily. Some of these cats look clean and healthy enough to be someone’s pet but I don’t think people view cats as pets here in Lebanon. They seemed to be viewed more like squirrels. Big furry squirrels. There are pet stores here in Beirut and there you will find for sale dogs, birds, rabbits and guinea pigs, but no cats. Some of the pet stores will sell cat food that people put on little dishes in the parks or outside their doors for the feral cats to eat. Kind of like feeding the pigeons. Big furry pigeons. Amy has this toy mouse that is full of catnip that I’ve put on a string and a stick and try to get the feral cats in our neighborhood to play with, though every time I try to approach one of the cats, they get this horrified look on their face and run away. One day while sitting on the patio of a restaurant having breakfast, we watched as a group left their table with some scraps still on a couple of the plates. Before you knew it a cat was up there checking it out and when the waiter came running over to yell at it, the cat decided to grab the best thing and run which was this big sausage link. Off she ran with it in her mouth, dodging in and out of tables. They are definitely entertaining.
But the real entertainment is the heels. And I’m not talking about just any pair of high heels. The women of Beirut wear some of the gaudiest, glitteriest, six inch high heels you’ve seen. It could be 8:00am on a Tuesday morning and you will see women wearing a pair of knee high, 6 inch, purple leather stiletto high heel boots that would make Jenna Jameson or any other porn star proud. And these women are on their way to work or the market. Fashion is huge here. You really would have to go to New York or Los Angeles to see clothes like this being worn. Most of the stores in downtown Beirut and the main roads in the neighborhood by the University sell this type of fashion and it’s not cheap. There are stores that sell sunglasses for $500 US dollars. And they’re plastic!
At the other extreme end of the fashion spectrum are the women and men who wear traditional Islamic dress. The Islamic holy book, the Qur’an does not specifically say exactly what you can and can’t wear but the idea is to conceal parts of body that are considered to be or can suggest sexuality. The idea is also to not be flashy in your dress or to show off wealth, such as gold and silk. Because there’s no set standard of what to wear, each person/community can interpret it differently and the dress can range from just plain clothes to the different types of robes and veils westerners associate with Islamic dress. The robes/veils that women usually wear are broken down into three different styles, depending on how much of the body they cover. The Hijab is when a woman covers her body, usually with a robe and a head scarf but you can still see her face and hands, but no hair. A Niqaab is similar to the Hijab, but along with the head scarf, the woman wears a veil so you can only see her eyes. The Abaia is where everything on the woman is covered and the veil covers her entire face. Usually there is a lace screen she can see through or a very thin slit at the eyes. As I mentioned in a previous blog, here in Beirut, there are just as many women wearing the Hijab head scarves as there are women wearing western style clothing.
Now there is a point where the high fashion look crosses with the Islamic dress and it’s mostly with younger women. In Beirut, you will frequently see women wearing a colorful Hajib on their head along with the tightest jeans and highest stiletto heels you’ve ever seen. They’ll be sporting the latest Louis Vitton handbag and a new pair of expensive sunglasses, nails painted up and chatting away on their cell phones. Somehow I don’t think that’s what Allah had in mind. Unfortunately, they too get that look of horror on their faces when I come running after them with my catnip mouse on a string.