Since the blast, I’ve not really spoken very much. Yasmine has obviously taken it particularly hard, considering she was on the phone to her mother during the explosion itself. Shattered glass and rubble is a familiar sight in Lebanon. I would have hoped that this type of news coverage ... www.kaa.bz

@kaa I am so very sorry. Such a tragedy. I hope your family and friends are all accounted for.

@kaa So sorry for everyone in Beirut and those who have family there. Hope everyone in your family are doing ok, and I’m sorry to even use ok here.

@DiplomaticDiva @maique thanks guys. Sorry for the downer post. I usually keep this sort of thing in my journal, but honestly I'm just like at a loss over the sheer incompetence of 'leaders' in a name only. I feel that things are very different now. Spirits have been broken, which is harder to mend than glass and aluminium.

@kaa @kaa I still remember in my late teens or early twenties, while setting off to explore the world, sitting next to a man much older than me at Paris airport. He was on his way back to Beirut from my memory and had spent time working there. It was the late 80’s, and he spoke of the troubles there, but also I could feel his love of the city.

My history of the region is very sketchy, and I certainly only had a peripheral knowledge of what was happening back then. But to see that explosion on top of everything else in this word, has left me feeling helpless and sad. What else can happen?

I hope that your family are safe.

@kaa Please do not apologise. I, for one, welcome your candour. I prefer to hear this kind of testimony, rather than news reports which may come with a political agenda. I wish you and your family well.