I am at a loss of words at what’s happening in #Lebanon nowadays. I was on the phone with my parents the other day. My mom hasn’t seen me in over a year, and all she kept saying is “thank god you left, there is no future here.” It breaks my heart when their voices break.

It’s not right to be grateful every passing day that I am not in my home country anymore. Not having visited since last summer, it’s even difficult for me to wrap my head around how it actually is, in real life, right there. That’s why I don’t say much.

And that’s why it baffles me when expats have SO much to say about what’s going on there. None of us can relate fully to what’s happening. The tweets from Lebanese folks have been growing more desperate. Everyone wants to leave. Even my parents, in their 50s, now want to leave.

Most of my father’s family is either in the US or in Australia. He had the chance to leave when he was younger but stayed because he had faith in his country. When I called him for Father’s Day, he told me to find ways for my brothers to leave, like I did.

It’s crazy that my parents who have invested all of their lives in that country, in my hometown up North, are growing old with no savings, no safety net apart from the mercy of their expat son, and no support from a country except the hope of me giving them a green card one day.

I keep seeing the lira crumble, & nothing being done about it. My mom tells me how they can’t keep up. Today, they closed my dad’s shop because they can’t afford to keep selling supplies that are becoming more expensive to restock. My dad has never closed that store for 33 years.

The economy doesn’t exist. Our politicians meet and sing each other’s praises. The pictures of empty fridges by the AFP yesterday are heart breaking. I can’t even fathom how it must be for families whose lives were not middle class, buoyed by a fake sense of strong currency.

What’s worse is that there’s nothing I can do. If we transfer money to Lebanon, the odds of our families accessing that money is next to zero. And I am definitely not hand my hard earned money to our corrupt government on a silver platter so they can perpetuate their corruption.

I have a flight booked to see my family in September. Half of that flight is on Lufthansa. Seeing tweets in the #BoycottMEA trend make me think that Lebanese corruption is going to cancel that flight on me as well. Yet, you keep seeing politicians ask for expat money.

My money isn’t for you. It’s for my family. And I will sure as hell make sure that those politicians looking at our foreign bank accounts greedily get none of it. Some close friends living there ask me what to do. I honestly have no answer to give them.