Lebanon

Upon arriving to the coastal city of Tripoli, I scurried around to find whatever there was to be had for cheap accommodation. All the cheap places in my guidebook surprisingly had no vacancies, which at the one that had Saddam Hussein's portrait prominantly displayed--I was a bit glad anyways. Finally found a room at my last option and was relieved at the prospect that I was not left to the fate my new and unwelcome climatic situation: freezing cold nights. Having bought a second-hand sweater in Damascus, that and a hoodie are my only winter clothing. A situation that needs rectifying pronto.

Before starting off in the morning for the mountain town of Bcharre, I stopped at a shawarma shop for a bite of breakfast/lunch and was bestowed another gesture of middle eastern hospitality, when a muslim cleric insisted on paying for my food. Will it ever end? I hope not.

Bcharre, a moutain town reminiscent of something you might find in Europe, had an old world charm that made it a pleasant place to spend two days. Home of the famous poet/writer/painter Khalil Gibran, I was the lone visitor at his musuem & resting place. Previously unaware of his famous works, the visit definitely sparked an interest. After spending my Thanksgiving eating a home-cooked Lebanese meal of fish with spinach and rice, I awoke the next morning to make the 1.5hour hike up to place called The Cedars (for the reason that it is a small tract of land forested with, you guessed it: cedars--famous for reasons I never came to understand). After hiking up and briefly touring around the less than 3 acre area containing cedar trees, I began cursing myself for spending so much time in pursuit of something displayed in far more magnifigance in the U.S. My self loathing would only deepen as on the walk back, freezing rain began to fall. My hoodie was not adequate protection against the winter storm that was rolling in and I was wondering how a local villager was going to receive a foreigner knocking on their door asking to ride out the storm inside. Luckily, a few minutes into what would turn into a frozen downpour, a car came down the road and answered the frantic wave of the wandering idiot.

After the morning's ill-fated cedar trek, I took a bus to the capital city Beirut. After years of civil war and most recently, the 2006 war with Israel, downtown has been rebuilt with many of the posh attributes of any western country. Despite these modernisms, a huge urban military presence squelches any disillusions about where exactly your are. A tank parked next to the supermarket is a life I have never known, but unfortunately it it appears to be life as usual for the Lebanese.

Feeling a bit under the weather, I spent most of my first night holed up in the dorm room. The only other person present in the room during the veg session was an older Arabic man, an uncharacteristic customer for a backpacker place, but not necessarily rare. After quite awhile of silence, we made an attempt at conversation, which was immediately stone-walled by both of our mono-lingual abilities. Finally I was able to extract that he was from Iraq, Mosul to be exact. The conversation, or lack thereof, was a shame as I had many questions for this man about Mosul as this is where my cousin Dave Tiehen is to be deployed to in the coming month. A good opportunity lost to language again.

The next morning I set out to do what I perceive is the best way to get to know an urban area--walk it. And do it primarily using side streets. This is where I usually find the friendly shopkeepers, cheap local grub, and best encounters. And in the Middle East, unlike South America, you can venture just about anywhere without the fear of stumbling into a neighborhood that wıll welcome you with a screw-driver in the gut. An almost total absence of crime and/or worry of, is was I have come to love most about these countries.

Kipling famously wrote that "the first condition for understanding a foreign country is to smell it." For me the most authentic and impacting "smells" come from experiences had off the main drag. This particular walk in Beirut was going to net me two particularly interesting encounters. The first was stumbled upon when I seeking out breakfast. Although maybe hard to see in the picture below, there are two falafel shops next to each other, both bearing the same name and logo. The decor also matched up more or less. Having entered one of the shops thinking that they must be two shops of the same owner to accommodate for booming business, I was suprised when I ordered a sandwhich that the shopkeeper told me to wait a few minutes so he could finish the food prep work and did not send me to the adjoining shop to get the sandwhich, where I knew for a fact the prep work was already done. Because of this peculiarity, I inquired about the shop next door and the keeper responded that the name on the signs was his fathers and that he and his brother had the shop together "and then we made divorce." And so, two brothers, presumably not speaking together anymore, were operating identical falafel shops right next to each other. I can only imagine that their rift contributed to more issues within the community as they too had to decide what shop they would show patronage to. Talk about living with the past everyday....

During my walking tour, I was more or less trying to walk to the south of Beirut, where the hostel owner had stated I could find the Palestinian refugee camps, not really elaborating on what I would see other than the obvious. Sounded like a good idea so I set off. Eventually, I got to the part of town, that he said I would find them. While taking a picture of some graffiti on the wall written in English, a man passing on a motorbike made the gesture of taking a picture and shook his figure in a discouraging way. I was a bit confused but didn't make anything of the matter and kept on walking. Not far off I came across an barbwire enclosed junkyard that contained a sea of broken motorbikes. So big was the pile, that I decided that it would make for a nice picture and walked in to ask the junker if I could take one. Thinking they could probably care less with the request I was surprised when the man and his young son (who was translating) gave me a quick no and explained that if I wanted to take pictures of this or anything in the neighboring area, I would need permission of the police. I pondered the reasoning for this in combination with the situation I was seeing at the junkard. In addition to some junkyard workers and the boy, the boy's father and another man were in military fatigues but neither bore the formal insignas of the Lebanese army. They all invited me to drink tea and eat some bread in their small building on the premises and I accepted, still trying to make sense of where exactly I was and why there a restriction on photography. Again with the boy translating and doing almost all of the talking for the group, we discussed all things USA--sports, Angelina Jolie, but mostly U.S. foreign policy. This 12 year-old kid talked of Condileeza Rice and U.S. policy with knowledge that would put most American adults to shame. Made me think they should up the embarrassment anty on U.S. reality shows by making one called Do you know more than a third-world fifth-grader.

The conversation was generally light-hearted although the boy did ask me what I thought about Bush providing Isreal with the military capabilities that were killing children like him in Lebanon. Pretty sad to hear such heavy questions from someone so young. And when the boy showed me his necklace with a picture of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, were my questions of why I couldn't take photos and with whom I was probably in the company of, answered. When leaving, the father told me in not so many words that there was nothing more to see in the direction I was previously heading and that I should walk back towards downtown Beirut. I wondered if his advice was more in the interest of safety or just touristy advice, but I didn't care to find out.

Strolled to into a internet cafe to bring myself up to speed on Hezzbollah and finally read the U.S. State Department's warning about not traveling to Lebanon. Probably not the time to do such research but I am sticking with the philosphy that if Starbucks is somewhere, I can be there too.

Heading to back to Syria tomorrow to visit the northern city of Aleppo.

Warmly,

bq

To be closer to God, be closer to people---Khalil Gibran