Update, and olive harvest

First, we are THRILLED with the new day that has dawned in the States!! Congratulations US and world.
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There aren’t a lot of palm trees around, but there are some date palms that lately have beautiful clusters of (mostly orange) fruit.

We went north last weekend on an olive harvesting and oil tasting trip, in the far north of the country. Fun, because we went way south last weekend, and usually we go somewhere in the middle. We went beyond Tripoli, a familiar journey for me, and turned inland for another 40 minutes or so. Just north of Tripoli we passed by Nahr el-Bared, the refugee camp K worked with UNRWA on. The photo isn’t very clear but perhaps you can see the flattened buildings. The whole camp is like that still. 30,000 people are still without homes.

It was a long ride as trips in Lebanon go--2 hours plus. K took the opportunity to jot down some news during the ride:

K went to a conference at AUB (American University of Beirut) last week, attended by most of the authors of the book she is editing--16 people, all men, from 7 mostly Middle East countries. The topic of the book is the lack of democracy in Arab countries, but it is coming out of the Institute of Financial Economics at AUB. It looks especially at the effects of oil wealth and conflicts on democracy. Anyway, she found out the book will be translated into Arabic. Wow. Her contract has been extended to December.

T found out that the high school principal position has opened at the school for next year and is looking into it. We have made no plans for next year yet, though the school is on bended knee hoping he will stay. He is trusted and admired, and has brought the academic support team to a new level. He is also now chair of the School Improvement Team.

Back to the olives…a knowledgeable and infectiously enthusiastic young man introduces us to his family’s 100 hectares (~250 acres) of olives. His family has harvested olives in the area since 1800. Some of the olives are organic, for sale in the US, UK and France--but not in Lebanon. These use goat manure for fertilizer. There are different varieties, green and black, larger, smaller, and

big pitted ones suitable for stuffing. The olives on the ground are used to make olive oil soap. The ones on the trees are picked by hand. Extra Virgin requires that hand picked olives be placed in crates, not bags, for air circulation and that they are pressed within 24 hours to prevent fermentation.

Here is a photo of some ladies picking out twigs and leaves from the day's picking.

A Filipino lady worker befriended me and showed us around. She has lived and worked here for six years. On a recent trip to the Philippines (she has gone back twice) she married. She is hoping her new husband will be able to join her here soon.

We toured two press operations, one traditional where they are ground between two huge stones (below)

(here, at right, is what is left at the end--they use it for fertilizer)

And the other modern press, producing much higher quality, cleaner oil. This one first blows the leaves and twigs off, washes the fruit, mashes and presses them.

Nectar of the gods!

And then we had to taste them, right? A sumptuous mezze meal followed. Ahhhh.

We had a tour of the very picturesque village of Baino, and even traipse into the backyard of a man who tends a single tree that bears 500 kilos (1100 pounds) of olives!. Photo at left shows K and T in front of the tree.



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Random signs spotted in our travels:

Ghost car rental
Baby Light
Green Opium
Milk Time (a coffee shop)
Sea, Sand and Sun--Sexy
Best Clean
Babe Garden (a nursery)
Outpack Soul (on a t-shirt)