Friends are the best!!

Oh the many gifts of friends. Laura and Greg, who took us in so graciously for the entire month we had in the US, including a fabulous four days at a perfect cabin on the Hood Canal waterfront (that’s the Olympic Peninsula, for those of you unlucky enough to not know); Soosan and Alvin for taking in both Cam and our Mazda; the Wucos for driving us hither and yon, agreeing to run errands for us after we leave, and painting our house; Tatyana for spending hours on the telephone trying to find a place to store our car for a year; MaryBeth and Steve for helping make the house look like new; and a handful of others for arranging lovely meals, remembering us, following the blog (gasp) and loving us still.

It passed in a blur, really, our time in the US. There was so much work to do to clear out our belongings from the house and get it ready for renters, get Cam squared away for New York, Goddard College and India, and deal with banks, license renewals, insurance, property managers, etc.

But we started the trip with the Hood Canal escape—a marvelous way to reacquaint ourselves with the natural beauty of the Northwest, and decompress from Beirut city life.

In a kayak at low tide, paddling slowly along the shore, gazing at faded rust colored starfish, brown crabs, a couple of small jellyfish, a young seal popping its head up then floating along. The starfish clumps—a family?-- legs entwined, are different colors, almost brown to coral, and some have different patterns. One’s legs are all bent, as if running or twirling.

Later, a strolling hike along the Dosewallips River, pausing to pick tiny wild strawberries—mmmm. Gulping in clear Northwest air, sometimes cedar scented—mmmm again.

Photo shows Laura serving salmon at the cabin. Sigh.

Signs in overprotective, overdirective America: “20 mph between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. when flashing or when children are present” (can you read all that while driving by?), and “Watch Your Step”—on top of a bus!! After a couple of weeks, Tom says he is ready for Lebanon traffic, which is unhindered by stops for lights, turns or pulling out into traffic.

Even the last day we were dealing with things: two banks, the hedge trimmer, the shower door replacement, the car—all before 11 a.m.

Later, settling in to the long (9 ½ hour) flight to Paris, we rise above the solid cloud layer of Puget Sound, looking like snow in fluffy drifts, heading straight for Rainier. Then we turn left for Canada, and spot the Olympics. And there is Baker sticking its head out. The Airbus plane has a great video/audio set up. Screens at each seat offer 12 new movies and 100 others, all on demand, with pause and rewind, and 200 CDs. T picks Pink Floyd. I try out ones new to me: Katy Perry, then Verve and Duffy. There are 8 or 10 games. Best of all (?) are the cool maps showing flight progress and the camera showing pilot’s eye view of the ground or, presently, the clouds below. You can even watch the landing, which is somewhat unnerving. The map shows Kelowna, Jasper, and Edmonton to the south. The view switches from the “local” area to the region, and to the continental. Hello Abilene, hello Quito. Then to the map in relief from the perspective of where we’ve come, flat plains stretching ahead. And I remember flying here we could see what area of the planet was in darkness. How cool is that?

Back to friends. A real gift was being welcomed in people’s homes. For those of you who organize yourself in piles like I do, and tolerate dust bunnies, Bless You! I get stressed out removing (OK, hiding) my piles of paper and wondering if things are clean enough for normal people before welcoming visitors, It was SO reassuring to see the way Real People in America live. [editor's note; there are NO dust bunnies in Laura and Greg's house] And meals don’t have to be elaborate. A simple meal, shared, is so very nice, so worth it. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Maybe in Lebanon it’s a bit different, with Lebanese anyway—it is expected to have at least four or five dishes to choose from. They have maids and cooks. But I see I shouldn’t hesitate to invite someone in when the apartment is in disarray or the food is ordinary. Another lesson, from teacher lady friends. You (I) can do it. I can try to teach English.

Observations of America: people are generally pudgy and lots are fat. People (a significant minority, anyway) wear things with holes, spots or wrinkles. These are all remarkable from the European and 2nd world view, probably 3rd world too. People are busy. What is it that people spend so much time doing? TV I guess, and meetings and house projects, and kids’ activities, and exercise and email—yes, especially email, and meetings, community groups. I enjoyed hearing of the AA meetings some of my friends attend. With total strangers they share pain and experience, courage and hope, in every city across the continent. They go for themselves or for loved ones, trusting strangers to support them in their struggle.

Heading toward Hudson Bay. As we near the pole, the sun sets, then rises—no dark!

Charles de Gaulle airport is a symphony of remarkable inefficiency and confusion. We would like to run to make our connection to Beirut, but are forced instead to wait for a bus that is late and takes a slow and circuitous route. We make it by moments. Others are not so lucky.

Flying along the Lebanese coast I see tankers loaded with oil to run the generators that fuel the air pollution haze. Beirut is a dense sea of light brown high rise buildings, with roads hardly visible—none of the sprawling highways of America. There are few bits of green, a shock after the lush Northwest US. Apartment block life is the norm here, where the word “house” as in “my house” means apartment, and you use the word “villa” to describe an actual house.

We are back, 16 hours from Seatac airport. It is hot, and humid. The Rafik Hariri airport is busier than we have ever seen it—arrivals as well as departures, it is important perhaps to note—this is a good sign, a good measure of the health of the country.

The next day: oh my gosh—it’s quarter to seven and I’m sweating already.

Apartment photos

Here are photos of the new apartment.

First, Tom in the living/dining room, balcony behind him.

Then sunset from the balcony. That's the Sea beyond the high rise with the crane on top.

Besides the sunset, our view to the left includes an Ottoman era house with red tiled roof. To the front there is an open area with a good sized garden and big tree in the foreground, then a couple of high rise buildings, and then the Sea. To the far right, the hulk of the bullet-marked Holiday Inn.

Here is a shot of the towering pile of cardboard, plastic and styrofoam on the landing, a result of the all the new appliances and furniture. MAJOR GUILT.

And here is Tom outside, on the steps leading down to the building from the street above

And the kitchen--before appliances

Balcony life!

Feel the breeze off the Mediterranean??

Post-election

A peaceful election day, with many surprised by the victory of the ruling parties. They won 68 seats to 57 for the opposition, with 3 independents. Here is some interesting feedback from a Lebanese political blog (http://www.qifanabki.com/):

"The blogosphere is already buzzing with interpretations of M14’s electoral victory. Abu Muqawama (Andrew Exum) attributes it to a combination of Christian animosity towards Hizbullah for its takeover of West Beirut last year; Saudi money; and a few well-placed words by the Maronite patriarch a couple of days before the election. Robert Satloff, writing at MESH, says that Joe Biden was the real hero, sweeping into Beirut to remind voters of the consequences for Lebanon’s alliance with the U.S. if Hizbullah and its allies won, with the result that Christian voters “cast their ballots in droves for candidates opposed to the Hezbollah-backed alliance.”
Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell disagrees, saying:

'I hate to burst the bubble, but there’s simply no evidence yet that Obama had any impact on the outcome. As Paul Salem explained Friday for FP, there were plenty of indications – such as the fact that it only ran 11 candidates — that Hezbollah didn’t really want to win and give up its cozy seat in the opposition. And further, it was Hezbollah’s coalition partner, the mostly Christian Free Patriotic Movement, that seems to have underperformed expectations.'

Election Sunday

It is Sunday. We hear church bells and the call to prayer. I like the call to prayer from the Shiite mosque near our new apartment. it is more melodic, softer somehow, and reminds me of Gregorian chant.

We were advised not to travel today and there is no hike. Instead we walk (40 minutes!) to St. Joseph Catholic Church, where K has heard there is a service tailored to migrant domestic workers. Indeed, we arrive to find 100 - 200 mostly Filipino women waiting for the priest to begin the service. He is at the back of the church, counseling individuals one by one. He does much for this community, Father McDermott. The mass has a lot of standing, sitting, kneeling (Tom irreverently whispers "stand up, sit down, fight fight fight"), incense waving, the occasional bell, blessing of the pope and invoking innumerable saints, and lots of crossing onesself. It is all in English. the priest is a white haired American, and another priest (?) arrives in time to help officiate the communion--he looks to be nearly 80. The offering plates fill with 1,000 lira notes--the smallest available, worth 67 cents. These are hard working women who earn maybe $300 a month and have to pay back their travel and work permit fees.

On the way to the church we happened to pass by one of the polling places--a school. The army is deployed at every polling place in the country. So far (5 pm) there have only been a few "minor scuffles". Not far from the polling place we pass is a group of yellow T-shirt clad Hezbollah supporters near a group of blue T-shirt wearing Hariri (government) supporters in front of the Hariri-owned Future TV station.

There are 2,500 journalists here covering the election!
One very important point that is not well known outside the country is that Hezbollah only has 11 seats out of the 128 , and won't have any more whatever the election result. While often referred to as "the Hezbollah-led coalition" they "lead" it by virtue of their military might. Their army, which rivals--is stronger than, actually--the national Lebanese Army.

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Must share a sign on an establishment we passed on the way home from the church: "Drink and Sing, Karaoke Pub"

Our pre-election move

We moved this week, to a brand new building. The refrigerator, stove, washer and dryer were still in boxes in the kitchen. A mountain of cardboard and styroam subsequently began to grow on every landing of the 10 floor building; on ours, the seventh, with two apartments, the pile reached 8 feet high and nearly as wide. So very, very sad to think it is all destined for the landfill on the southern coast. We have heard that huge chunks sometimes fall off and into the sea.

The brand new building has a generator, but it isn't working because apparently the exhaust blasts into the building close behind ours. One wonders if the fact that our building completely obliterates the other's Mediterranean view has any bearing on the outrage voiced by its occupants. And I'm curious how they will correct the problem...and how long it will take. The power in Beirut is generally only out for three hours a day, on a usually predictable schedule (three hours earlier each day). But with elections coming, there are more frequent outages, and at unpredictable times. This is to save electricity so that it can be run all day on election day Sunday. Go figure.

About the election: I read that 19,000 overseas Lebanese had arrived in a 48 hour period. We hear incoming planes every few minutes. They have to be here to vote--in fact they have to go to their home village to vote, so there will be a lot of coming and going. Jimmy Carter arrived this week, along with 44 members of the US-based National Democracy Institute and a delegation of 35 Arab election monitors representing 17 countries. Local monitors have found 4,000 - 10,000 forged identity cards. All businesses are closed Saturday - Monday, and schools closed Monday. We have been advised to stay in. Sigh.

This would be a good time to be well-informed, and I am frustrated that we have no TV or internet at our new place. No telephone line either, but thankfully we have a cell.

In between sweeping up tiny balls of styrofoam and unpacking boxes, I read the refrigerator manual while taking a rest. No such luck with the front-loading washing machine manual, which is all in Arabic. I tried to run a load and got shocked when I touched the wet laundry (which hadn't spun dry for some reason). It's an adventure, and there are multiple frustrations until things get worked out, but it is a lovely apartment, with a nice Mediterranean view and a welcome breeze in this humid climate.
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Things look better the next day. I have found not only my underwear but the BBC! I do like to think of being one of maybe milllions huddled around a scratchy radio to catch BBC World Service news (blip blip blip blip BLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIP, on the hour). I found it on the AM dial of the Chinese built radio I bought last year.

Tom's cedar reserve hike

Last Sunday Tom went on a hike to one of the cedar reserves.

Here is a shot with some cedar cones--they stick straight up from the branches.

And a 2,000 year old tree!!! (Tom says Jesus carved his initials in)

Massaya trip, and local lovely things

Last Sunday friends had organized another trip to

the lovely Massaya Vineyard in the Bekaa Valley, so of course we had to go. They serve a fabulous meal, with lots of wine. Here is K with Adele, a fellow Boggle champ. And T with colleague Paul, getting ready to play poker. T won!

With a major election coming up, billboards and signs for varous blocs and candidates have sprung up. One of the more striking billboards is a beautiful woman (thankfully just the face) saying "soit belle, vote" = Be beautiful, vote". On the way back from the Bekaa we spotted it--sorry it may be too small for you to see in the photo. And then there is the same lady, in orange lipstick, saying"Je Vote Orange" (the opposition). I remember a visiting British teacher at Brumanna School telling me of her dismay last Easter when a 6 year old student refused to pick up an orange colored agg during an egg hunt, because "I don't take orange ones." Sigh.

And later in the week I had a coffee with my two good friends here, one a Kenyan American and the other Palestinian American. K is very sad that Sandra is leaving in a few weeks.

Fava beans are everywhere. 50 cents a kilo. They're huge.