Spring in Beirut

Trees seemed to have burst into full bloom overnight. The main concentration of trees is at the American University of Beirut, which thankfully we walk through almost every day. A row of orange trees there covered with blossoms about knocks you over, maybe because you are in full swoon over a large jasmine just before it. As you reel to take it in you look out over the Mediterranean below. Ah. Further along, exotic (to me) trees sport hundreds of vaguely lily-like orange numbers, on the very ends of branches with no leaves. Wild.

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Kurban Travel’s Easter specials include 3 nights at the Dead Sea, Istanbul or Budapest ($555). But you could also choose The Benediction of Jean Paul II package, all inclusive at $1230.

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My birthday was lovely, with greetings from people of at least 6 nationalities, from here and a few other spots around the globe. Nice! Broumana friends celebrated two of us with birthdays the same week, with two cakes.

Broumana F/friends

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Mother’s Day is March 21, the equinox. Festive atmosphere around the country. Flowers for sale everywhere. Gifts are given. At the local supermarket, a manager presents me with a “cadeau”—a box with the words Happy Mother’s Day and pictures of flowers on it. Not every female is a recipient; I am considered a “regular” here J I thank him and open my gift at home, to find: four cleaning products, two for floors and one for toilets, the fourth a kind of Clorox. What every mother needs, apparently. Hmm, but they all have [migrant worker] maids!

Kandahar to Kyoto, and note on Khartoum

We are stunned and sickened by the horrific events in Japan. So many souls lost, so many more affected on the ground. And we thought we could control nature—ha. Two nuclear meltdowns to date.

The only bright spot: somehow the tragedy has served to bring together the global community. Aid is pouring in from many nations—70 nations, I heard. Predictable perhaps that the UK and US would help, but rescue teams were also sent by Taiwan, Korea and past and recent foe China. Blankets from India. More touching yet, Sri Lanka, itself devastated by tsunami, civil war and just this year by flooding; impoverished Bangladesh; explosive Pakistan. But Kandahar! The city of Kandahar, Afghanistan, witness to too much horror for too long itself, sent $50,000 to Japan for relief.

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K tutored a Japanese young man on the day of the quake/tsunami, just hours after, during the school day. He had heard of the event but did not know the location; she was at least able to reassure him that it was not in the area where his relatives live. Hard to concentrate on vocab and grammr with images of 10 meter waves in mind.

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K was invited to an event at the Sudanese Cultural Club, which has somehow been in operation for 30 years and occupies an impressive bit of real estate in Beirut’s Hamra neighborhood. The invite came purely as a result of having smiled and said hello to a friendly Sudanese shopkeeper over the past couple of years. J It was a singing contest, American Idol style, with several male Sudanese workers showing their talents, backed by a three piece band. They had invited several assorted western foreigners to enjoy the festivities. I had told the man who invited me that there was a new effort in place to offer English instruction to migrant workers, for free, and that there was hope of getting computer literacy classes up and running as well. Subsequently, he introduced me to the wife of the Sudanese ambassador, resplendent in swathes of diaphanous fabric and assorted jewels. She said I must come to her house one day and we could talk about the classes. She said some of the ladies have nothing to do during the day and it would be good for them, then floated away. Um, er—I didn’t get a chance to tell her that the classes were offered for migrant domestic workers—not for bored embassy staff wives! Interesting dynamics now that the country has split. The ambassador and most of those present at the Club are Moslems from the north, whereas most of the migrant workers are Christians from the south, less entitled, poorer.

It's Beirut to Baku

Can you spell Azerbaijan? We can, now :-)


After four years, we will be leaving Lebanon in June for new adventures on a new continent, at the foot of the Caucasus mountains, on the Caspian Sea: Baku, Azerbaijan.


Tom followed the trail of his contract with the International School of Azerbaijan online. Traveling by UPS it left Baku for Moscow, then Koln (Cologne), and Abu Dhabi, before reaching Beirut.


We plunged into the planning phase: scouring the web for details from Azeri language to weather, Caspian to tourism, contacting the shipping company, and ordering the Lonely Planet for Azerbaijan. Moving on to phase two has me making a brown paper cover for said Lonely Planet, as it covers not only AZ but two other Transcaucus nations: Georgia and Armenia, the latter the arch enemy of Azerbaijan. There are stories of travelers having the book confiscated. Sigh. It is so bad that even US citizens who have Armenian sounding names are not granted visas.


Exciting to go, and hard to leave. There are so many things we will miss here. The friends we have made. The crazy, delightful (well, mostly) chaos. The PEOPLE. The FOOD. The beauty of the mountains and sea. Being able to walk everywhere. Reasonable internet access. Being able to communicate--in English, massacred Arabic, stumbling French. The weather, mostly.

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No doubt there will be fascinating cultural events like the one witnessed by Tom last week from our balcony. A wedding party gathered on the wide stairs outside our building. A traditional band, in costume, played the drum-heavy music that has become familiar to us, and a beautiful white-gowned bride emerged from a building across from ours. The group made its way down the stiarway and on down the street. Tom caught this photo from our 7th floor balcony.

Remote ecolodge....Delicious quiet

We took advantage of a four day weekend (the Prophet's Birthday), rented a car and headed to the far northeast corner of Lebanon, near Hermel. We had hope to go north to Tripoli and over the mountains from there, but as that pass was still snow covered we took the much less scenic, "E ticket ride" Damascus highway to the Bekaa and then turned north through Zahle and Baalbek into Hermel.

On the way we had an important errand: reconnecting with the lovely family that had been so kind to us on a previous visit to the area when we stopped at their store. We had gifts for their children--books for the two girls and a Boeing T-shirt (thanks to friend Greg) for their son, an aspiring engineer. As welcoming as before, they lit the wood stove in the sitting room and made us tea. We had an animated discussion, mostly in Arabic and English but with the occasional German word thrown in, Samir having lived in Germany for six years. He says they would return there in a minute, or go anywhere--France, the US, if they could. For the children. Business is not good here and the political situation stinks. People are for Nasrallah or Hariri or Aoun, he said, they are Shia or Sunni--I am just a HUMAN, he said. "We can go to the moon, but we still look at each other and say, 'you're Sunni, you're Christian'". They are fed up, he says, this sweet and smart Shia man from Nasrallah country. They are tender with each other, he and Ghada. She speaks almost no English. It is Saturday and the kids are in school. Samir wants to go get them out of school to see us. We plead for him not to, promise to come back again before we leave for Azerbaijan.

A representative from their distribution company comes into the store and Ghada gets up to go speak with him. After he leaves she and Samir discuss his visit and laugh. Samir explains that the guy kept saying, "I swear by Hussein this... I swear by Allah that..." Samir says, "I swear by this tea!", with rolled eyes.

They wouldn't let us leave empty-handed, giving us a huge jar of homemade makdous, a spicy walnut-stuffed eggplant pickle that we love. It is the best we've ever had.

On to the lodge. In the foothills of the Lebanon mountains on the Bekaa side, with the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the distance, separating Lebanon and Syria to the east, nestled quite near the Syrian border to the north. Great scenery, good company with some ACS colleagues, great stars at night, C O L D, quiet, fresh trout from the Assi River, grilled for us each night. Mmmmm

We are told we can hike in any direction except that one there: there is a Hezbollah training camp over the ridge there. While hiking, we pass by a couple of traditional houses, fascinating structures with stone walls and living plant roofs. The plants are spiky and look to me like hedgehogs.

The area features ancient juniper trees, up to 1000 years old. Here is Tom with a fine specimen.

Niha hike, and War is What We Do

Beautiful hike in the southeastern Lebanon mountains, from Niha to Jezzine.




We hiked up to a Druze shrine.

Each color of the star has meaning--we have heard various explanations, e.g. green for plants and blue for sky, but also green for mental power and blue for the will.

Amazing rocks!

T admiring the view

And after, a visit to an ancient ruined mountain fortress. Below is Kristina, gazing at the view.

There were two guides on the trip, one Druze and one Maronite. We overheard them talking about the political situation and someone asked them what the thought would happen. They looked at each otehr for a moment, smiled, and said "War." Groans from us. "It's what we do."

Quiet, for now

Streets are quiet and we have a new Prime Minister, nominated by the democractically elected majority, approved by the President. Hecka tall billionaire Najib Mikati (apparently you don't have to be tall but you do have to be a billionaire), is Sunni as required by the constitution. The US spin is that Mikati is the Hezbollah candiate, and that the whole new government is Hezbollah-led (not true, though their huge and powerful private army is hard to ignore) and that US aid to Lebanon will be discontinued. That may not be such a big deal, as the aid is microscopic compared to that given to our neighbor to the south. The French are more pragmatic, and the EU "urges Mikati to seek the widest possible concensus" in forming a government. Which he has vowed to do.

But the Hariri assasination tribunal report will rear its ugly head again soon, the new govenrment having vowed to quash it and the old government, backed by the US and France, vowing to air it. That is currently scheduled to happen Feb. 7.

For now, schools and shops and banks and traffic and nonstop building construction are normal.

The heat is on in Lebanon

Sigh. Here is the thing: what you probably hear in the US is all about Prime Minister Hariri vs. Hezbollah and about justice being done in finding the perpetrators of the assassination of Hariri's sainted father. Well it just isn't that simple. Hariri is an old boy billionaire (with all his money safely away in Saudi Arabia) who enjoys endless US (and usually French) backing. The other side, which is now the majority, does include Hezbollah but has a huge Christian bloc who are tired of the old boy ineffective government.

Last week, the Druze swithced sides to join the opposition, tipping the balance so that "the opposition" is now the majority. In a democractic government, the majority should be allowed to vote on its leader, the Prime Minister, right? Isn't that the democracy the US stands for?

But as of today we have the first burning tire roadblocks of major highways and a massive strike--all by Hariri supporters who don't like the moderate candidate who has been brought forward by the opposition to replace Hariri as prime minister. He has previously served as Prime Minister and has pledged fairness and openess, and is even approved of by France. But here's the rhetoric from the US:"US warns of leading Hezbollah role in new government".

The root of this is the Tribunal looking at the assassination. The Tribunal may or may not be flawed, but as the Druze leader said several months ago,with so much at stake (i.e. peace), is it worth it to pursue??

Many people we know--smart, well educated, worldy, and mostly Christian--voted for the opposition. They don't like Hezbollah, but they don't like Hariri either.

Will cooler heads prevail? Well, you would have hoped the sitting govenrment would not act rashly, but they are the ones lighting tires on fire. Fortunately the Lebanese Army, amazingly neutral and composed of all sectors of the population, is going around breaking up the roadblocks and putting out the fires.