Amy’s Journal

I had hoped to write a really thoughtful farewell post, but between saying goodbye to a few friends who stopped by this evening and the fact that our internet connection has been spotty all day (so fitting!), I just didn’t get around to writing it.

It’s been a wonderful year in so many ways, and it still hasn’t completely sunk in that our year in Beirut is over. I’m curious (and nervous) to see what will come next here in Lebanon. It feels strange to know that we will miss everything that happens. There is so much about living here that I will miss – from the food to the sea to the call to prayer, not to mention people. I’m a little sad, but mostly ready to move on to the next thing.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday, we went to the family house of a friend, up in the mountains near Bikfaya. He invited a group of people for a BBQ . There was a lot of confusion about how we would even get up there, and at the last moment, a small bus materialized and we all went up together.

The house is truly amazing- 300 years old, built during the Ottoman period. Mike’s parents are slowly restoring it. It’s all stone, even the floors, aside from the wood ceilings. The gardens around it are sunny and lush, and we passed a very pleasant afternoon and evening, chatting and eating.

We are going to pay for it on Monday, when we will have to spend the entire day packing and preparing to leave, but we have been having fun this weekend. Friday we decided to go swimming, a fine choice as it was pretty overcast and breezy. We went to a “beach” in Beirut to swim in a pool and paid over $10 for the privilege. Beaches in Beirut consist of an (in this case, crumbling) concrete slab jutting into the sea, but most people swim in a salt water pool. It is a much smarter idea to go to an out of town beach, but we wanted a quick swim. The highlight was watching a fisherman there catch cuttlefish- we saw him catch 3. There are many people fishing in Beirut, but they never seem to catch anything. Watching this guy was a real treat. The cuttlefish were about a foot and-a-half long.

Friday night we stopped in at Torino and Captain’s Cabin. It was a bit sad saying goodbye to Andre, the owner of the latter.

We spent all day yesterday with Matthew, Mary Ann, and the girls at their place and the park. We are going to miss them a lot but I know we will see them again. I am convinced they will live somewhere visit-worthy for whatever their next gig turns out to be.

In the evening, we met up with Bjorn and went to a concert at Luna Park, the dilapidated amusement park on the corniche. For a year we have been waiting for an event like this. For all of the bragging people do about Beirut nightlife, there is virtually no music scene, which is something that we have really missed. We got to see a couple of bands that we had heard of (The New Government and Scrambled Eggs), but never seemed to actually play shows. We ran into practically everyone we know in Beirut. All of the carnival rides were free, so we sampled some bumper cars, the big ferris wheel, and even this horrible haunted house thing that was full of trash and smelled musty and vile.

The bands were decent and it was all in all a good time. Way more interesting than trying to cram into a boring club in Gemmayzeh or Monot.

None of these photos is particularly recent, nor do they really fit together. Oh well.

Fishing in the Mediterranean.

A group of young guys doing the dabke downtown.

A kaik seller on the corniche.

Grafitti in the Chatila refugee camp.

A boy with a toy gun in Chatila.

We finally made it back to the South. On Saturday, we returned to Saida and to the main police station, only to realize that we needed the army base. At the army base, we were informed that while Malcolm would be permitted to go (he’s Canadian), Ethan and I could not get permission as Americans because the army “cannot guarantee (your) safety.”

We were hearing this from a polite young man who somehow did not sound quite firm enough. So I kept sitting there in his office as he dealt with other people, the phone, etc. Then I asked, “Are you sure that there is no one you can call?” Five minutes later, we were sitting in the Colonel’s rather fancy office being served coffee and chatting about our extended vacation in Lebanon. Then he told us it was all arranged and that our names would be given to all of the checkpoints. So we were off.

Our first stop was Beaufort Castle (Qalat ash-Shakif, in Arabic). This is one of several crusader castles in Lebanon, and is in very poor shape. During the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon (1982-2000), the Israelis held it, and now it is under Hezbollah’s control, as is a significant portion of the rest of the south. The views from on top are quite stunning, though it was a cloudy day. We also watched a film crew prepare to shoot a Hezbollah propaganda video on the ground below.

After lunch, we made a stop at Khiam Prison, which was run by the SLA (South Lebanese Army- a proxy army for Israel). A young guy who said he was from Beirut offered to show us around, though he ended up pretty much just reading the signs to us, which are already translated into English. Khiam Prison has been turned into a museum of sorts. You can wander the grounds and read about which rooms were torture rooms, which were for sleeping, etc. A very sad place. When Israel decided to pull out in May 2000, they just left the prisoners inside. People from the surrounding villages came in to free them.

The museum is run by Hezbollah, and there is a gift shop where you can buy Hezbollah, lighters, keychains, DVDs and the like. The man running the gift shop was a former prisoner. A guy who had come to visit began to complain to us about the U.S. labeling Hezbollah a terrorist organization. He was Lebanese-Canadian, so I reminded him that Canada also lists Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, but he was pretty much just interested in complaining about the U.S.

As an aside, it seems that we narrowly missed running into Noam Chomsky again. Could he be following us?

After leaving the prison, we decided to drive to the Israel/Palestine border to have a look. It’s sort of amazing that for 2 countries in a state of war, there is just a fence between them. We stood and looked at an (illegal) Israeli settlement that was surprisingly near.

After leaving the border, we promptly got a flat tire. Lots of potholes in these parts, and our tires were probably over-inflated. Malcolm and Ethan put the spare on, and we were off — for another 30 minutes or so, when we got a flat with the spare. Yes, two flat tires. We called the car rental company who came to bring us another car, but had to sit in the dark on the coast highway for an hour while we waited.

On Friday, we went down to Saida in order to try to get a permit to visit South Lebanon. Unfortunately, we arrived too late as the police station closes up at around noon on Friday. We just missed it. We ended up spending the afternoon in Saida and Tyre.

Yesterday, Malcolm and I went to Chatila, the Palestinian refugee camp where I volunteered last summer. I wanted to visit, Nohad, the director of the vocational center where I had been. I hadn’t see her in many months. She’s an amazing person who had become a good friend and I was feeling really guilty for sort of losing touch. Malcolm was interested in seeing the camp, so off we went.

When we got to her office, Nohad wasn’t there. A young guy who turned out to be the new computer teacher, turned up and told us that she had gone out to show Noam Chomsky around the camp. This would have been more shocking, but of course we knew that Chomsky was in Lebanon. I had tried to go and see him give a lecture at AUB just a few days before, but the hall was full. The computer instructor offered to take us to look for them and we went.

We wandered around the camp for awhile, with Malcolm admiring some of the murals painted on the walls. The camp is small and everybody knows what is going on, so the guy was pretty easily able to figure out where they had gone by asking around. This is how we ended up sitting in on a meeting between Noam Chomsky and some leaders of Fatah in Lebanon. The leaders sat under a massive portrait of Yasser Arafat in the shabby concrete office and (sort of) answered Chomsky’s questions which were filtered through a translator. Most of the talk centered around what was going to happen to Fatah now that they had lost the elections to Hamas and most of their funding was drying up. (There doesn’t seem to be much of a plan).

After this meeting, we walked to the mass grave where somewhere between 800-1500 people are buried following the massacre in 1982. I didn’t talk to Chomsky much, though he was very polite. I chatted quite a bit with his wife, who was very lively and lamented that everywhere they go, Dr. Chomsky has to be urged to slow down, rest, etc.

It was great to see Nohad and we made plans to meet up again before I leave (in a week and a half – yikes).

We took a day trip to Byblos on Sunday. Just wandered around, explored the crusader castle, enjoyed the views.

Malcolm is here! He shaded off to Damascus for a few days, but returned yesterday afternoon. I think we will rent a car for the weekend and do some exploring, hopefully some of that in South Lebanon.

We have walked around Beirut a lot, naturally. Here are pictures from one of those walks.

I guess it’s because I know that this journal is coming to an end that I am finding it difficult to stay motivated to write. I loved our trip to Oman, despite the fact that I have said so little about it. I have often felt that people mostly just want pictures, anyhow. With that in mind, here are several more. These are actually from our old camera which, as it turns out, did not break after all. Ugh.

The view from one hotel in Muttrah, the port area of Muscat, the capital.

The Muttrah souq. A bit more shopping mall than most souqs in the Middle East.

Some guys outside the fish market who really wanted for their photo to be taken.

The nearly surreal coastline south of Muscat. We stayed in a hotel with huts on the beach that you can barely see on the left side.

The hotel beach.