Amy’s Journal

Ethan having a traditional Omani meal in a restaurant. The waiter gave us forks, though. Omanis eat with their hands, but eating rice with my hands in public is a skill I don’t have.

Ethan at Jabrin Castle, a really amazing building in the interior region.

Goats for sale at the Nizwa souq. The guy taking the goat ended up loading it into the back of his Ford Taurus station wagon.

More (fancy?) goats for sale.

View from the Nizwa fort. Oman has lots and lots of forts. Some were built by the Portugese and some are Omani.

The fish market in the Nizwa souq. It was a lot bloodier than it looks.

So we are back in Beirut after about 9 days in the Sultanate of Oman. We actually got back on Sunday afternoon, but somehow I have felt too drained to post about it. I’m going to have to do it in parts or I fear it will never happen.

The first photos that we have are actually from about halfway through the trip. This is because my camera broke. It just stopped turning on. The moment I realized this was about 5:30 AM one morning, as Ethan and I watched a huge sea turtle who had just finished covering her eggs. She slowly and with pauses returned to the sea, a truly stirring sight. I struggled to focus on watching her and not fiddle with my camera. Even after she was gone, I really wanted that camera– the sun was rising, the beach was littered with scurrying crabs, everything was washed in a gorgeous light.

Prior to this loss of camera on about Day 5 of the trip, we had already had some pretty great adventures. Most notably, we went snorkeling in the Indian Ocean. It was the first time that I had ever tried it, aside from just goofing around on a few beaches in Puerto Rico where I saw a few rather ordinary fish. We went on a boat full of divers and snorkelers to a spot known as Mermaid Cove. It was amazing .. we saw hundreds and hundreds of fish of every color and shape you can imagine. We saw 2 moray eels, which are sort of creepy. On a second snorkeling trip later in the week, we saw scorpion fish, lion fish, and even a huge ray swimming below us.

Anyhow, on to the first batch of pictures, taken with our brand new camera, purchased in the fairly provincial town of Sur. We wanted to see some desert dunes, but it’s already quite hot in Oman. We decided to get up at 5 AM and just take a walk in the desert for a few hours before the heat became unbearable. This part of the desert is known as Wahiba Sands.

So we are off to Oman! The trip is really unplanned still, so who knows what we’ll do. We have a rental car and a hotel reserved in Muscat for the first 2 nights. I guess we will just drive around and see what we see. I think Ethan mentioned that it is hot there already, approaching 100F. It will be good preparation for living in Texas 6 weeks from now. Except I don’t think we can go snorkeling in Texas. (Dad, Lake Travis does not count).

I feel like things are going to feel rushed from here on out. We return on the 30th. Malcolm comes on May 4 (yippee!). We leave Lebanon a week after he does. It’s perfect timing for him to come, as we have places we want to see one last time. It will be great fun to run around and explore with him.

I was going to write a few lines on Tuesday, as it was the 10th anniversary of the Qana Massacre. Israel bombed a United Nations camp in South Lebanon saying there were “terrorists” hiding there, but they only succeeded in killing over 100 innocent people. I mentioned this a few months ago when we went to Qana.

However, since Tuesday, Ethan has either been on the computer where the photos are, or the internet has been down, or I have been too tired/lazy to muster it. You can read Robert Fisk’s account of the aftermath, if you are interested.

UPDATE: Speaking of April 18, it is also the anniversary of the US Embassy bombing here in Beirut in 1983, possibly by early-era Hezbollah.

Sunday on the Corniche

Friday was gorgeous and summery, the first day this year that it actually felt hot. It was great. We had friends over to BBQ and sat outside in short sleeves in the evening. I am convinced that the not-quite 3 year old in the family is a genius, because as soon as she arrived, she began talking about the grapes, because the grapevines had grapes on them the last time she was over, about 7 months ago. I told her that there weren’t any grapes (the vines die back in winter) and she went to go check it out, walking straight to the terrace in back. We have friends who have been over more than 10 times and still get lost, and house guests who took days to figure out the layout of our apartment, but Stella remembered precisely after all of that time. We are going to miss these friends and several others, but I count on most of them to end up living somewhere interesting that we will want to visit.

Saturday was cloudy, chilly, and windy. Oh well. We nixed plans to go to the beach and went out for lunch in Gemmayzeh instead. We eventually went to to see “Brokeback Mountain”. I really liked it, and it was interesting to watch a censored version. I’m not sure how much they cut out, but according to this version, Jack and Ennis never got beyond hugging and wrestling. It was all implied, though. You would see them lean in to kiss, a small flicker, and they were moving away from each other. Then the (very small) audience would sigh in disappointment.

We had an interesting evening at Captain’s Cabin last night, with Mike and some of his friends. They are a little older than I am and had interesting stories about their lives here. They were teenagers and young adults during the war. Most of them had gone to AUB, but they had stories about having to change majors because the program they were in had to shut down. Coming on to campus, they would be searched so thoroughly that sometimes their ballpoint pens would be disassembled. They told us about the last American professor who stayed, until the threat of kidnapping was so likely that he just left the country one night. Still, one of the women told me that the first time she was ever afraid was years later on vacation in Manassas, VA, when she thought a teenaged kid was following her.

Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of the start of the Lebanese Civil War. The above photo is of one of the still-bombed-out buildings that remain. It’s the Holiday Inn, which was held by Christian Phalangists in 1975, until they were defeated there, the last Christian stand in West Beirut.

I went to a “photo exhibit” yesterday which was meant to honor those still missing from the war. As an art exhibit, it certainly fell short, but I was able to finally go inside “the bubble”, a huge and scarred cement structure near Martyr’s Square.

For now, it’s just a wrecked building inside, but there are supposedly plans to reconstruct it. The famous-in-Lebanon architect, Bernard Khoury, plans to make it look like sort of like a giant metallic fish, you can read about it here , though there is no way it’s going to be finished in 2006, considering no work has been done on it at all.

The exhibit inside consisted of some xerox copies of wallet sized photos of people who are missing, as well as some big balloons with more xeroxed photos sloppily pasted on them. I have heard that the group who organized the “show”, the Committee of the Disappeared, is lobbying the government to have April 13 recognized as a national day of remembrance.

It is interesting that here people seem a lot more focused on forgetting the war than remembering. There are certainly countries that have spent a lot of time going over such tragedies and making a point to remember as a way of making sure to never repeat the past. Lebanon has not done this – they as a people have not addressed the war nor really reconciled. This may not be such a terrible thing, though. I sort of feel like if there was a strong movement to go through such a process at this time, there would be conflict again. As far as I can tell, all of the reasons for that war are still present today, with the only encouraging thing being that people really don’t want to go through it again. That is actually a very encouraging thing, indeed.

Something called The Worldwide Quality of Living Survey has been released for 2006. It ranks cities based on a variety of factors as places to live for ex-pats. Out of 215 cities, Beirut is #155- slightly better than Hanoi and slightly worse than Bangalore. The top 3 are Zurich, Geneva, and Vancouver. Of those 3, I have only been to Geneva, which I thought was rather boring. At the bottom, unsurprisingly, is Baghdad.

I’m not sure how the cities were chosen, or why Lexington, KY is on the list, but Dallas, TX isn’t. This link is weird, but it’s the only place that I found the whole list.

I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it, but there are a lot of stray cats in Beirut. In our neighborhood, they seem to be mostly orange tabbies, but you see them in all colors, really. The ones around here are quite feral, and everyone seems to ignore them completely.

If you walk over to AUB campus, you will find yourself in stray cat heaven. I have no idea why the ones on Yamout St and around don’t go over there. The cats are living in a lush, semi-tropical paradise where there are no cars and they are actually fed cat food. A lot of these cats are semi-tame and are far less scraggly looking than their counterparts just a few blocks away. Apparently, the situation improved dramatically after instituting a program to limit the escalating population in addition to feeding them. The cats are being vaccinated, fed, and females are being spayed.

Over here in Hamra, the cats are not spayed, and cat breeding season is upon us. The evenings lately are punctuated with that horrible cat-in-heat yowling. When we moved here last May, there were kittens everywhere, and they have since grown up (or been hit by cars). I saw one of the first batches this year a few evenings ago, and I know that many more are on the way.

Speaking of pets, pet birds seem to be most popular. Canaries and finches and those sorts of little birds are very common, but I’ve seen quite a few cockatiels as well as the odd parrot. Some people also keep pigeons on the roof, which are let out to fly around near dusk, exactly as in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The other day I realized that one of my pigeon-keeping neighbors has a white duck on the roof, too. This is not a dog culture, though it’s much more common to see a little spaniel or terrier out for a walk (generally with the maid) here than in most cities in the Middle East.

There is actually a fairly progressive Animal Rescue type organization here called BETA. Their site includes baboon rescue, and yes, I have seen a baboon for sale in a pet store here. There is one not too far from here living in a tiny cage she can barely stand up in.

I took this photo from our front balcony of the street below.

Happy birthday, Mohammed. The Prophet’s birthday is not as important a holiday in Islam as Christmas is for Christians. For some reason, yesterday was the observed holiday, though the Daily Star newspaper has taken the day off today.

The big news around here is that supposedly 9 people were arrested for allegedly plotting to assasinate Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader. As usual, I don’t know what to believe. Is this just a ploy to garner sympathy for Hezbollah? Israel is also complaining that Hezbollah is about to launch more substantial attacks against them any day now. Is this based on actual evidence, or is the Israeli government saying this to justify Washington’s claims that Iran and Hezbollah are threatening the world and should be taken out?

Speaking of the Iran thing, I am filled with so much dread. It is amazing to me that it looks like airstrikes are a real possibility. In many ways, it is going to be very difficult to be back in the States. Right or wrong, living abroad has given me some distance, even though I’ve been living a region that is particularly affected by the Bush Administration. I am really trying to come to terms with the fact that I am going to be 100% a part of it again.

I’m going for a long walk to cheer myself up.

On Saturday, we rented a car with our friend, Bjorn, and drove to the Chouf Cedar Reserve to do a little hiking. The Chouf is the traditional area of Lebanese Druze, one of the minor but still significant religious groups in Lebanon. We paused on the way east to walk around Deir al Qamar (House of the Moon), a truly gorgeous little village.

We made it to Moukhtara, the home of Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader. He is perhaps the most amusing of the major political players in Lebanon. He is well-known for “flip-flopping”, but for now he is very anti-Syria, which has led him to hole up for most of the last year inside his palace. During the recent “National Dialogue”, he left abruptly to fly to Washington to wave a map around – claiming to show that the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms belongs to Syria, and not Lebanon, therefore Hezbollah should disband. He is probably near the top of the list of those most-likely-to-be-assasinated.

Not surprisingly, there are checkpoints at all roads going in and out of Moukhtara. Our papers were checked numerous times, which sometimes seemed to be more a symptom of boredom and/or curiosity on the part of the soldiers than anything else. Eventually, we arrived at one of the entrances to the reserve, which was closed and locked. Sigh. We peered at the old growth cedars through the fence.

We attempted to drive over the mountain to Kefraya, but made a wrong turn and ended up reaching the end of the road, something we seem to be pretty good at when we drive around rural Lebanon. It turned out that the road is still closed for the winter and also is not paved.

By this point, we realized we were starving, so we found a restaurant on the outskirts of Moukhtara. There was some sort of party going on, but the staff fit us in. The party consisted of about 50 young men and 3 or 4 young women, sporadically chanting, dancing, drumming, and singing while chugging glasses of arak. It was unclear what they were celebrating, but at one point they were singing (shouting) “Frere Jacques”. The food turned out to be surprisingly delicious, the moutabal (smoky eggplant dip) was some of the best I’ve had. We also ordered my current obsession, which is shanklish, a kind of cheese that you mix together with onion, parsley, tomato, and oil.

After getting lost a bit more, getting more directions in Arabic, and driving through some positively beautiful countryside, we made it to what turned out to be the main entrance to the reserve, near the village of Barouk. We elected to park the car at the entrance and walk 5 km to the old cedars, because it seemed that there weren’t actually really hiking trails, and it was just a drive to the top. The walk was all uphill, on pavement, so not ideal. That and it started getting late, so we turned back after we made it to the first old growth trees, maybe 4 km up.

They are really something, the old cedar trees, with their spreading branches. Some are supposed to be over a thousand years old. The Mount Lebanon cedars are more celebrated, but there are more in the Chouf. The Chouf is also suffering from far less over-development. Compared to much of Lebanon, it is pretty unspoiled. I’m not sure why this is the case, but I want to make another trip to the Chouf before we go.