Amy’s Journal

We celebrated Ethan’s birthday all weekend, most notably by attending a Halloween party at the US Embassy on Saturday night.

Our costumes were pretty thrown together; at about 5 PM we went around the corner to the shop of a guy who always sells random stuff. Ethan got some zombie face paint, and I got a very low quality bat cape and hood and one of those knife headbands that makes it look like you have a knife going all the way through your head. Carrie came over in her spider costume, and after a quick dinner, we were set to go.

A friend had offered to drive the three of us to the embassy, but the pickup point was a 10 minute walk away, down Hamra Street, always busy in the early evening. We knew we would stand out- Halloween is not celebrated much here, but we were unprepared for the level of fanfare.

It was like we were in a parade. People were waving and calling out to us from across the street. Adults were pointing us out to their stunned children. Cars slowed down, people giggled, pointed, and called out words of encouragement. As we stood waiting for our ride, two girls from Qatar got out of their SUV and asked if they could have their pictures taken with Ethan. Another guy appeared with a video camera and trained it on the three of us. “Fantastic!” he said to me.

We were a little less famous at the party itself, but we had a good time. Lots of dancing and chatting with embassy staff. People from the embassy are always surprised to find out that there are westerners who actually live in Beirut. This is probably because they have to live on the embassy compound under heavy security. The embassy is in Awkar, which is a 20 or 30 minute drive from Beirut. If they want to leave the compound to, say, go out for dinner, they must submit a written request 24 hours in advance, detailing where they will be. They must also be accompanied by bodyguards. Very inconspicuous.

Ethan ended up winning first prize (a bottle of Wardy red) for “Scariest Costume”. After saying thanks, he took the microphone and said something like,”Wow, I thought this prize would go to the guy dressed as George Bush.” I was so proud, even though I think myself and the (nonplussed) event coordinator were the only ones who heard it.

That night there was a huge storm that lasted till morning. We went to Casablanca for Sunday brunch and watched the waves splash onto the corniche.

Today is Ethan’s actual birthday (Happy Halloween) so we are going out to dinner as a final celebration.

Today there was a Hezbollah parade for Jerusalem (al-Quds) Day, to protest the Israeli occupation. In fact, it is just ending. Several television stations carried it in its entirety. It took place in the southern suburbs of Beirut. When I passed through the area earlier, I saw a family piled onto a scooter with a huge yellow flag, as well as some others walking with flags. I know it is silly that I took photos of the TV, but I kind of just wanted to show that it looked exactly like a military parade anywhere (except that some of the regiments (?) were goosestepping).

Apparently, Nasrallah gave a speech claiming that the UN report is an attempt to sabotage relations between Lebanon and Syria. He said that Hezbollah would stand by the Syrian leadership and people.

Now Al-Manar, the Hezbollah run TV station is showing some of its propaganda videos, as it often does. Common themes include mosque domes, funerals of babies, heroic and scary looking fighters, and white doves flying.

We had a great time with the Sidani family last night. We had lots of delicious food, and explanations for everything. It is traditional to break the fast with a date, because this is what Mohammed did. They are a lot of fun, and they all have good stories, about the war and different life experiences.

One of the daughters, who I suspect is around 30, has been with her husband (who was also there) since they were children. When he was 11, he was new at her school, and one of the only blond-haired kids. He also had a motor scooter, so I think he was quite a catch. He used to take her for rides, but he also had to give rides to all of her cousins so that her mother would let her go, thinking that it meant nothing, since he would take each girl around.

During the war, the families in the building would sometimes spend days in the hallway, where it was deemed to be safer from shelling. The kids have memories of uncles and other family members playing games with the kids and trying to entertain them so that they wouldn’t be afraid. Everyone shared food when it was too dangerous to go out.

Last night, different family members from the building came and went, bringing their argileh pipes with them, stopping to visit for a few minutes or an hour.

The family has been inviting us to come for coffee or food since we moved in, but always in a nonchalant way– “Come have coffee sometime.” In the US, this clearly means, “It is possible that someday I will invite you over, but I will let you know.” Here, it is literal, which we realized, but at the same time could not manage to get past our cultural hangups and just randomly knock on the door to invite ourselves in. Maybe now we will find that a little easier.

I’ve had a bit of an epic day so far, beginning with a nice long chat with Russell via IM. It was late at night for him, and early in the morning for me, which I kind of like. I had my coffee and my labneh as we chatted. Then he said goodnight, and I headed off to the camp.

English class was fun. After the journal writing and the vocabulary words, I asked them to each write a question that they wanted to ask me on a notecard. I answered them all – most notably, “Why don’t you have any children?” – something that I have not been able to adequately explain, since they all think I am married. Then each of them had to go around and answer the same questions. Lots of giggles when you ask a 16 year old girl what her husband’s name is and ask why she doesn’t have any children.

One of my students was missing, because her mother was in the hospital, so after class, another teacher and I went to see them. Haifa Hospital is in Bourj al-Barajneh camp, and is the only hospital in the Beirut area that Palestinians can use. It is a very basic hospital, and for very specialized emergency care, they must go to a hospital near Saida and Ain el-Helweh camp, which can take well over an hour to reach. The mother of a friend of mine died in February after being turned down at a Lebanese hospital in Beirut- they weren’t able to make it to the hospital in the South in time.

Haifa Hospital was actually nicer than I had anticipated. It’s certainly spare, but it seems clean, with very professional doctors and staff. It is far less depressing than the hospital I visited in Tbilisi, Georgia a year ago. That said, employees are still paid very little and electricity cuts are common.

The mother of my student was actually being released, so the other teacher and I helped her get a taxi to go home. My student and I helped her get upstairs. The other teacher was male and therefore could not take her arm to help her. Once upstairs, she seemed to regain some color and feel better. She and her husband are both English teachers and were extremely welcoming, insisting that I drink jellab and coffee and eat fruit, even though the whole family was fasting.

We are heading downstairs for iftar with our landlord’s family now.

After taking photos of the ruined synagogue in downtown Beirut, I decided I should probably do some basic research on Jews in Lebanon.

Basically, there was a small Jewish community here, mostly in Beirut. Unlike in many other countries in the Middle East, the Jewish population here actually grew after 1948, the year that Israel was formed and the first Palestinian refugees fled (called Nakba, or disaster, by Palestinians). Some sources say that there were as many as 14,000 Jews in Lebanon in the mid-60s, in spite of some setbacks, such as the Wadi Bujmil Synagogue (see previous post) being bombed in 1958. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, things began to change. Jews could no longer serve in the Lebanese Army, for instance. Many Lebanese Jews emigrated around this time; most went to the U.S. or Europe, rather than to Israel. Many more left once the civil war broke out in 1975. For those who stayed, times were pretty rough. After Israel invaded, there were several murders and kidnapping of Lebanese Jews. It is not known exactly how many Jews live in Lebanon today, but most estimates I read said, “less than 100.”

Here is an interesting graph, which I completely stole. If this is accurate, then the number of Jews displaced from Arab countries after the creation of Israel is not so different from the number of 1948 Palestinian refugees. There is a movement, of which I was unaware, to help Jews receive retribution for what they lost.

Yesterday was another beautiful day, and Ethan and I took a long walk, part of which was spent admiring some amazing old houses, mainly Ottoman-era. Many of these are in Bab Idriss, a part of downtown which has not yet been renovated, though they are working on it.

Yesterday, Ethan came with me to my English class. It was Friday, and several students were absent, so we just did a little grammar and then played Pictionary with vocabulary words. It was fun, and I think the students really liked meeting Ethan (“Beautiful!” a few of the teenaged girls whispered to me). Because of the UN report, there was very little traffic when we took the bus out to Bourj al-Barajneh, so Ethan didn’t really get to experience my draining commute.

We had lunch downtown, which was practically empty, except for a smattering of older tourists who had almost certainly come off of the cruise ship in the harbor. It was really funny to see white haired ladies wandering around snapping photos on a day when a lot of locals were too nervous to go outside. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, sparkling and sunny, the kind of day where the sun feels wonderful and you need a jacket in the shade.

We spent some time at Torino, where people drank espresso and read copies of the report. We talked to some of the bar staff about the influx of apparently clueless reporters who were coming in asking opinions.

After dark, we stopped by a demonstration/memorial/rally in Martyrs’ Square and beside Hariri’s grave. There were fewer than 500 people there, mostly young men. A minority of them jumped about with flags, chanting for the TV cameras. There was a lot of gratuitous climbing onto the martyrs’ statue.

Political discussions were going on everywhere we went, but all in all, I didn’t learn too much about what might happen next. I guess it is safe to say that Lebanon is still waiting.

The Mehlis report was released to the public a few hours ago. I’m still reading it, but apparently it implicates high ranking Lebanese and Syrian officials, without naming all of them. (UPDATE: ..unless you fiddled with the pdf and got the earlier unedited version, where names were given) Sounds like Lahoud and Assad were in on it. It goes into a lot of detail about the cell phone aspect and the point is made that the investigation should continue. It remains to be seen what the reaction will be.

Last night there were a lot of APCs and soldiers out, especially in Achrafiyeh. Too bad I haven’t done better with my Arabic- one of the local news channels here has a camera trained on the presidential palace.