Getting a Glimpse of Israel

Wow.  The Lebanese really know how to put on a show.

It is exactly midnight and I’m typing from the second most front seat of the bus, a place that I have come to occupy regularly.  The National Council’s escort, Linda, and our tour guide, Melkar, are chatting away in the seat in front of me, Josh is reading away Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon in the seat behind me, and everyone else is conversing quietly or trying to catch up on some sadly neglected Z’s.  The entire day, we couldn’t wait to get out of the bus, considering that we’ve spent most of our time in it—first driving South to Beiteddine for a quick look around in the daytime and then onwards to the South Israel-Lebanese border only to turn right back around to make it to Beiteddine by sunset—but after all of the adventure we had outside the bus, our seats are now a comfy place to rest our very tired heads.

Beiteddine is a palace that Emir Bashit Shihab II had built in the 19th century and served as his residence until 1840.  After that, it was used by the Ottomans and the French for governmental purposes until it was declared a historic monument in 1934 and was restored by the General Directorate of Antiquities.  It then served as the summer residence of the President of Lebanon and currently hosts the annual Beiteddine Festival, which the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation had arranged for us to see tonight.  Our stop at the Palace this morning, however, was merely to tour the Palace Museum in the daytime before it was converted into the evening’s stage: my favorite room that we could access was the study with stained-glass windows, but the hammam was pretty awesome, too:

We hopped back on the bus after we quickly checked out the other parts of the Palace, so that we would have enough drive time to the southern towns of Bkessine and Jezzine in order to make it back in time for the Beiteddine Festival’s famous Caracalla Show.  The drive throughout the mountains was very…brown…but we passed a few landmarks of interest such as the hometown of the parents of the richest man in the world (business magnate and philanthropist Carlos Slim-Helu, who resides in Mexico) and the waterfall that flows over the edge of the town of Jezzine (check out my pictures under the gallery link) , where we stopped for “a light meal” (i.e. coffee/tea served with heaps of plates containing hummus/libna/salad/watermelon/peaches/plums/cherries/and more).  Amongst all the barrenness of the Lebanon Mountains, my favorite place by far was a little restaurant tucked away in the crook of one of the mountain’s cliffs.  We stopped only for a few moments to stretch our legs and grab a soft drink, but instead of quenching my thirst with the group, I opted for taking in the serenity of the little piece of paradise we had discovered.  I was admiring the breathtaking cascade of moss that made its way down the side of the cliff, with trickles of water running down the entire side and falling into the “pond” built underneath the restaurant’s patio, when a group of three Lebanese women asked me to take a picture of them in front of the scene I was looking at.  What started as taking a picture for them quickly turned into an in-depth conversation: the youngest of the woman, a Beiruti student home for the summer from her studies in Canada, was touring South Lebanon with her mother and aunt for the day.  During the month I had lived in Morocco, I found that most every attempt at conversation I had tried with my neighbor-family in formal Arabic were quite futile attempts at communication, this Arabic-speaking family in Lebanon seemingly had no trouble at all understanding me.  It didn’t take long before they asked me to be with them in a picture and I happily obliged, beginning to wonder if this was becoming a trend considering the similar request I had had on my birthday after dancing with the girls at the concert.  Our conversation was cut short as my group had to leave so we ran out of time to exchange numbers, but I gave my new friends my business card in the hope that our paths would cross again: if you read this, please get in touch with me!

After our quick pit stop, we headed deeper into southern territory.  Our Lebanon Renaissance Foundation representative Fady who was accompanying us on this trip was an absolute boss at giving us an informative tour of the countryside, including getting us without too much trouble through the typical security checkpoints.  When we were in Baalbek earlier this week, it didn’t much hit me that we were in Hezbollah territory—this afternoon, however, I could not be mistaken.  There were flags and billboards everywhere advertising the party and its suicide bombers:

It was when we got to the border of Lebanon and Israel that really impacted me the most, though.  The plot of farmland on Lebanon’s side of the fence looked exactly the same as the plot on Israel’s side, yet the enormous concrete wall and the barbed wire running the length of the border made it definitely clear that each plot was made of very different soil.  After talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict in all of my Middle Eastern studies classes, it was a bit of an unnerving feeling to actually be standing in a location that witnessed so much conflict.  Fortunately, there are United Nations Forces in Lebanon (UNFIL) keeping things at bay right now, but it was very apparent—and very depressing—to see such high security serving as the long-term “resolution” to this conflict.

             

 

 

 

 

After taking an early dinner break at this historical destination, everyone boarded the bus again and we returned to Beiteddine for the show.  I admit that my friends and I found it a tad funny when, as we were sitting on the bleachers gazing at the stars and the twinkling lights of the town next to us, the show began to start and when those lights came on, half of those town lights we were looking at went out…Lebanon and its electricity problem…  The light and sound effects were really well choreographed for the show and although it was long, I personally thought it was very enjoyable.  I didn’t really follow the whole story because it was in super-intense Arabic, but through the instrumental dancing I think that it told this tragic love story.  It wasn’t quite a ballet in the traditional sense but it wasn’t quite what I consider modern dance; the founder of the dance group, Abdel-Rahim Caracalla wanted to create a new language in dance that merged Oriental techniques with Western ones, and I think succeeded at achieving this vision…but, here, you can judge for yourself in my Pictures & Video Gallery. 

Jeitta Grotto & Byblos Citadel

This week has been full of a lot of meetings, so taking the afternoon off to go sightseeing was a nice change.  After a meeting at the Parliament building with the chairman of the Youth & Sports Committee, we drove for an hour or so outside of Beirut to a Zaatar w Zeit for an absolutely delicious lunch.  Melkar has it in his head that Americans like to eat a lot, so when he orders our lunches and dinners, every meal we have consists of about 4 dozen trays of food on our table, and I’m not even exaggerating.  Just as soon as we sit down, waiters will typically place a few trays of fries on our long table before taking our order for drinks and then not long after, that’s when the salads/pita bread/dips/sandwiches really start pouring in.  We all tried many samplings of the different sandwiches at Zaatar w Zeit and then those who needed to changed into their spelunking clothes for what was next on our itinerary.

Next to its cedars, the Jeita Grotto is perhaps Lebanon’s greatest pride and joy, measuring at 108 meters from the ceiling to the water (tall enough to fit a 35 story building).  The cave was discovered in 1836 by an American missionary who stumbled across the natural wonder while on a hunting expedition.  The Grotto is so massive that today it has been divided into two parts, the Lower Grotto (7800 meters long) and the Upper Grotto (2200 meters long), which we accessed by taking a “ropeway cabin” (a gondola), a cheesy train car, and an electrically-powered boat (pictured on the right).  Both parts were equally breathtaking; the formations ranged everywhere from your traditional stalactite/stalagmites to unusual mushrooming formations that took on the shape of jellyfish and massive coral reefs.  We were not allowed to take any pictures, but here are some from the internet, although as a disclaimer, I can’t find any pictures online that will do the Grotto justice:

(http://wonderfulworldreview.blogspot.com/2011/08/jeita-grotto.html)

After cooling off in the Grotto for a little while, we headed west to the Sea for a lovely tour of the ruins of Byblos and then a delicious seaside, seafood dinner.  Our tour guide at the Byblos ruins was a funny, little old man, and he provided a humorous but memorable tour of the history of these beautiful fortified remains of an ancient city. (Pictures available in the “Pictures” link).  The group split in two parts following the tour, either to do a little shopping or to do a little connoisseur-ing of the local cuisine.  Turns out those who chose the shopping ended up joining the rest of us for a little Byblos wine-tasting after all, so the entire group sat around some high tables sipping on some drinks while the charming souk shops closed up and the sun went down.  On our short walk to Pepe Abed, the Old port seafood restaurant, I quickly ducked into one of the few souk stores that were still open where I had earlier contributed to a discussion that took place between the storekeeper and Linda, as well as spied one of those traditional-looking jingly belly-dancing wrap-around skirt.  The beautiful sky-blue skirt I picked out was inexpensive and I’ve wanted one for years now, so I figured if I were to give in and purchase one, it might as well make a good Lebanon souvenir.  I waved goodbye to the woman for the second time that day, reflecting on the conversation I had had with her and Linda just a few hours earlier: the discussion progressed to a point where the storekeeper was adamant about insisting that the people of Lebanon were not “Arab”—they were Christians and Muslims, or any one of the many other religions that make up the country’s demographics.  She made it clear by refusing to sell any books in which the publishers claimed that the Lebanese are Arab, that it is important for the outside world to understand that the people of Lebanon view themselves first as their sect, rarely as a “Lebanese”, and almost never as an “Arab”.  She echoed what I’ve been hearing all week and I imagine I will continue to hear similar opinions on this same subject as the next week progresses.

Of even greater significance to me than this conversation was one I had later at dinner.  As I struggled to behead and de-spine a half a dozen delicious fresh Mediterranean fish, I got deep into discussion with someone at dinner regarding the strict secularism of the Lebanese university campuses such as AUB (American University of Beirut).  Having been exposed to multiple interfaith events while studying near the Michigan metropolis of Grand Rapids, whose mayor declared 2012 the Year of Interfaith Understanding, I view the approach of open interfaith discussions as a very positive one, so this seemed a logical step that the Lebanese universities could take to bring religion back into their students’ lives instead of viewing the touchy subject as taboo.  It was discouraging, therefore, when my mention of this was returned with negative feedback and an insistence that these discussions are not the answer and would not be effective in reaching a solution to Lebanon’s sectarian obstacles.  I am doubtful of these remarks, and I think that I will continue to believe in the effectiveness of open dialogue between faiths in such a place as Lebanon even after being told it will not work.

Overall, the evening was very pleasurable, however, as I enjoyed fine conversation the rest of the night and viewed the many photographs that lined the restaurants walls which depicted Pepe Abed appearances of internationally-famous people.  Upon our departure, every guest of the restaurant left with a real copy of an old French airline’s magazine, from the 60's I believe, which was quite an unusual souvenir but showed extent of hospitality here in this country.  The bus ride back was quiet and peaceful as we all looked out our huge tour bus windows at the breathtaking coast lined in the dark by Byblos’ city lights.

An Introduction to Youth Participation in Lebanon:

These past few days I have uncovered quite a few great leads into the Honors senior thesis that I have proposed to write about this summer, as every Grand Valley Honors student must follow through with eventually in order to graduate from the Honors College.  Funny enough, the Grand Valley delegation represented Lebanon two years ago at the National Model Arab League Conference in D.C. so I was a bit familiar with Lebanon prior to researching for this study excursion visit with the National Council (which meant I had already met the Lebanese Ambassador too, and he was still the same funny man this time around!).  Building upon the little background research from those two years ago as well as the articles and books that the National Council requested us to read for this visit, the thesis proposal I composed revolves around the central question of, why did Lebanese youth not join their Arab counterparts in using the Arab Spring as an opportunity to rise up in great numbers to speak out against any injustices they feel they face in this day and age?  I have always felt youth community involvement to be a very important topic and, after having taken a look at the itinerary that Josh sent me, youth and societal participation seemed to be a recurring theme with the various Lebanese organizations we would be visiting.

Yesterday after our tour of the American University of Beirut, our group was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about an organization sponsored by the morning newspaper An-Nahaar called the Youth Shadow Government (YSG).  YSG reminded me of an organization that I participated in for two years when I was in high school; Michigan Youth in Government provides Michigan high-schoolers the chance to draft and debate bills within the real walls of the Senate chambers and House chambers of the Capitol building in Lansing.  The exceptional aspect of Lebanon’s Youth Shadow Government, however, is that the participants of YSG, 20-27 years old in this case, actually get to sit down with the real members of Parliament that each participant represents in the Shadow Government.  During these meetings, the students get to exchange with their minister any recent proposals of policy reform they might have while also getting to learn from their minister what actions the minister has been taking in Parliament recently.  The benefits of Lebanon’s Youth Shadow Government are two-fold.  Firstly, the 300-500 student applicants to YSG each year undergo an intensive application process to gain one of the few spots available; those who are selected are oftentimes exceptional individuals who exhibit a lot of leadership potential which they naturally develop during their year as a minister in the YSG.  At the same time, the Shadow Government’s relationship with the true government allows the students to “keep tabs” on the ministers and serve as a friendly reminder to them that their constituents are relying on them to do their job.  Like many other governmental institutions, pushing policy proposals through the Lebanese Parliament is often a lengthy and tedious process; while the YSG may not help simplify this process, it does provide passionate Lebanese youth the opportunity to become directly involved in this process and oftentimes results in young leaders who go on to become advisors to ministers and heads of municipalities. 

One thing that I admired about the Youth Shadow Government is that the organization, contrary to the true government, is not based on confessionalism.  The YSG picks out students instead on their individual competencies.  Therefore, some years the majority of members could be Muslim, other years Christian, and other years Druze.  Similarly, the youth branch of the Lebanese political party Democratic Renewal Movement (RDM) fluctuates from year to year with members of all different communities, and cross-sectarianism is a key focus of the party.  These youth who are from all different backgrounds come together to push for desires they share, such as improving employment opportunities, student access to healthcare, and similar universal needs.  Further, the youth branch encourages students to work on conflict resolution and reconciliation efforts through conferences such as International Alert.

Encouraging cross-sectarian interaction and discussion of reconciliation seems to be a recurring reaction of the people and organizations we have met with here in Lebanon.  With the signing of the Ta’aif Agreement a mere 15 years ago, only one generation has been spared the direct impact that the atrocities of the civil war brought on the Lebanese people.  My high school history teacher once told me, “We study history so that we do not repeat the same mistakes.”  Even before arriving in Lebanon, my colleagues and I have heard repeatedly that, in order to put the war behind them, the people of Lebanon allowed “amnesty and amnesia” to take over.  Few schools include a curriculum that covers the Civil War, and in the rare cases that students do get the opportunity to learn about this important piece of national history, the war is skewed from one of four history books distributed in the country which each portray a different angle of the conflict.  What understanding of the war this young generation does not find in history books, it obtains from parents and neighbors whose stories are skewed as well.  From the get-go, children are raised to side with their sect and learn only of the war crimes committed by the other players, creating a silent and subtle tension between each of the communities which make up this diverse nation.

Without standardizing the history of the country’s civil war, Lebanon’s post-war generations will never be brought up with a more accurate understanding of where things went wrong and how future tensions could be prevented.  Fortunately, with such organizations as the Youth Shadow Government and the Democratic Renewal Movement, youth are finally given the opportunity to interact and learn from young individuals of other communities as well as have the support to move forward and create a society centered on nationalism and not sectarianism.  Insh’allah it will just be a matter of time.

New Friendships Formed

Now that everyone in our group has had a chance to get to know each other, I will have them introduced to you; I’d do it myself, but Hampton does a much better job of depicting them than I would ever have come up with by myself.  Thank you, Hampton, for letting me quote you (and for your kind words :-P).  And now, ladies and gentlemen, the introductions (from http://hamptoncokeley.wordpress.com/):

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations sends students to Middle Eastern countries in order to promote understanding between cultures.  From a pool of about 60 applicants, ten are selected to travel to Lebanon with the stipulation that they have a post-fellowship plan for spreading the knowledge that they learned from the interviews. My fellowship year involves organizing a speaker series on the Middle East in the spring and writing a scholarly paper on an issue of importance to Lebanon in addition to writing this blog about the trip, Lebanese, and Middle Eastern issues.

Klevis was born in Albania and lived there until he was ten years old. He then moved to Massachusetts where he remained and he decided to attend Northeastern University in Boston. He is majoring in International Relations and a smattering of minors. Klevis is the youngest in the group at 20 years old. The oddest fact is that I have known his roommate from college for four or five years.

Juan is a 38-year-old grad student who has done it all. He is one of the funniest guys on the trip. We sat and talked about his booming comic book store, the time he lived with his trust fund buddy, and his $300,000 share in a startup tequila company. I think that we were all shocked to hear the disparity between his personality and his age. He stands as a true testament to my mom’s saying:

“Hey! I’m not old…I’ve just been here longer!”

Aubrey is from Michigan. I give that poor girl hell about her accent. She is very bright and speaks the best Arabic in the group. I am pretty sure that she wants to go into the Foreign Service. She turned 22 while we were on the trip and we semi-celebrated by going to the Najwa Karam concert that Saturday night.

Peter is a second year masters student at Georgetown University, concentrating on Foreign Service. Before going to graduate school, he worked in commodities training for four years. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about Peter. I do know that he is a good guy and likes to chew gum.

Laura goes to John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. She gives it back as hard as she gets it. She keeps calling me fat…

Michelle is a graduate student from Johns Hopkins CIES in Washington, D.C. She has been all over the world and also wants to work in the Foreign Service. One of the older group members, she is 27 but like the others, doesn’t seem like it.  Michelle has been all over the world. She had to get more pages added to her passport before she came here. She studied abroad in Spain for a year and taught English in Turkey for a few months. She did her undergraduate work at Williams College and was born in Australia.

Robby loves history. A blue dog democrat from Pennsylvania and self-proclaimed Marxist, Robby is the first to smile and always in a good mood.  He attends Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania and is studying Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies in addition to History.

Jordan is an adorable southerner from Shreveport, Louisiana. She spent a month or so in Bosnia studying the effects of the war and the cultural divisions of the people. She wants to rehabilitate child soldiers in Africa for a living. That is a far cry from my greedy aspirations to be an international pop star like Ricky Martin…just kidding…

…But seriously…

Holly just got married. I can’t imagine subjecting myself to that kind of purgatory at such a young age, but to each his own I guess. She is a second year PhD student at Virginia Tech and also one of the older people in the program. She is doing her dissertation on something involving religion and culture or something. I am doing all of these profiles from memory, so bear with me.

Linda is a woman of the world. If I had to compare her to movie character, it would be a combination between the worldliness of Mr. Peterman from Seinfeld and all the class of a much kinder Meryl Streep from The Devil Wears Prada. She is returning to Lebanon after being away for 35 years. She lived here for three years working with an NGO before leaving due to the Civil War in the 70s.  She really is a pleasure to be around and a lot of fun. I can learn a lot from her.

Josh is my roommate and the “Deputy Escort” of the program. He is a tall, jovial guy who heads the student programs at the National Council and isn’t much older than many of us are. He commands our respect but still manages to be seen as one of the guys.

Melkhar is our guide. He gets his own blog post later on. He is a character and deserves nothing less.

And then there is Hampton Cokeley himself, who will be a senior this year at The Military College of South Carolina, The Citadel.  He is a really good writer (I highly suggest a few reads of his blog) but he does a horrible Michigan accent.

So I might have found a grad school with my name on it…

I am convinced that I am destined to go to the American University of Beirut.  After all, the signs everywhere on campus are just calling my name…literally.  A.U.B.  One of my nicknames.  We took a tour of the place yesterday before lunch and I was pumped to actually get to tour a campus of a Middle Eastern university that I was considering attending anyway.  Really, it’s walking around the place and seeing myself there which really determines whether or not I want to go to a school.  AUB wasn’t too bad.  Not only is it a no-smoking zone (which is fabulous when the rest of Beirut is smoke-smoke-smoke), but it is also American property, so any threat to the campus is a threat to the United States of America.  This means special security, which eases my mind in terms of a country thinking twice before it messes with this school.  Our student tour guide claimed that it was, ironically, Israel of all countries which attacked AUB quite a few years ago now and killed the university’s former president; yet, many scholarly sources lead my group to believe that he was sadly mistaken and rather the fundamentalist Shia group of the 1980s, Islamic Jihad Organization, may have been responsible for this.  Whoever it may have been, security is a serious concern…

Also, the place is reasonably small, which I am a big fan off (15 minutes max. to get across campus?  Yes, please!) and basically all of the classes are taught in English.  There are also quite a few grassy areas, and there is a beach (just a rocky one, though) reserved especially for AUB students.

The downfalls that I saw of the university?  Even though it doesn’t take long to walk anywhere, there are no bicycles allowed, and my bicycle is my best friend back at Grand Valley.  It saves me loads of time getting around town.  The tour guide also informed us that the chapel originally built on the school grounds is now reserved for large lectures because the entire university has been deemed secular grounds.  I’m not quite sure how I feel about this—on the one hand, this discourages the idea of the sectarianism which has caused so many frustrations in the past, but at the same time this does not promote an urge for understanding in order to achieve a tolerance and respect for other religions, which I think is a very necessary attribute for a person to have when heading off to the real world.  Another unfortunate aspect I picked up on about AUB, and I realize that it’s hard to find a newer university than Grand Valley (built only 51 years ago!), but beyond the beautiful stone walls and the exquisite mosaics on the buildings, the classrooms and hallways do not give off the “fresh and clean” environment like the one that I very much appreciate at GV.  And finally, I noticed right away that there are only about a dozen different clubs offered on campus which is not a large variety when I consider the 100+ option I enjoy at my current university.

Still, I could really see myself getting a lot out of the place, if even just for one year on a Fulbright or Boren grant.  With the comprehensible Arabic dialect here and the rich history of conflict and attempts at conflict resolution, I believe that in attending AUB for a few months, I could advance far in my understanding of this region of the world.

A Cross-Cultural Analysis:

After checking out that turban on Sunday at the souvenir store, I’ve really begun to pick up on some of the less obvious differences between Beirut and Rabat, Morocco, where I just spent the last month living.  In actuality, the turban may possibly be the nearest thing to the type of dress that the Moroccans and Lebanese wear; out of respect, my colleagues and I were asked to pack conservatively with clothes that covered our shoulders and came past our knees, but as it turns out, the Lebanese women here like to show a lot of skin.  The halter tops and booty-shorts that I have seen young women wearing have been few and far between, but the head-scarves are just as few and far between here in Beirut, in my opinion, which is an unexpected and vast difference from the dress I am used to in Morocco.  As a Lebanese NCUSAR worker told us when we were back in the office, the women in Beirut look for opportunities to do their make-up and their hair and put on a small, cute dress, even if it’s just to grab a coffee with a friend at the nearest Starbuck’s.  In Rabat, it is very common for women to wear head-scarves that match their traditional kaftan dresses, and if they are wearing a short-sleeved shirt, then they wear a long-sleeved black shirt underneath so that none of their arms show.  There were many exceptions in Rabat that I saw as well—less conservative, working women who would strut the streets of Rabat in cute pumps and a pencil skirt—but I found myself having to be constantly aware of what I wore each day.  Here in Beirut, I can wear everything from my wardrobe at home and more.  The only time in that I’ve had to cover from head to foot here was when I entered the enormous Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque next to Hariri’s grave.

As far as differences go religion-wise, there are a heck of a lot more religious buildings that are not mosques (i.e. churches, cathedrals, etc.) than in Rabat, which makes sense considering how sectarian Lebanon is.  Also, and I did not realize this until Josh brought it up (the Deputy Escort I mentioned in an earlier post, who, funny enough, I ran into while we were both on vacation in Fez, Morocco, two weeks ago), but the minarets of every Lebanese mosque are circular whereas all of the minarets in Morocco are square.

Additionally, I’ve noticed with relief that I have not come across a single toilet yet in Lebanon which has not had toilet paper available and has been only a hole in the ground, which is definitely what it was like in Morocco.  Not only that, but I haven’t had to pay to use the toilet a single time here!  No more having to ensure that I have toilet paper and pocket change in my purse :-)  On a side note, I learned that you can easily use American dollars here (fixed exchange rate: 1,500 Lebanese pounds=1 USD); this makes things very convenient and saves you from having to pay for the ATM currency conversion fee.

As I think I mentioned before, the tea also just does not compare to Morocco’s, and unfortunately I cannot vouch for the coffee because although I have had at least one cup of coffee here a day, I had only one cup the whole month I was in Morocco—the tea there was just too delicious to pass up.

While the driving is just as crazy here in Beirut as it is in Rabat, the people of Beirut do not seem to honk just to hear their own horn, in fact I hardly hear it at all.  And when it comes to public transportation?  There is none.  Well, maybe 6 or 7 public buses (or so I was told) but compare that to Rabat’s numerous bus systems, two tram lines, and multiple train stations, and you have got a heck of a lot of people driving private vehicles through the streets of Beirut (roughly a population of 1.5 million people total).

Similarly, the large amount of inhabitants living in Beirut do not make much of a difference in ensuring that top efforts of improving infrastructure are being put forth, as made apparent to its citizens when they go days and sometimes even weeks without electricity.  We went to a bar for dinner last night and I thought that the bar specifically lit candles and kept the place dim to set the mood…that was until the power randomly came on over an hour and a half after we had been there.  This was never once an issue when I lived in Morocco.  Interesting.

I’ve always had an open mind about the Arab World and stereotypes, but after being able to personally observe the differences in the dress, music, food, history, and mindset of the Moroccan Arabs compared to the Lebanese Arabs, I have a further understanding of just how much one cannot attribute a certain set of ideas to any group of people.

And the best difference I’ve discovered?  I’ve found that a lot more people can speak English here—and those who don’t speak English, speak an Arabic that I can comprehend!!  There is just as much French used here as in Morocco, but when the Lebanese speak in Arabic with the Levantine dialect, it is 99% more comprehensible than the Moroccan Arabic dialect of Darija was when I attempted to use my Arabic while living in Rabat.  After futilely trying to improve my Arabic fluency by speaking with the storeowners of Rabat the formal dialect I’ve been learning for the past three years at university, I had come to accept that I really ought to have studied French instead… after all, my professors back at Grand Valley had made it known to us that even two native Arabic speakers from different countries will often resort to speaking French with each other because their dialects are too incomprehensible to the other.  However, I am very pleased to say that, even though no Arab person understands what comes out of my mouth, between my two years of formal Arabic and one year of Levantine, I can at least understand part of what comes out of theirs!!  On top of that, I am stoked to find that I learned more Arabic in Rabat than I thought I was learning while I was there—my confidence in speaking has increased immensely, and I have spotted vocabulary words and grammatical rules on signs and pamphlets everywhere that I had just learned out of the last few chapters of my new Al-Kitaab book.  So cool!!!

cedar trees & snowball fights

Our Sunday was full of adventure.  The bus left at 8 in the morning so that we could drive through the Lebanon Mountains to Baalbek, precariously close to the Syrian border.  Making our way up the mountains, we passed by Khalil Gibran’s home/museum.  For those of you who are not familiar with the great Lebanese writer/artist, might I suggest that you introduce yourself to him through his quick and easy read, The Prophet?  The National Council required that we read a few articles and at least one book related to Lebanon.  Honestly, I only read The Prophet because it was the only book that I could get from the library, but it turned out to be a suitable choice for me; written in 1923, this philosophical-style book seemed to parallel another intellectual book that I very much enjoy reading—the Tao te Ching of the ancient Chinese religion Taoism.  If you have a summer afternoon free, I highly suggest you sit back and soak up the ideas from Khalil Gibran’s most famous book.

After an hour in the museum, we continued through the mountains until reaching the park which held quite a few of Lebanon’s landmark cedar trees.  Everyone bought a few souvenirs from the stalls right outside the park but in order to make it to lunch on time, it wasn’t long before we entered the park itself and trekked our way up and down the paths that were lined by some of the biggest and most beautiful trees I have ever seen. 

We hiked up to a pretty sweet restaurant (reminded me of a Buschenschank from when I lived in Austria, except at this restaurant they actually serve hot food! :-D) and our tour guide Melkar ordered us all the standard sandwich with meat and fries…as in the fries are stuffed in the tortilla wrap…when I get back to the U.S. I’m going to be that person who dumps a bunch of fries on her burger and eats it that way—truly I will miss these sandwiches, just as I miss my beloved Moroccan tea.  I don’t know if I’ll ever find a taste for coffee, Turkish or otherwise…While we were there, the owner of the restaurant showed us an old machine in the corner that I had been eyeing earlier and it turned out to be an “Ibrik”, used to make the famous traditional Lebanese alcoholic spirit “Araq” (also popular throughout the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean), which means “sweat” (“عرق”) in Arabic for its color, I believe. 

We ate lunch in the bus, but pretty soon we drove past the ski schools (yes, ski schools!) and we got to the top of the Lebanon Mountains, when I begged Josh, the Deputy Escort (and Grand Valley alumnus ;-) Go Lakers!) to let us out for a quick snowball fight.  Claiming I was going to be the trouble-maker in the group (ha, hardly), he reluctantly obliged but he didn’t have to tell me twice!  It was fun playing in the snow in June and, I wasn’t going to go there, but because Hampton did, I had to get the boy back by proceeding to drop snow down his shirt, which ended up better than I planned because it ended up going down his pants as well.

It took another hour or two until we got to Baalbek, where the famous Baalbek ruins are located.  We stopped at a small tourist shop first, where the owner put a turban on my head and I learned that it is different than how I learned to tie a turban in Morocco.  They actually use scarves in the shape of a triangle here in the Mediterranean, not long rectangular ones like the Berbers of Morocco use.  Everyone was kind of surprised to find that the store also sold Hezbollah t-shirts and coffee mugs, but if you think about it, we were sort of in Hezbollah territory… 

The really sweet thing about the Baalbek ruins, besides the fact that there is still so much of the ancient city of Heliopolis left, is that there were at least four civilizations built on top one of another here at this sight.  It started as the Phoenician city Baalbek (“Lord (Baal) of the Beqaa Valley”) way back 9,000 years ago.  Then Alexander the Great came along and conquered the place in 334 BC, had the place renamed Helipolis, and had the place expanded to the enormous cultural sight that it is today. 

The symmetric, intricate, and elaborate construction done by the Romans to please their gods is mind-blowing, as is the fact that there is still so much of it preserved today.  I thought the remains of Volibilius in Morocco was impressive, and what’s left of Italy’s Pompeii.  But that was before coming here.  After the Muslim army conquered Baalbek in 637 CE, the city switched hands quite a few times, but it was constantly altered by the different civilizations—a roof was added to the center temple, as were windows to make up for the lost lighting; a mosque was fit in between two other temples—and eventually it passed into the hands of the Ottoman empire in the early 1500s.

On the way back through the Lebanon Mountains, we stopped at Zahle, the largest Maronite Christian community in the east part of the country.  The town was absolutely adorable and I wish we could have spent an hour or two there but we only stopped to grab some of Zahle’s famous ice cream (I got cherry vanilla, with chocolate of course).  It was delicious, and in a funny squish-shaped cone even, but it didn’t beat the bittersweet dark chocolate scoop I had on my birthday after the concert…still, I’m up for spending the rest of my days here to see if any ice cream will top that first one ;-)

The Land of Lebanon--

I’m not going to waste my time typing up fun facts about Lebanon that you could easily discover for yourself at popular geography sites, but I will share with you some other interesting facts that you won’t find anywhere on the CIA World Factbook about this country that is slightly smaller than Connecticut (:-P).  Just to give you a brief overview of things, I’ll divide into sections the observations which I have made from the past two days from my tour of Beirut and my meetings with officials whose specialties are all things Lebanon!

Society

The people who make up the country of Lebanon are affiliated with one of 18 different religious clans between the Muslims and Christians; essentially, atheism is unheard of, as far as I understand it, and contrary to American etiquette, it is not uncommon to bring up one’s religion in light conversation.  If nothing else, a person may merely introduce him or herself by the family name which is a hint enough for the other person to inquire, “So you’re a Muslim, then?” or  “That’s a Christian name, right?"”  While such religious diversity served as a primary cause for the 15- year-long Lebanese Civil War (1976-1991), it has also resulted in quite an interfaith community.  The make-up of the Lebanese society has spilled over into its politics, naturally, a unique form of government by the name of “confessionalism”.

Politics

The confessional federal government of Lebanon consists of the:

• President, who must be a Maronite Christian
• Prime Minister, who must be a Sunni Muslim
• and the Speaker of the Parliament who must be a Shi’a Muslim

Additionally, there are many other restrictions to ensure that there is near-equal representation of the different sects within Parliament itself, as well as in the Cabinet, etc.  This style was set up following the formulation of the 1989 Ta’if Agreement and to this day confessionalism has been at the center of political debate within the nation.  This governmental system fascinates me and I realize that I still have many more questions to ask about it; as of yet, however, it is unclear to me whether it is these religious affiliations which are so preventing the central government from being strong or whether this is due to some other key divide within the government’s people.  By the time I leave Lebanon, I will be sure to have found the answer to my question!  I do know for a fact though that the country’s greatest political flaw is, in fact, its weak central government, and considering Lebanon’s political past, I believe that my hypothesis is not too far off…

History

Since its reconstruction after the Civil War, strip malls and high-rises have flourished where the damaged souks and destroyed buildings of traditional Beirut once stood.  When I hear reference to the war’s Green Line, separating West Beirut from East Beirut, I can’t help but wonder how this division compared to that of West and East Berlin during WWII.  The people of today’s Beirut seemed to have tried hard to make a show of putting the war behind them; most of the women are not seen out of the house without a sufficient amount of make-up on and a nice pair of high heels, and the latest fashions of New York and London are flaunted within the windows of the same classy stores.  Men can be seen with their hair slicked back cruising around in Ferraris of the chic streets of the capital.  The city’s “Sky Bar” was voted one of the hippest dance clubs in the entire world.  And yet amongst all of this gleam and glam are statues where the sun shines through the bullet holes that serve as reminders of what Beirut went through.  The few buildings which did withstand the 15-year chaos of the Civil War are scarred with dozens of bullet holes that have been spackled haphazardly.  One of my favorite quotes from the past three days, and one which I think is most appropriate to describe Lebanon, is that it is a “country of contradictions”.  This refers to contradictions of all sorts, such as that which I described above.  A contradiction that you notice even more immediately is the infrastructure of Lebanon, or at least that of Beirut.

Infrastructure

During dinner last night, I experienced my first Beirut power outage.  Apparently this is pretty ordinary, sometimes the city can can experience multiple outages in one day, but this particular one lasted only 3 seconds long.  It’s incredible though, given all of the seemingly-richness of the city and that of its inhabitants, that the hippest night club in the capital of a nation such as this could black out until the club manages to get its generator to kick in.  Similarly, I saw fantastically ornate and elaborate mosques and churches today on my visit to Lebanon’s famous cedar trees and the famous ruins of Baalbek, yet I was afraid that the eroding switchback streets that our tour bus was driving on through the Lebanon Mountains to visit such wonders were going to crumble right beneath us.

Thus far, those have been my main observations, ladies and gentlemen, but this has only been the end of day 3 of my Lebanese experience, so I assure you that there will be much, much more to come.  In the meantime, between my valuable impressions of my “study excursion visit” (or whatever it is NCUSAR wants us to call it :-P), I will be posting stories and pictures of my daily adventures, such as the trip out East that my group went on today.  More about that tomorrow!

My Birthday in Beirut--

Unlike the second half of our group, which didn’t get in to the Hotel Alexandre until after 4 a.m. this morning, my group and I made it to Beirut by 9 p.m. last night—meaning that I just made it to Lebanon’s capital in time to say that I have had the opportunity in my short 21 years to live in four national capitals!  For this particular adventure, this means only a mere ten days of living in Beirut, but it is living nevertheless! 

Our first official night spent in this thriving city included bonding over dinner at a falafel and schawarma restaurant before a few hours of dancing right outside the restaurant.  The intersection of the street was blocked off this evening to make room for the stage of the famous Lebanese singer (although I am unfamiliar with her) Najwa Karam.  As I was sipping on my salty liquidy yoghurt-style drink that I thought I’d try, fireworks started going off in the intersection (how appropriate for my birthday! haha just kidding).  This scared me silly for a moment, which I believe is understandable given the violence in Syria taking place right now and Beirut’s own bloody past.  Fortunately, the exploding sounds that I heard were only the pops of colorful happiness that filled the sky as friends gathered on the streets and families shuffled onto their apartment balconies to get a good view of the fireworks.  Once my colleagues and I were happily finished with our dinner, we joined the crowd in the street and, relying on the buddy system, we made our way through the throngs of people until we found a spot with a reasonable view of the stage.  I couldn’t help but start dancing, as a young local girl caught on, and she invited me to join her family’s dancing circle.  I happily obliged, as I absolutely love immersing myself with the locals of whichever nation I am in.  I think that they get a kick out of me as much as I get a kick out of them, and this time was no exception; before I left, the mother insisted that I get a picture with her so I followed by requesting my own picture with the mother and then the two daughters, including the one who invited me to dance with them in the first place.  Before she left with her family, she even ran back to my group to say in English “I love you” and I tried to repeat the same thing in Arabic although I’m not sure if she understood me by the way I mix my three years of formal Arabic and my one semester of Levantine Arabic.  Still, these kinds of experiences in a foreign country is what I find priceless about traveling and made my birthday!  Tomorrow’s going to be a long day, so I think I’m going to pass on any further dancing for the evening (although it is one of my favorite things to do) and call it good for the night!  Leila sa’aida!  ليلة سعيدة!  Good night :)