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!!!
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