2005 Log

From India

We did arrive in India as planned, spent a remarkable day and night in Delhi and discovered that due to heavy rains our plans to travel to the north needed to change. So we changed plans, went to Agra and are in Jaipur, headed west to the Rajashtani desert. Pushkar tomorrow for 3 days, then Jodpur, then Jalismere, then Bikinar, Madahwa, then Delhi on the 20 something...

The rains have made Internet connections very iimpossible. Today has dried some and the cables are back in place. Haven't been able to post or send photos, but hope to as we get closer to the desert. I haven't been able to check email, so if there is something I missed, forgive me, us, we'll catch up when we're able.

We are safe, and happy, and really amazed by all of this. I have been keeping pretty good notes, and when I'm able, I'll send a bigger picture.

Namaste

ByeBuy Beirut

Lastnight talking with Alice's brother, Børre, the mastermind behind the "Levant" website, he told me about his latest 'mission' here - his yearly junket sponsored by the American University to digitize old Arabic texts. This time he worked on 5 manuscripts from the 6th century depicting geometry and astronomy. He said though the texts were badly damaged, he was able to copy them, and was amazed by the renderings of the universe at the time. And in every depiction, the sun was in the wrong position. Børre said he just kept hoping the next on he captured was correct. I can't wait to get back here, if we ever leave, help Børre with the project.

We will miss so many people here. Leaving is almost difficult. Wait, it has been difficult.

Today another trip to the Indian embassy this morning, 11 hours before we're getting on the plane, this time to pay for the visas, not to pick them up, evidently. We arrived at the specified time and the waiting room is already crowded with others looking for or waiting on papers. Our 'guy' catches my eye and motions me to the front of the line, where he promptly grabs our passports from the unlocked cabinet and disappears behind another wall for the longest time, we wait in the heat of the morning and all these people, Leslie still a little unsure about all this, and then he returns, says we haven't yet received clearance but he'll issue the visas anyway. Namasté all around, and 200, 000 ll, and "Please come back at 3:00 to pick up your visas." Thank you.

And the last time is a charm, after arriving almost exactly on time we are asked to wait, for just one more stamp, one more signature, under the largest, single-bladed fan I' ever seen or felt, breaking up almost unbearable heat, in this empty waiting room, told, "Only minutes now, don't panic." And we don't. Wait, like we're told, and then are called to the counter by a different fellow, not the one that owes us 5000ll, but his 'assistant.' And we're given our visas, like that, after pounds of sweat and angst, and not knowing, and praying, and hoping, and knowing somehow we'd get our papers to leave. I mean, if you were a representative of a government from another country, would you want your prey stuck here, and not where you can see to them more closely?

I love Beirut, and will miss it dearly. And Lebanon, and those that have cared for us as much as they have. But we are moving on, soon, with papers, and Inshalla, we'll be in Delhi in the morning.

Last Days in Beirut

Lastnight I finally got quite sick, after weeks of staving off whatever ever those around me were getting I was hit like a freight train, and sadly missed the dinner Dierdré and Philip had made. But Leslie and Phoebe enjoyed it and I came home under heavy medication and slept it off. We are down to 3 of us and just another day in Beirut. I am cherishing everything I can, even the sour belly that has just about righted itself.

Today we met Joseph, another new best friend, the Christain young fellow who pours the most wonderful coffees down the street. I've managed to take coffee from him most mornings and he's become smitten with the girls. And when I gave him a bracelet I bought from St. Thecla's shrine in Syria, he blessed it and put it on, swearing he'd never go to Syria. Anyway, he'd asked if we wanted to go to St. Charble, and when we said yes. we thought he was taking us to a beach. So we met at 11, with our suimsuits in our bag, and he drove us up the coast in his friend's borrowed car. Another harrrowing ride through the north of Beirut, past Jounie and Jbail, then east, steeply up the coastal mountsains to the shrine of St. Charbel, one of three Lebanese monks, and the one our friend is named after. Sunday services going on in the multitude of buildings, some are churches, some holy places with St. Charbel's bloddied clothing on display. And Joseph is really quite serious, and blesses himself often as we walk between people in prayer, people seeing the sights, and some people just getting out of the heat of the city.

Came back home for a last dinner at Alice's "By the Way" restaurant, and met up with Anwar, a surfing buddy from 30+ years ago, who is here, depressed and caring for his aging parents, but so happy to join us and share old stories. And Alice, and her brother Borré, and Rea, and our new best friend, all of us eating and drinking and trying to make sense of it all, hours before we're supposed to leave. And Inshalla we get our visas tomorrow, leave where I've needed to be and go where we need to go next. Elise safe in Europe, and Phoebe hanging on to what will be the best part of her trip, later, much later.

Elise Goes to Paris

(New photos @ More Beirut...)
Last night we walked the Corniché to Rouché, the piece of Beirut that pushes out into the sea. It has the old restaurants and hotels, the ones that somehow survived the years of battle, and it has Pigeon Rocks,

and the old amusement park Elise wanted to visit her last night in the Middle East. She wanted to ride the ferris wheel and eat at a restaurant on the water. The ferris wheel was cheap, and the electricity only went out twice, but we were happy, at sunset, watching the sea on one side and the city on the other, Thursday night full of people, the Islam Friday night, as Friday is the holy day. So we went around and tried to sum up Elise's stay here in Beirut. Swinging at the top, poised between these states, without power we had some tears, some laughter, said prayers for us all, and then made out way along the Corniché, past Bain Militaré that still houses a garrison, and as we passed the guard changed and the fresh young soldiers trotted out of their barracks cocking their automatic weapons loudly enough we stopped in our tracks, until a young mother in a passing family said, "Don't worry, they are only changing the guard." Funny how far you can go in your mind so quickly.

We stopped at a waterside restaurant, huge and nearly empty at 8:30, full of Muslim families eating and smoking nargalies. We ate Lebanese food at the water's edge, watched an old man and his son mount the old pillars to fish, then took coffee and readied to leave, when our waiter told us to sit, inside where we wouldn't be bothered to buy anything, but could watch the now filled up space clap and sing along to the trio singing Arabic songs. By the time we left the Corniché was full, more families cooling off late, and it was, and we had to get Elise on a plane early.

And Elise left early, after suffering though the past few days with us stressing and fretting over an Indian bureaucrat busting our collective chops about our visas to India. All, "I'm sorry, no way, impossible. It will take 10 days," to today, when we're told we will board our plane Monday, with or without a visa in hand and will be allowed to enter India. Go Figure. Poor Elise, thrilled to have been here, thrilled to be leaving, and poor Phoebe, knowing she's with us for the long run. But I get up early, wake Elise and get the 5-am taxi to the AirPort, kisskisskiss goodbye then I take the same cab back home. We'd arranged on a price to the AirPort, but not the return, so when I get home, half asleep and sadly missing my daughter I ask how much is the fare. I pull out money enough and more, and the driver takes it without flinching. An hour later the phone rings and it's the driver asking me how much I paid. "70,000," I tell him, "OK," he says. A half an hour later the owner of the cab company calls me and asks how could I make such a big mistake, sends a car for me because he wants to talk in person. OK, I get in the car thinking whatever I'm thinking this early and get there and Mohamed tells me he fired the driver because this wasn't the first time. "It is up to us to make sure business is honest in Lebanon." He gives me 40,000 and the strongest, sweetest you can imagine and apologizes for the driver's dishonesty. He was going to fire him anyway. All this on top of my missing Elise already and half-worrying about our Indian visa.

But today is just business, happy to be here, readying to leave. Leslie and Phoebe are at the beach, taking in the white hot afternoon. We are all listing in the tide of yesterday's dastardly bombing in London, and no one here is happy, no one. Especially the new best friend we've made in the nurseryman Daruuze, who poured us coffee this morning while we waited on the the Indian embassy to say yes (and the fellow finally said, "Yes, we will help you, even if we need a counsel to get you in to India.") And Daruuze, so happy for our company, and we so happy in his, later, just now, brought us a lovely arrangement of flowers and fruit, because he loves us, and America, and wants nothing more than the rest of the world to know the generosity, hospitality, and love these people feel for each other and all of us.

The sadness on the faces of the Arab people we've met is so true and sincere. There are renegade factions that everyone dreads. It's the same in Oakland, San Francisco, London, Damascus, Hamma. Here, in Lebanon, what everyone wants is the return to the eons of good business, happy trade, tourists, and travel. And I'll go now, to trade a little and travel the fairly quiet afternoon Beirut streets, looking for nothing but a box big enough to send home what I don't want to carry. To India. Inshalla.

Tripping

(New photos @ Beitut/Bcharré, please let me know what you think...)
Lastnight we finally made it to Gemayze, the part of town rated number 2 in the world for drinking and dancing. Went to a small underground club that was recommended by a friend, ate tapas and listened to a young Lebanese band play classic Lebanese folk tunes, the crowd mostly young, singing along and clapping, and after enough food and drink, Leslie and I find room on the floor to try and dance and are surprisingly encouraged by the few oldsters in the crowd. My feeling is, these people will never see us again, so we may as well. We leave with friends and buy gardenia necklaces and float home.
Spent the morning trying to climb through bureaucracy at the Indian embassy trying to secure visas, which we need traveling as Americans from Lebanon, but wouldn't need traveling from America, or wouldn't need if we were traveling on Lebanese passports. Funny I guess. And our departure date approaches... I'm confident we won't be here longer than we have to be, though the air in the embassy is stifling, and a driver is waiting outside to drive us out of the city, and everything is mutable. We are all trying to remember this.
We get on the road after nine, crawl through Beirut traffic north, through the port and congestion to Jounie Bay, which 30 years ago was separated by miles of nothing. We're taking a trip I took as a fourteen, fifteen and eighteen year old, up the coast past Batroun, to Chekka, where we turn east and climb 5+ thousand feet in 20 miles, to Bcharé, the village Kahlil Gibran lived in before his exile. A steep climb up through deep canyons and small villages with red-roofed houses. Some villas, some working-folks' homes. This is Christian country, and there are endless posters of the as yet jailed Samir Geagea, jailed for life under charges brought by the Syrian backed Lebanese government for waging war, and possibly due to be released in a couple of days under the new coalition Lebanese government. Huge posters of Samir and his wife, the long suffering and beautiful Strida, who's lobbied for years for her husband's release, and who soon may be wrapping her lips around the mouth of the man everyone here calls a hero..
We walk through the Gibran museum, under reconstruction after years of neglect, then eat overlooking the river and the incredible valley. I get lost in memory and the charm of all this.
Before turning home we climb the rest of the way to the last of the original stands of cedars, the Stand of God. Sadly it's 100+ trees, in various conditions, but the trees are amazingly old, and are still awe inspiring. Huge and deep. Then the gauntlet of the cedar trinkets and toys, then the long slog home, through more traffic than I thought possible at 5 o'clock on Wednesday. Slipping back into Beirut, Fadi, our driver stops to buy us ice cream and smokes, and we get home and buy him flowers to take home.
Tomorrow more bureaucratic nonsense and joy, winding down some in Beirut.

Rain in Beirut

Oddly, it rained last night in Beirut. Not supposed to do that in the summer. But things are always changing and pressenting the unexpected. Like last night, standing on the 10th floor balcony just looking around, and a taxi goes by below, just happens to look up and see me standing there, and honks, like asking me if I want a cab somehwere...

I don't.

It rains. We're well and resting and readying for the unexpected.

Fourth of July

(Random Beirut photos posted)

Thankfully no fireworks in Beirut today. Life in the middle of the city is calm and busy on Monday, people doing everything they've done and will continue to do. Woke up this morning saying, "What a day, cloudless and blue, before the city wakes up." and then it does. And we wake to doing little, wandering streets, changing money, doing chores. Lots to accomplish before we leave in a week. Lots. Smell this, look at that, taste this sweet, that fruit or meat, and buy, and hope, and pray. Another helicopter flies around this morning, but nothing more than morning traffic, though I can't tell why, because no one needs direction to go whatever way they want to go. You need a sixth sense to walk these streets much less drive them, or ride in cab through them.

Elise and Phoebe are getting restless, wanting to do something all the time. So we try, and then give up, play cards through the night the Crown Plaza Hotel shines different colored lights on its 20 story facade celebrating its win of the coveted 'Hotel of the Month' award. We are impressed.

Last night we went to the movies, took a cab across town, and every time we do we wonder if it can be any more of a wild ride than the last one. Last night the old Mercedes had no lights and the cabdriver had to push it into neutral at the stops to keep it from stalling. 5,000 pounds from Hamra to Sedeco, a deal in anyone's book. And we caught the movie just in time, left in another wild Mercedes, this one with the driver smoking more than I wanted to and slipping through alleys we didn't know existed. But how could we? We're just walking the surface of this city more lightly that the lint that falls from the rugs strewn over balconies. We are passing through at best.
And when we get back home Jaminna in the lobby says, "Good night, these men are from Iraq and would like to talk to you." And I say I have to get my family upstairs and need toilet paper before we go," and she gets it and we go upstairs. And I said I'd go downstairs and I go downstairs, meet the three men, draped over the worn arm chairs, and sweat. Not because I'm overly nervous (which I am) but because it's just hot. And we struggle through my bad Arabic and Jaminna's better English, all in translation, these fellas just want to know what I think, as an American, of the situation we've all found ourselves in. And we're in it. So I sit and talk and say this and that, and they grill me as best they can. After awhile I excuse myself, happy to be going home to those I know love me. But it was something, sitting and 'talking,' each of us trying to get a feel for what the other felt, without really having the tools to do so. No language tools. No political tools. No real sense of who it was any of us were talking to. Except each other.

That's where we are, tonight, talking to each other through whatever calamity may present itself. Like crossing the street. Like getting through town. Like looking at the most perfect sky and having the time and wherewithal to know it is perfect. It is, look... See that?

Finally a true day of rest

Came home late last night on a flight from Amman, we got to the Amman airport hours early to avoid the possibility of getting lost, and to make sure the car we rented made it back where it belonged. Somehow something was "open" and drained the battery at the Dead Sea, and fortunately I tried starting the car in the morning, found it dead, and managed to get the help I needed from the staff - they of course found the humor in it, some white guy without a clue, though I did have a clue, and the phone number of the rental guy should things go really south - and we charged the battery in the blazing white heat of the dead sea, while the girls lounged in their own heat, in the dead sea and by the pool. We were sure we needed to leave by 5 to make the 9:15 from Amman, so charging the battery was good, and it lasted, though we didn't. Too much luxury it turns out, all of us a little tired of being waited on, so we left, drove north along the shore toward Amman, through the last of the open desert and the Bedouin camps set up with truck and tents and water somehow. Arrive at the airport hours early, shed the car and wait. I found an open wireless network in the AirPort, which was interesting. Cruised around a little, not much to say. By the time the flight was called, an hour before takeoff the AirPort was bustling with wandering folk from all over, through the biggest Duty-Free zone I've ever seen. Beer and cigarettes, toys and watches and perfume, clothes, CDs, jewelry, whatever. By now we're all so tired of buying we don't even look, except at the monitor, and the flight is right.

We arrive in Beirut and catch the most charming taxi back home, getting here around midnight, all of us healthy but tired, looking forward to nothing but church bells and calls to prayer on a Sunday morning. And this morning wake late to just that, and the brown dove on the balcony, as the horns starting to honk through the sound of water splashing off balconies onto the street filtered trough the haze of exhaust, saltwater evaporation, and blow-back from countless air conditioners. Everything is quite this Sunday. People seem relaxed and ready to continue. The cab driver last-night let us know this is no different than any other time in Lebanese history, "so forget about it...this country will go on." There is calm here and the hope for more calm, so please worry not, we are fine here and things are fine here.

Today we're looking at chores - things to keep up busy, and what we'll do this week. I called Deirdre, one of the hosts of this huge ACS reunion, and let her know we're still in town. We'll get together with she and her husband later this week to tell tales and fill prescriptions. Elise and Phoebe so want to explore the Beiruti nightlife, we'll figure that out too. This week we plan to travel to Bcharré, Kahlil Gibran's village in the north of Lebanon, near the large Cedars, the last of the "Stand of God," the largest cedar trees left of the endless forests ravaged by the peoples whose ruins we've been looking at all over this part of the world. Everyone used the Cedars to build their mighty things. And we've been thrilled by their remains.

But now, I watch the endless circus of traffic on Sadani Street, 10 floors below. Intertwining one way roads and alleys, periodically ignored and driven down any-which-way, especially today, with many of the metal awnings of businesses shuttered against the afternoon heat. And the fact that it's Sunday. Even in this predominately Muslim part of town, today's a day of rest and calm. And the girls are calm, resting, napping, and hardly interested in going out. Me, I'm interested in resting too, but also in going out, looking at everything there is to look at, and there is plenty. It's a short walk to the sea, to the Corniché where venders sell coffee and bread. Soon the heat of the day will pass, and folks will show up outside, basking in the truce everyone believes is the wave of the future. Inshala. Sometime i'll try and fill in the rest of the stories we've been living.

(New photos @ Petra?DeadSea. More photos later...)

Resting at the Dead Sea

We made these plans through an agent in Beirut, and find ourselves in the most elegant hotel at the edge of the incredibly blue sea. The heat is almost unbearable - we're 1300 feet below sea level, in a bowl surrounded by Jordanian hills on the east, and Israel on the west. The heat evaporates the water and leaves a film on everything. And the gardens are wonderful, everything blooming and smelling sweet, like syrup over all this. We were hot and hadn't eaten for hours, and found our rooms cool and appointed. After bathing and calming down, we ventured out, ate a snack and did reconnaissance. Found the sea of course, filmed with minerals and salt, the large pool with zero-horizon, so when you swim you have the feeling you're joining the horizon. Back in the rooms we had drinks, bathed again, then went to the belly dance, a cabaret-style floor-show with a beat-box, and an audience full of head-scarfed women and their men and children, smoking water pipes and sipping coffee. Later the Romanian duo: the woman in a very short, very tight white skirt, and the man in baggy linen slacks. All the hits.

This morning Leslie and I bathed early in the Dead Sea, making our way gingerly over the mineral encrusted rocks, my cracked feet burning from the salts. But what a feeling, floating like rubber, early morning sun already blasting the Israeli banks with white hot light. Then we swam, found the girls and ate what has to be the most elegant breakfast we've ever had. Breakfast foods from all places, meats, breads, eggs of all sorts, foul, labneh, salted cheese and fish, pastries, everything for everyone.

Leslie is convinced she could live in Jordan. We have seen such empty space, and most places people have been very open, albeit we've been sort of secluded in the places we've been. But there is something very attractive about this country. The Bedouin presence is everywhere and romantic. The politics seem stable with the young King Abdullha doing his part to take over from his father. We passed through 3 checkpoints which was surprising to men, until we were asked if we were Israeli, and then it made sense. Israel is less than 10 miles away, and if you look closly, you can make out the large bore guns pointed west. But friendly none the less.

We stay here awhile longer, then pack it up and drive back to Amman to catch our flight home. This has been a tough trip hiking through the desert of Petra, but we'll go home rested, and ready to make whatever sense can be made about the new government in Lebanon.

Going to Jordan

(New photos in Petra album. hope you like them)

Took the early morning plane to Amman, arrived at 9 to get a car and drive to Petra - ended up waiting in the airport for an hour and more for the spare they forgot to include. "We thought you were only driving to Amman," "No, Petra." OK, so we wait take coffee, wake up, try and heal our tired Syrian bellies and get ready. When the tire comes we're ready and drive 230 km south, toward Aqaba and the Saudi boarder, looking for things to talk about other than the situation in our tired brains and bellies, and what will happen in Lebanon.

The Jordan desert is not the Syrian desert, redder sand, fewer signs of a government. this is Bedouin country, small roadside villages and a lot of open space. What few buildings there are are separated by space. We learn later that 90% of Jordanian land is privately owned, so people building tend to build on their property, which means house and buildings are further apart. And we learn more about the "40 year Project," the Jordanian government's attempt to settle the Bedouin people, promising them land (and all that comes with it, like taxes for electricity and roads), education, healthcare, and generally a "better" life. Consequently, there are villages in the hills that look new, roads and buildings where the Bedouin have been settled. Now they have some land and grow okra and olives and almonds, and herd cows as well as sheep and goats. But when I asked someone if they're happy I was told no, they'd rather wander. And some still do, though they use big trucks to sleep their sheep from place to place. And they still have big parties evidently. We've heard a lot of fireworks and singing, and were told these are big Bedouin weddings.

So we get to Petra and checked into Taybet Zayman, a rebuilt "village" home in the foothills overlooking the canyons of Petra. Beautiful and sculpted to look like a cross between New Mexico and Tuscany, the rooms are sweet, stone floored, multi-chambered cave like places that surround the gardened courtyards. Really unreal, and almost empty, because it's not high season. But we''re close to a couple of mosques, and prayers are called live five times a day, so we don't forget where we really are, in the middle of the desert, in Jordan. We rest awhile, bathe and eat, then do the "Petra by Night" tour. Meet at the gate, walk down the Sik (the very narrow gorge that leads to the site) in the path lit by hundred of luminaries, 1200 meters down until we come out into the square of the treasury. In the courtyard we drink spiced tea and listen to first an old man playing a single stringed violin and singing, then a young Bedouin man playing a flute emerges from the ruins , magic and echoes through what we can only guess is there.

And today we go back to Petra, 45 km of rambling Nebathean and Roman and Muslim ruins, spread out, and up, and down across the desert like nothing I've ever seen. And I keep wondering what it must have been like when all these cobbled streets were finished, when these buildings and tombs weren't dilapidated from history and weather. I mean, Jesus, this stuff is over two thousand years old and the unsettled Bedouin people are still sleeping in it, and making stuff they're trying to sell us, and husbanding camels and horses and donkeys they are trying to get us to ride. And we do, rent donkeys, to help Elise and Leslie get up the last of the steep steep 900 steps to the "Monastery," a gigantic carving in the side of the hill way up there. Past more donkeys and Bedouin people selling stuff, and then it's late and we're exhausted, dust and sweat everywhere, we wind our way back to the Sik, up the last mile to the car and then home, where we lounge for awhile then take dinner in a courtyard. Sunset, starlight, calls to prayer and we enjoy our company as best we can. We sit through dinner watching others, Europeans, Americans, Arabs, all eating and drinking and sharing tales. But none are as rich as ours. And we think about returning to Lebanon, where last night Israeli forces bombed Hezbollah in Sidon, 50 miles south of Beirut. "Let's not worry," I say, "Beirut will be fine," and try and change the subject. Tomorrow we go to the Dead Sea, to relax and regroup.

More tomorrow - We are now at the Dead Sea, in a nice place, relaxing, as I said we would, and regrouping. The drive today was something, listening to Isreali radio traversing the Jordanian desert. Took what we thought would be a shorcut, through small villages, on the Muslim Sunday, saw remarkablly womanless celebrations throughout, got caught on a dead end street in the wrong part of a smalltown, lots of young kids grabbing at the white girls in the back... More on today tomorrow.