Beirut, how I love thee. Let me count the ways…

Cagil!

About a week ago, my flatmate Cagil (pronounced ‘Chill’) and I were sitting out on her balcony, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and listening to Fairuz belt out ‘Le Beirut.’ Complete bliss. As we sat there in our white plastic chairs, our feet propped up on the rusty steel railing, red wine dribbling down our chins (well, my chin – Cagil doesn’t have the same problems I do with spills and messes) we tried to figure out what it is that makes this disorganized city, so full of contradictions, so special – why do we love it so much? And although we couldn’t quite pinpoint one specific thing, we did manage to cover a whole spew of things that are uniquely and wonderfully ‘Beirut.’

• Constant power outages that leave you peeing in the dark, locked in café with electric doors, sweltering without air conditioning, and cursing your dead computer battery
• Completely veiled women with bright purple platform heels peeking out beneath their burquas.
• Cold (aka luke warm) showers on a sticky summer afternoon
• Grilled ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches from Dany’s
• Meeting at least one new person every day
• Joking about my former unibrow and mustache with people who can honestly relate (we Lebanese are a rather hairy people)
  

  My natural eyebrows

• Amazing people from all over Lebanon and the world who are willing to open up completely; who become your best friend, your soul mate in only a few days time
• Stores that appear and disappear in a month’s time
  

  M'juddera

• Popping olives like candy while we dance around the kitchen, Louis Armstrong playing from my laptop, cooking m’juddera (lentils and rice – by the way – LOVE that its called mmmmm judera cause it really is muah-ha mmmmm boy delicious) with friends
• The world’s S   L   O   W   E   S   T and most expensive internet connection
• Walking south, while taxis driving north honk at you and offer you a ride
• Six people jammed in the back of a Service (shared taxi)
• Eating three meals a day at BarBar
• The hilarious but inevitable realization that after eating three meals a day at BarBar, even your sweat has begun to smell like garlic
• Seemingly sweat-free Lebanese women with perfect nails, hair, skin and clothes, strutting down Hamra
• Spending long afternoons at Ants, browsing jewelry and dresses or just chilling and drinking tea with Fahan, Sebouh, Karen, Raghda and Noor
• Countless marriage proposals from taxi drivers
• Iced coffee at Café Younes with a constantly growing group of friends
• Singing along while friends play guitar and drink cocktails on your roof
  

  May and Leila enjoying fruit cocktails for breakfast

• Fruit cocktails (an assortment of sliced fresh fruit topped with a sugary syrup, sweet white cheese, pistachio nuts, almonds and a slice of avocado – AH! Too good!)
• Friday night concerts by ‘Chahadine Ya Baladna’ at Walimat
• Techno dance parties in the back of taxi cabs…complete with flashing lights…at 3pm
• Silent old movies screened with subtitles on the walls of De Prague
• An unhealthy obsession with Knafe
  

  Knafe!!

• Old men, sitting outside cafes in white plastic chairs playing backgammon or smoking
• Communal water bottles on mini buses
• Sitting on my orange sheets with friends in my room, drinking wine, eating chocolate, talking and cracking each other up until the wee hours of the morning
  

  Me, wrapped in my orange sheets, and so happy!

• That newfound, deep and unconditional love we have all developed for air conditioners
• That renewed, deep and unconditional hatred we have all developed for mosquitoes
• The first fresh figs at the end of August


My infamous fig binges have earned me the nickname 'Teeny,' which in Arabic means 'My fig'

• Eating figs until your stomach starts to gurgle and you come to the terrifying realization that you can fart on cue
• Long, intimate evenings with Señor Hamam (Hamam = Toilet in Arabic) after binging on figs
• Realizing that you’ve never before talked about your bowel movements on such a regular basis


Dancing with Omar at Oceana

• Sipping an ice-cold Almaza with friends at Barometre and snacking on an assortment of Lebanese dishes (mezze)
• Dancing all day in the pool at one of Beirut’s beach clubs
• Being offered tissues by random strangers, blown away by how completely drenched in sweat you’ve allowed yourself to become
• Ordering an obscene amount of food from Kabab-ji…and devouring every last bite
• Lazy days in the pool with friends that you’ve known for a few days, but feel like you’ve known for years
  

  Farah, Rianne, me and Leila floating in the pool at Sporting

• Sitting on the balcony with Cagil, drinking wine, discussing what makes us happy in Beirut

Mountain Villages, Castles and Booza in the Shouf

Ozge!

Ozge is leaving for Turkey on Tuesday! The beginning of the end. It seems that many of the people I’ve met here over the past couple of weeks are half & half’s like me, or political science students with a particular interest in the Middle East, here doing an internship – regardless, the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they’re all only here for the summer. Rats. It’s okay – I’ll just have to make the most out of my time with them, their last few weeks here!

So today was declared Ozge’s day and I promised to go along with whatever plans she made. Which is actually awesome for me because Ozge always seems to make amazing plans.

Last night, before I left Dany’s the two of us decided to meet up at 11:30 am on Hamra street and make another day trip to somewhere in Lebanon. Up late as usual, I rushed to get dressed and picked up two manaeesh with vegetables for us for breakfast, and hurried over to find Ozge waiting patiently for me with a cup of coffee for each of us. Mmmm boy! Great minds think alike! We were off to a good start!

We headed down to the Cola transport hub where we met up with two friends of Ozge’s, an Australian guy and an Irish guy, whose names I have embarrassingly forgotten. Ozge wanted to explore the Shouf – a mountain range southeast of Beirut that is part of the Mount Lebanon Range. So we headed off in a shared taxi for the village of Deir al-Qamar (Pronounced ‘Dare al Um-ar’ – in the Lebanese dialect of Arabic they almost always drop the ‘q’ sound, in case you were wondering – which I’m sure you weren’t, but now you know. Don’t ‘cha feel lucky?), a small village in the Shouf, which Lonely Planet describes as “one of Lebanon’s prettiest villages…and one of the best-preserved examples of 17th and 18th century provincial architecture in the country.” Good plan!

The beautiful Shouf

The drive up from boiling Beirut into the considerably cooler green mountains was beautiful and when we weren’t chatting or checking out the view, I read up on Deir al-Qamar. ‘Deir’ means ‘monastery’ and ‘al-Qamar’ means ‘moon’, so basically the name translates to ‘Monastery of the moon.’ I don’t know what the story behind that name is, but I like it! The taxi dropped us off along the main road in Deir al-Qamar around 1pm and we took a minute to orient ourselves and take in the sights.

View down the main road of Deir al-Qamar

Dany Chamoun wearing a shirt with the logo of the Tiger's Militia

Deir al-Qamar really is a beautiful city. It’s filled with stone buildings with red-tile roofs, assembled around a large center square, called Dany Chamoun Square. Dany Chamoun was a Lebanese politician and the son of former Lebanese President Camille Chamoun. He was born in Deir al-Qamar and was known for his opposition to the occupation of Lebanese territories by Syrian and Israeli foreign forces and for his role as a leader of the Tigers Militia in 1968, the military wing of the National Liberal Party (NLP) during the Lebanese Civil War. He and his family were assassinated in 1990, and in his honor, they named the main square of Deir al-Qamar after him.

Random fact about Dany Chamoun Square – apparently in the 16th century they held jousting and other equestrian competitions there. So cool! Now it just houses a small 19th century fountain that dispenses clean drinking water from the nearby Shalout spring. The fountain itself isn’t anything spectacular, but the ice-cold water hit the spot.

Dany Chamoun Square in Deir al-Qamar

Okay, being totally honest – aside from being a cute town with an interesting history, there’s really not much to do in Deir al-Qamar. We browsed the small souk where I bought a patch of the Lebanese flag for my backpack and took a peek in the bizarre wax museum that’s housed inside the old palace of Emir Fakhreddine II, that was built in 1620. We walked past the small Mosque of Fakhreddine that was built in the Mamluk style in the 1490s and down a hill to the Church of Saidet at-Talle that was built in the 7th century, destroyed by an earthquake in the 8th century and then rebuilt under Fakhreddine in the 16th century. Whew! Actually, one thing that is cool about this city is that it has housed Muslims, Christians, Jews and Druze and has the religious monuments to prove it.

So with our tour of this tiny village complete (took about 1 hour) we decided to treat ourselves to some booza (the Arabic word for ice cream – such a fun word!) from a small stall in front of the Palace of Fakhreddine. YES! And the best part was – they had banana royales. Okay for you poor, select individuals who have yet to sample the delicious amazingness that is a banana royale, I will fill you in – sliced banana, 3 scoops of the ice cream of your choice, topped with whipped cream and hot fudge. HEAVEN!! Yes, ice cream makes me that happy

Booza!! Banana Royale with pistachio ice cream! Ah! SO HAPPY!

After our delicious snack, we decided to make our way to the nearby palace of Beiteddine. Okay, and here is where we encountered our first problem of the day. Transportation. There were no cabs to be found in the bite-sized village of Deir al-Qamar and Beiteddine is 6 kilometers away. Oh dear…Luckily, there is only one road connecting the village with the palace and so we set off on foot, arms outstretched, thumbs erect hoping against hope that someone would be kind enough to pick us up. Luckily after about 30 minutes of walking a lone cab passed by and drove us, 4 sweaty, pathetically unsuccessful hitchhikers, to Beiteddine for 2,000 lira each. Score!

Interior courtyard of Beiteddine

The palace of Beiteddine took about 30 years to build and was completed in the early 1800s. It’s massive and gorgeous and perfectly in tact. There are large courtyards with fountains, steam baths, intricate mosaic floors – the details decorating this place are nuts. It’s pretty awesome. I actually visited the palace the first time I came to Lebanon with my Mom in 2005, but I was psyched to be going back.

As we pulled into the palace entrance, we waved goodbye to our driver and made our way over to the ticket counter….where we encountered problem #2. Because of the summer Beiteddine festival, the palace closed early – we were an hour too late. Uuuuuugh! Such a bummer. So now what….We took a quick break to rest and collect our thoughts. On the walk + drive over, we had noticed a castle that seemed a little out of place in the middle of the Shouf and we decided to head back there and check it out. 15 minutes of walking and more unsuccessful hitchhiking later, we found ourselves in another taxi and on our way to Castle Moussa.

Exterior of Castle Moussa

Okay, what to say about Castle Moussa? This place is a trip. So freaking bizarre! Basically the story begins with this guy named Moussa – Moussa Abdel Karim Al Maamari, to be exact. He was born in 1931 and was one of those kids obsessed with the Middle Ages – you know, knights, castles, kings and queens. Pretty standard. So the little Moussa is in grade school and the teacher asks his students to write a short essay on where they want to live when they grow up. Moussa writes about his dream of living in a castle – he’s a kid, so far this all sounds pretty normal, right? The teacher thinks the idea is ridiculous and beats Moussa in front of his classmates, who all laugh and ridicule him. Okay. That admittedly sucks.

So Moussa is so traumatized by this whole thing that he makes it his life goal to prove his teacher wrong and build himself a castle. And this is where the story begins to get a little bizarre. This guy devotes his whole life to learning about the restoration of old palaces and castles in Lebanon (he actually worked on the restoration of Beiteddine), and once he has saved up enough money, he buys a plot of land in the Shouf and begins, literally, to build his dream castle. He built the ENTIRE thing by hand, an impressive feat that took him 60 years to complete. This place has a moat, a drawbridge, medieval style ramparts – oh, he went all out.

Oh and it gets better. Inside his fabulous castle Moussa decided to recreate scenes of daily life in Lebanon with wax figures. All of which he also made himself. And you can tell. I mean, don’t get me wrong – it’s impressive that he did all that he did, but the quality of the wax figures – some of which move! – is bordering on 8th grade history project. But this dude definitely would have been given an A for effort!

First thing you see upon entering Castle Moussa - A wax representation of traditional Lebanese daily life

Seriously, walking through this place was like walking through the surreal dream of a 10-year-old boy. It started out pretty standard for a historical wax museum – figures making bread, dancing the dabke (traditional Lebanese dance), welding, etc. But as you walk from room to room the displays just get progressively weirder. First of all, evidence of how traumatized this guy was – there is an entire life-sized recreation of his teacher beating him in a classroom full of his mocking classmates. What the what?? I mean, I guess that was where the inspiration for the castle began…And I thought I had problems letting go…

The infamous and traumatic beating of Moussa

Another room housed a miniature representation of Noah’s Ark, complete with small plastic animals (lions, tigers…a dragon…and a dangling Santa Clause. No joke.) on a rotating conveyor belt, continuously filtering into the ark. And then things just got more random. Moussa must have been a collector of old irons, because in many of the rooms, there were multiple irons, arbitrarily placed on the floor. There were also large wax hands and large wax feet that kept popping up in display cases and on the floors of exhibits. What the what?!?

The room pictured below featured wall mosaics with a waterfall running over their surface, a stuffed peacock, irons on the floor, guns on the wall, an old woman carrying rope…etc. Ummmm….Why??? I don’t get it.

I don't get it...

Oh and it’s not over yet…then the gun collection began! I told you, surreal dream of a 10-year-old boy – castle, awesome wax people, and guns! Well surreal dream of a 10-year-old boy manifested in the reality of a 70-year-old man….At least 15 rooms packed with guns followed. Random wax hands and feet were still thrown into some of the exhibits for good measure, alongside the occasional large display case of daggers, swords and Bedouin jewelry. I felt like I should have been high or tripping on acid to really appreciate this place.

Bellies aching from laughing and mouths sore from gaping at the bizarre wonder that is Castle Moussa, we all packed ourselves into a shared taxi and headed back to Beirut. But the day wasn’t over yet!  A shower and a quick nap later, I headed over to Ferdinand, a small bar on Rue Mahatma Gandhi for Ozge’s farewell party.

Me, Omar and Ozge at Ferdinand - the three best Arabic students ALPS has ever known, and my two closest friends here in Beirut

Ozge’s co-workers and friends – many of whom are my flat mates (small world!) – filtered in over the course of the night and we all sipped wine and beer, talked and laughed until finally fatigue pulled us all home to our beds. What a day!

Arabic Lessons & Taxi Rides

This morning I woke up at 9am. Shit. Late for class. Did the sniff test to see which of my clothes emitted the least detectable odor. Settled on jeans and a rumpled pink shirt. I need to do laundry…

Decided to be an extra five minutes late and stopped at my favorite roadside stand for a manaeesh zaatar wah khudra (hot bread sprinkled with zaatar and filled with fresh khudra – vegetables (tomato, cucumber, radish, pickles, fresh mint, olives, etc)) – basically an Arabic breakfast burrito. YUM. And don’t judge me on the extra five minutes – I don’t function well without breakfast and it’s only 750 Lebanese Lira – a whopping 50 cents. HEAVEN!

Crumbs decorating my already questionably clean shirt I rushed into class after making a mandatory stop in the bathroom to mop the sweat off my face. Walking into class, as you can imagine, I looked…lovely. Ear to ear grin, I gave a warm ‘sabah-hall khair!’ (good morning!) to my teacher, Nadia, who gave me that knowing grin that all my teachers throughout the history of my adult life have given me when I inevitably clumsily stumble into class, late as usual.

Two hours later, proud of the progress I’d made in class, I met Omar for a coffee at Costa where we he taught me how to text in Arabic. Despite the fact that all phones here have Arabic letters written alongside the English letters, everyone seems to text in the English, Latin-based alphabet, instead of using the Arabic alphabet – Arabic words written out phonetically with numbers substituting the sounds that don’t translate. For example, the ‘H’-ish sound in the word ‘rooH’ (to go), is texted as a ‘7’ – roo7. The guttural ‘aiyn’ sound, is texted as a ‘3,’ etc. It’s weird and complicated, but an essential thing to know in a world where texting is the standard way of communicating.

I left Omar around noon, and caught a taxi over to Dowra (area on the outskirts of Beirut)  to check on my beloved ‘kom-pew-tair’ as they call it over here in Libnan. My cab driver quickly picked up that I was foreign and proceeded to give me Arabic lessons all the way to Dowra.

Him: ‘Where are we now?’
Me: ‘In Lebanon.’
Him: ‘La! (No!) Be Libnan.’
Me: (Laughing) ‘Okay, be Libnan’
Him: ‘Maabrook habibti! Btheki Arabe!’ (Congratulations darling! You speak Arabic!)
Me: (Still laughing) ‘Shukrun!’ (Thanks!)
Him: ‘Inti Libnanieh?’ (Are you Lebanese?)
Me: ‘Eh, immi libnanieh.’ (Yeah, my Mom’s Lebanese)
Him: (switching over to French) Et t’a un fiancé? (And you have a fiancé?)

Oh brother….

I have discovered that inquiring minds in Lebanon always want to know if you’re engaged. In fact, the masculine and feminine forms of the word ‘engaged’ were two of the first I learned when I arrived in Beirut. He proceeded to tell me that he had a lovely Muslim son in his late 20s who loves girls who laugh. I declined, as politely as I could, the following generous offer of a blind date with said son just as we arrived in Dowra.  I claimed to be a devout Christian but if his son was willing to convert….The only proven way I have yet discovered to end such conversations. An, ‘aw, tant pis!’ ended that conversation dead in its tracks. Phew! Narrow escape. And I climbed out of the cab and hurried over to the computer shop where my computer has been living this past week.

Ah, good news! My computer is up and running again! So happy!! I’m well aware that it’s no exceptional breakthrough, but I hadn’t realized how completely dependent I am upon this stupid rectangular machine. A new hard-drive + $100 + 6 interesting taxi rides back and forth to Dowra proved to be the answer to all my problems and now I’m up and running again without a care in the world! Inshallah!  Now, time for a shower, and maybe I’ll do some of that laundry…

Gouraud: The Street and the General

If you tell a taxi to take you to the Beirut neighborhood of Gemmazeh, they’ll drop you at the start of the Rue Gouraud – the main bar, restaurant and club packed street running through this noisy neighborhood, which somehow manages to be grungy and upscale chic at the same time. I love it! You can spend entire nights hopping from cafe to bar, from bar to club, and never get bored or run out of new places to try.

General Gouraud

But anyway, I’ve been curious for awhile now about the street’s namesake ‘Gouraud.’ I wikipedia-ed that shit and here’s what I found: Henri Joseph Eugene Gouraud was born in France in 1867.  For one of the plethora of reasons that inspire young men to take up arms for their country, he joined the French army and began to bump his way up the ranks.  He actually lost his right arm while he was commanding French forces during the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915. Like Cervantes in the Battle of Le Panto! Although, that was his left arm. Ha! History NERD in the house.

You know the Battle of Gallipoli – World War I, fought on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. British and French trying to capture Istanbul from the Ottomans and failing miserably. Tons of people died on both sides – honestly doesn’t sound like it was worth it. Oh,  and they made a movie about it in 1981 – which in today’s pop culture world is probably more well known than the battle itself. The film was directed by Peter Weir and stars a very young Mel Gibson and Mark Lee as two hopeful, promising young Australians who join ANZAC (The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps – a branch of the British Army during WWI) and then get butchered in Gallipoli. It’s a great film but obviously very depressing.

ANYWAY, I digress.  So the reason why they care about this General in Lebanon is that from 1919-1923 he was a commander of the French army of the Levant (Levant = the eastern Mediterranean countries in general – specifically, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Israel and sometimes Iraq and Saudi Arabia) and played an important role in the creation of the French Mandates of Syria and Lebanon.  From what I’ve read, the locals in the region had mixed opinions of Gouraud and the French presence, but apparently he had enough of an impact to merit a street being named after him!

I actually found an article in the archives of the the NY Times, written in 1922, entitled ‘Gouraud Doubts Turks Want Syria: French Policy, the General Says, Is Merely to Carry Out Mandate Helpfully.’ I love the internet

Some background info: So in 1916, you get the Sykes-Picot Agreement (s0 called because it was negotiated by François Georges-Picot of France and Mark Sykes of Britain) between France and the UK that defined who would get control of the different territories in the Middle East after the Ottoman Empire fell.  But this agreement was secret and didn’t become official (although it was enforced all the while) until after the end of WWI, in the 1920s by the League of Nations. So in 1920, in the Treaty of Sevres (peace treaty between the Ottomans and the Allied forces), France was official granted control of Syria. The Syrians were pissed, understandably and actually from 1919 (French presence already in Syria but yet to be officially granted power by the League of Nations) until 1921 you get the Franco-Syrian War, with the Syrians trying to oust the French. The Syrians lost and the French remained in control. Quelle surprise.

So when this NY Times article was written in 1922, the French presence in Syria (Lebanon had yet to be created as it’s own country and was just a state in Syria – in fact the article is written from Beirut, Syria not Beirut, Lebanon) was established but Gouraud and his troops were still facing small attacks from different groups in Syria who hadn’t given up on their goal of evicting the French.  Syrian grievances against the French included French suppression of Syrian newspapers, political activity, and civil rights and the division of Greater Syria into six different states (Gouraud actually headed this division of Syria, one of the states being that of Greater Lebanon, which eventually became the country).

In the article, the author interviewed Gouraud who was trying to set the record straight about the French influence in Syria, explaining that the French were trying to restore stability in the region, reduce their presence in Syria and were generally liked in the region despite the recent attacks – “He was sure the Syrian people were beginning to realize the generous motives behind the French mandate and the elevating influence of French efforts in Syria, and he was happy to be able to say that the French were now meeting with ready and cordial cooperation.”  He also explained that he felt the Ottoman’s would not try to retake Syria and insisted that the French were “…on excellent terms with the Turkish authorities.” So interesting. Wish I had a Syrian article written at the same time on their perspective, but given that the French were suppressing Syrian papers, that might be more difficult to come by.

Gouraud returned to Paris the year after this article was published, in 1923, where he worked as Military Governor until his retirement in 1937, and eventually died in 1946.

Well, anyway, there you go. A brief sum up of the man behind the street name in the party district of Beirut.