Have I been here too long?

This thought dawned on me as I was walking through the streets of Beirut last night: have I spent so much time in the Middle East that I fail to see the problems? My final exam for one of my classes asked me to address the stability of the region. I was discussing the question with a few of my friends, and we were stumped. Stability? Isn't there stability right now? Well, of course we had stability, we were sitting on the AUB beach with our laptops eating cherries. There's no war in Lebanon and it was rated the most stable country in the Middle East a few months ago. Although there's no government here, it doesn't seem to affect daily life. Sure, the teachers aren't being paid, and eventually there will have to be a cabinet formed, but at the moment life seems idyllic. When we read the news about the Middle East, it seems like the whole place it just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. And while there definitely is some anxiety (a few nights ago there were especially loud fireworks going off and everyone on my floor poked their head out of the door to see if anyone else thought it was a bomb, and these are Lebanese students, mind you), people manage to sustain normal lives. I also realized that the Lebanese think other parts of the Middle East are dangerous as well. I was telling a few of my Lebanese friends that I planned on going to the West Bank after this (only referred to as Palestine here, no matter if you're talking about the West Bank, Galilee, or Tel Aviv-Jaffa) and they thought I was crazy. Isn't it a war there? Aren't you scared? they asked. I had to explain that, no, it's quite safe where I'm going. And again, I had to explain why exactly I was in the Middle East to begin with. I still don't have a concrete answer, but I have a creeping suspicion that a bit of Orientalism would be in my answer. I almost think it's inevitable. In my case, I think a lot of it runs along the lines of I'm interested in Lebanese culture, so they should be interested in American culture and I will just go ahead and assume that and tell them everything about it. Hopefully I'm not as bad as some people.

The packing commences today. I need to start early so I can still go to the beach every day :)

One Week Left!

Previously, I had mentioned that I had never experienced any anti-American sentiment while in Lebanon. That is still true, although as I reflect back on my semester here there is one thing that stands out. People are always very welcoming, but they can't seem to fathom why an American would come to Lebanon. As my roommate's young cousin asked, "why would you leave the best country in the world to come here?" When I tell people that I'm a visiting student at AUB for the semester, I often get a similar question. It's as though they take their interest in the US for granted, but can't understand why there would be reciprocal interest. I actually have had a hard time answering this question. For sure, 9/11 played a large part in introducing me to the region, as did my parents' discussion of all things political. I suppose the interest is born from our country's rapacious acts throughout the Muslim world. I have an idealistic desire to reshape the course of American diplomacy in the Middle East, and once I tell people this, they seem a bit more understanding. I suppose that is the most simplistic answer to why I came to Lebanon. That, and my love of falafel, hommos, and zaatar.

This may be my last post from Lebanon. I have two more final papers to finish up, and then it's off to the West Bank next Sunday! In the meantime, I plan to hang out at the AUB beach, bronzaging in the true Lebanese fashion.

A few more Lebanon observations

There are a few things that I forgot to mention in my last post. First off, I recently found out that 80% of the AUB student body is on financial aid. I was shocked by that figure because if you walk around campus you would not get that impression. It seems like people are rolling in money. As a friend of mine likes to say about her Art History class, "there isn't a single boy but there are a whole lot of Louis'." It's just an interesting thing I've noticed. That further drives home the point that appearance is super important here.

Life at AUB is very different from my college experience. Probably the hardest for me to adjust to was the meal plan, or lack there of. Only about a sixth of the school population lives in dorms. The rest live in apartments near by or commute every day. This means that the school doesn't really need to provide an all-encompassing meal plan like Hamilton does. There is one dining hall, but it closes at 5 pm!! It also only serves pasta, salad, and sandwiches, with no variety. The girls that live in dorms all eat food prepared for them by their mothers. A lot of the girls on my hall go home each weekend and restock on their food supply for the week. The girls who don't go home have their parents bring them prepared meals for the week, or, in the case of one Lebanese girl from Saudi, have their mom's send it via airplane with traveling family members. Actually, this does make sense. It's not as though I have time to cook for myself during my semesters at Hamilton and without the dining halls I would surely starve. Also, up until this semester, there was no communal eating space on my floor. However we got a little table with three chairs put in our kitchen, so occasionally people will eat there together, but mostly people eat in their rooms. At Hamilton, meals are the most social period of the day, so I had a really hard time adjusting to that.

There are a few more differences between AUB and Hamilton, but I can't think of them now. 

The Lebanon I've Experienced

As I begin to count my final days in Lebanon, I realize that I have overlooked some important issues in my sporadic blogging over the past several months. Lebanon has redefined how I think of the Middle East, and specifically the Levant (Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Palestine). Instead of viewing the region as one big nation, I've come to realize that every country has its own particularities. With its rich, pre-civil war history as the Paris of the Middle East, Lebanon is striving today, after all the bloodshed, to recapture this image, and it's doing a pretty good job. The Lebanese are very into their appearance and are beyond glamourous. Their dress is also shockingly revealing. I constantly feel underdressed and judged, even at the gym. I may have described the AUB gym to a few of you, but let me just say that it is a microcosm of Lebanese life in general. The tredmill at the gym is used more as a fashion runway than as an exercise machine. I am constantly judged for breaking a sweat and (gasp) running. One girl on my floor even irons her shirts before going to the gym. Around campus I've seen more nose jobs than I have in my entire life. Even the guys get them. I don't know why self-appearance is so important, but it really dominates many peoples' thoughts in Lebanon.

Religion is an interesting subject in Lebanon. During the civil war, Lebanon broke down into too many groups for me to remember, but a lot of them were along religious ties. However, there were some odd alliances that formed just so one group could grab more power. So power relations, not religious differences, were how people divided. Today, problems continue to exist, with people grouping themselves based on religious sect. When I first arrived here, I knew the majority of the population was Muslim, and expected the women to wear something like this, as they had in the West Bank. Instead, I saw far fewer people wearing even the basic headscarf than I had expected. For a while I thought this was because AUB was expensive, and maybe Muslims didn't have access to the education or money to send their kids here. Not a single girl on my floor appeared to be Muslim. However, I soon realized that many of the Muslim girls on my floor, and in AUB in general, didn't wear a headscarf. They still are devout Muslims, praying multiple times a day and dressing conservatively, but they don't wear a headscarf. This was a totally revolutionary concept for me, although I knew Muslims in the US who choose not to wear a headscarf. I believe the fact that these girls don't wear headscarves shows that Islam can be lenient and adapt to the modern era, despite all we hear to the contrary in the US.

Lebanon is much more liberal than I imagined. Of course, life is still very family-oriented, as it was in the West Bank, but people are also very social outside of the family. The nightlife is over-the-top, with people staying out until 5 am or later. Everyone goes out, not just the Christians, but many of the Muslims do not drink. A day at AUB wouldn't be complete without seeing at least 10 couples making out on the many benches overlooking the Mediterranean, and I definitely wasn't expecting that in Lebanon.

It's very disturbing to hear the divisions among the Christian and Muslim Lebanese. The Christians definitely look down their (fake) noses at the Muslims. They blame them for all their problems, and most Christians I meet tell me how different they are from the Muslims that ruined Lebanon. I think this is mostly attributable to the colonial system established by the French, where the Christians were favored over the Muslims. This led to increased economic opportunity, and divisions arose. Also, the Christians belong to a religious community that is very much Western, whereas the Muslims living in Lebanon look towards Mecca for religious guidance. Honestly, I  can't speak much to the Muslim side. I've heard a few Muslims complain about how Lebanon is so divided, etc, and they don't really take responsibility for the country's problems.

The issue of religion has been institutionalized in Lebanon. The government is a confessional system, so the Prime Minister is always a Sunni Muslim, the President is Maronite Christian, and the Speaker of the Parliament is a Shi'a Muslim. This system was established in the 1940s to represent the demographics of the country, but much has changed since then and now smaller groups have a disproportionate amount of power. Although Lebanon has been passed over by the recent uprisings in the Middle East, the youth are calling for an end to the sectarianism. However, all in one breath, they manage to condemn sectarianism and criticize another sect for their own problems, so it appears to be a never ending cycle.

Yesterday I went down to the South with the Cultural Club of the South. It turns out that this club is really a euphemism for the Hezbollah Club, but AUB has banned political clubs from campus. For the whole trip we were escorted by guards in an ambulance, who I later found out were the Hezbollah version of the Red Cross. We first went to the Mleeta: The Resistance Museum (another euphemism, this time for the Hezbollah Museum). The museum is set on a beautiful hilltop, looking out over the south of Lebanon. Israel occupied southern Lebanon up until 2000. Most of the museum was a display of Israeli Defense Forces garbage that was cool to look at, but wasn't anything special. However, it was apparent that a ton of money had gone into this project. Our guide said that the purpose of the museum was to show Westerners that Hezbollah wasn't a bunch of terrorists. There was also a display of a typical fighter bunker. That was about it. After the museum, we went down to the Lebanese-Israeli border. It was disconcerting to see UNFIL, Lebanese, and Israel armed forces all in such close proximity. The border was nothing more than a fence with about a 100 meters of no man's land in between. We got out and walked around a bit, then someone gave a speech about Hezbollah's mission to reclaim all of Palestine. My Palestinian friends kept looking off into Israel and saying "that is my land, doesn't it look gorgeous?" I can't imagine how hard it must be for them to look out at that land and know they can never live there.

I have very mixed opinions about Hezbollah. I don't think it's right to classify them as a terrorist organization, and I think it's mostly done by the US to justify its continued support of Israel. However, I do take issue with Hezbollah acting independent of the Lebanese government. No country should have two armies. I asked one of the guides on the trip about that, and he said that Hezbollah had to be separate from the government in order to carry out many of its secret missions and that the government supported them but there were a few too many corrupt politicians who were allied with Israel. Another girl chimed in, saying that Lebanon is divided between too people, so Hezbollah had to act independently of the government. I didn't buy it. They also said that Hezbollah was there to provide external security for Lebanon, while the Lebanese army kept the Lebanese from killing themselves, therefore making them responsible for internal security. So, while I believe Hezbollah can act offensively against Israel to protect the Lebanese and work for the Palestinians, I think this should be done under the auspices of the Lebanese government, not a political party.

I know I haven't said anything about my trip to Turkey, but I have a few pictures on facebook. Istanbul was fantastic, and I loved every second there. I think I saw everything there was to see, and was so exhausted after touring around for three days.

Also, another thing of note since I've last written has been Osama bin Laden's death. I haven't really witnessed much fallout from it in Lebanon, apart from the occasional Lebanese student saying that he isn't actually dead, but even the professors dismiss those comments. The most shocking response I received was from the US State Department, warning me not to go outside because of anti-American protests. Sometimes I wonder if the people who write these travel advisories are even in the countries they write about. All the emails I've received about Lebanon have been totally off the mark. As always, the news in the US or from Western sources is much more dramatic and aimed at scaring the reader than the facts on the ground. There's good reason why people are afraid to travel to the Middle East, and a lot of it has to do with what they read in the New York Times or other Western newspapers.

That's all I have to say for now. I hope I've conveyed a bit that the whole Middle East isn't a hotbed of extremism, and that life here is pretty normal and people just want to live their lives in peace. The next few weeks will be busy as the semester begins to wind down. I don't want my time in Beirut to end, but I am looking forward to my travels this summer as well.

Tripoli

No, I did not go to Libya. Lebanon also has a city called Tripoli, or Trabolus in Arabic. Tripoli is about an hour and a half north of Beirut along the coast. Tripoli is best known for its sweets and winding old city. I had a great time walking around the old city, exploring the citadel that overlooks the city, and sampling the cuisine. To be honest, I was not as impressed by the sweets as I had expected, but maybe that's just because I was building them up in my mind all week. I had three types of sweets from Halleb, the most famous shop in Tripoli.

Halewit l-jibin (sweet cheese) - this was the strangest thing I've ever eaten. I can't even describe it. Basically, it's a doughy bottom with salty cheese on the top, and then smothered in a syrup that smells a lot like rose water. This came the most highly recommended to me and when I told some of the girls on my floor that I didn't like it they were speechless. I guess it's an acquired taste? So I'll just have to keep eating it.

This one was delicious. It's essentially pistachios wrapped in a sweet pastry. I really liked it.

Kanafeh is a particularly well known Arabic sweet. It consists of flour, cheese, sugar, and rose water. I like kanafeh, but I've definitely had better.

Tripoli also has a citadel dating back to the 12th century. It's been occupied by the usual suspects throughout the last 900 years, but my guidebook left out the fact that it's now occupied by the Lebanese army. The street surrounding the citadel is full of humvees and part of the citadel is closed off for army barracks. It was very odd. The citadel is really dirty and there's restoration work being done all over the place. We had free roam over the entire place, with the exception of the army area, which was really cool, but I just wish someone was taking better care of it. Tripoli has had a lot of trouble attracting tourists since 2007 when a battle between Palestinians in a nearby camp and the Lebanese army spilled into the old city. 

I loved the old city of Tripoli. We went on a Saturday, so it was bustling with people doing their weekend shopping. I definitely want to go back during the next two months because I feel like I only saw the tip of the iceberg. There are so many mosques, baths, khans, and madrassas tucked away in the old city. I love old cities because there's such a variety of things being sold. In one shop you can find nice, although distinctly Lebanese, dresses, and right next door will be a butcher hacking away at some huge hanging piece of meat. Some of the stores are not very vegetarian friendly, but they also make great pictures. I bought two pairs of Arabic coffee cups for myself (all for $1.50) so now I can drink coffee back in the US. I also loved Tripoli because I had one of the best meals of my life there (sorry Mom). We were walking along the streets of the old city, contemplating heading to the sweet shop and then home, when my eyes were caught by this vendor selling some sort of sizzling dish. We had walked by once before, but I had restrained myself, wanting to save up for the sweets. However, passing by twice was too much for me and I relented. Now I wish I had a picture, but basically it was Moroccan couscous (big, white circular pieces not like couscous in the US) with a few chickpeas, white onions, and lots of oil. The whole thing was flavored with just the perfect amount of cinnamon. All this was wrapped up in pita, obviously, because every meal comes with pita in the Middle East. After I had my first bite I passed it along to my friend, who then turned around and bought himself a sandwich, and then my other friend gave in and bought one as well. They were just so good! After the three of us had purchased our sandwiches, we walked into the back of the store and sat down at the plastic table and chair set up. Like most old cities, the interior of the shops are the best part. All have arched stone walls/ceilings and it was the perfect atmosphere to chow down on my sandwich. If I go back to Tripoli for any other reason, I am definitely hunting down this place.

I tried to capture the street scene in the old city but my finger and chattering got in the way. I think it gives a decent impression of the atmosphere, regardless. Specifically, I wanted to get the guy selling veggies on film. He was sooooo loud.

Just by chance we found the soap khan. It's in the open area next to the gold shops, and immediately upon stepping into the khan we were overwhelmed with the sweet smell of flowers. It was such a relief from the constant smell of the butchers shop and cooking food. 

It's another beautiful day in Beirut, but I've shut myself up in my room to study Arabic. I have an exam on Tuesday in my formal Arabic class and the grammar is tough. It doesn't help that I don't know much about English grammar, but this definitely seems much harder. I'll just keep thinking about my trip to Turkey on Friday and that will get me through it I'm sure.

I'm back!!

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while since my last blog. Things have been crazy here in Lebanon what with my parents visiting and midterms. To start things off, let me say that I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you to everyone for your birthday wishes (and gentle reminders for me to update my blog). I'm embarrassed to say that I went to the Hard Rock Cafe. It seems to be the Lebanese thing to do. All the bars and restaurants have specials like unlimited wings and beer or tacos and margaritas. I don't think things like that exist in the US because people would drink way too much. So, I went to the Hard Rock and had a delicious veggie burger and cupcakes.

It was wonderful to see my parents. They mostly did their own thing, but we had a few days together. One of those days, we went to the Qadisha Valley up in the north. Also know as the Valley of the Saints, this is a lush and verdant valley with monasteries and hermitages tucked away amongst the terraced land. To get down to one of the monasteries, you have to drive down this windy road with no guard rail. In the US, this road would definitely be one way, but not in Lebanon. To round a corner, you brace yourself, try and look in the mirrors set up, beep your horn (although the horn of our car didn't work), and speed on around the corner. The views on the ride down into the valley were breath-taking. Because the valley is in the Cedars, there are snowcapped mountains in the distance and the melting snow leads to gushing waterfalls throughout the valley. You can see why people were attracted to the area.

I also went to Byblos twice in the past month. Byblos (or Jbail in Arabic) is supposedly the longest inhabited city in the world (~6000 years) and it's where the first alphabet appeared. The main attraction in Byblos is the ruins of the city. There are millennia after millennia of buildings piled up one on top of another. Even though I went twice, I did not do the guided tour, although I wish I had. Byblos is particularly cool since tourists have total freedom. Sure, there are bars around the necropolis, but no one would really mind if you wandered into it. My favorite part was the old spring. It doesn't work now, but there's a winding stone ramp that goes down to the source of water. Byblos is also well know for its old harbor. Apparently in the summer you can go snorkeling there and see more of the ruins that have sunken into the water. So maybe I'll be making a third trip back to Byblos!

The next 3 shots are of Achrefieh, the French quarter of Beirut

Typical construction scene in downtown Beirut

That's it for now. This weekend I'm going to either Tyre (Sour) or Tripoli (Trabolis). And after that is our Easter break during which I'm going to Istanbul!!