Yesterday I went on a fieldtrip with school. We visited a glassblowing factory in Sarafand. Factory is too much of a word; it’s basically a shed with a couple of guys who run one little furnace 24 hours a day, and they do that for a whole week, and then one week rest. So once the oven gets going, they go in 4 shifts of 8 hours each. And they blow glasses, pitchers, bubbles and all kinds of artisanat work. They do good business; they sell to all the souvenir and artisanat shops in Lebanon. It’s pretty cheap; 3,000 pounds for a wineglass, 2,000 for a water glass, 6,000 for a pitcher etc. $1 = $1,500 Lebanese pounds, so you have a nice glass for $2. It’s hand blown, so none of the glasses are the same. Some are a little lob-sided, which shows it’s handiwork, but it’s very nice.
Glassblowing is a tradition over here, dating back to the Phoenicians (who invented glass blowing but not glass making). The kids got to blow their own bubble, which got them immensely excited because they thought they could take them home, but the glassblower said they needed four hours to cool off, and besides, they had all blown too hard, so the bubbles were too thin and would burst once you touched them. Talking about ‘bursting a bubble’.
We also visited a pre-historic cave, inhabited by Cro-Magnon some 55,000 years ago. They found stone tools when they excavated the cave; my students found garbage and shit. But they were pretty excited about the sheep bones that were laying all over the place. “Look Miss, a fossil!” Around it are some graves hewn into the rock, with little benches inside.
Still preparing fro my Syrian bloggers story; am going there on Sunday. Since March 2005 (I’ve checked it, about 75% of Syrian bloggers started in March), when Bush started to come down on Assad and company, Syrian blogs have been mushrooming like crazy. I think it indicates that they finally feel they can criticize, or at least speak up against the current regime. If you ask me, Assad’s days are numbered. I think he knows that too, or at least his inner circle, because I heard his family and cronies are shifting funds to banks abroad.
Glassblowing is a tradition over here, dating back to the Phoenicians (who invented glass blowing but not glass making). The kids got to blow their own bubble, which got them immensely excited because they thought they could take them home, but the glassblower said they needed four hours to cool off, and besides, they had all blown too hard, so the bubbles were too thin and would burst once you touched them. Talking about ‘bursting a bubble’.
We also visited a pre-historic cave, inhabited by Cro-Magnon some 55,000 years ago. They found stone tools when they excavated the cave; my students found garbage and shit. But they were pretty excited about the sheep bones that were laying all over the place. “Look Miss, a fossil!” Around it are some graves hewn into the rock, with little benches inside.
Still preparing fro my Syrian bloggers story; am going there on Sunday. Since March 2005 (I’ve checked it, about 75% of Syrian bloggers started in March), when Bush started to come down on Assad and company, Syrian blogs have been mushrooming like crazy. I think it indicates that they finally feel they can criticize, or at least speak up against the current regime. If you ask me, Assad’s days are numbered. I think he knows that too, or at least his inner circle, because I heard his family and cronies are shifting funds to banks abroad.
