Some Things You Won't See in Holland

An add in Wednesday's newspaper; 'Bullet proof cars; for rent and for sale. Call 03 290 ***'A politician dressed up like a toerist from Honolulu.

Shopkeepers asleep on their counter (it's Ramadan).

This One is for Tamara

A Dutch friend of mine, living here in Beirut, has a daughter named Tamara. I've called her Tamtam for as long as I've known her (and that's been since birth, some 14 years ago). Tamara has been quite unlucky for the past two years, since she's been on crutches for the most part. Pink crutches, I might add, but still crutches. First it was a knee, then an upper thigh, and I think I've missed a few body parts in between.

But it seems she's not been unlucky in love, because yesterday I ran into this long declaration of love for her on the high way. Don't let your father find out, girl!

“Will You Swim With Us?” or 'The Day I Almost Became a Hezbollah Chick'

In Holland, there’s a bit of an row lately around a Dutch lady who joined the Columbian guerilla (or terrorist, depending on where you stand) movement FARQ. The 29-year old was studying Spanish when, back in 2002, she decided to go ‘local’; join the Marxist rebels and take up arms to fight poverty in the Central American country. A female Che Guevera, so to speak. The Dutch government is a bit embarrassed by it all since they will have to explain the Columbian government what exactly one of their nationals is doing out there in the jungle, running around with an AK-47.

Joining foreign ‘liberation’ movements seems to have its magnetism. I remember an American teenager, and an Australian as well, running with al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Here in Lebanon, Fatah al-Islam seems to have had its fair share in attracting just about every nationality in the Middle East. My, they even had people from Bangladesh!

But the Dutch do not have to worry about me. I am not about to join the Fatah Islam, or what is left of it. Their dress code is a bit of a problem for me, and there may be issues from their side regarding my religious integrity.

But let me tell you about the time when I (sort of) almost ended up with Hezbollah. This was way back in the early nineties, and Hezbollah wasn’t yet the sophisticated organization it is right now.
They did have a press officer, but he did not speak English, would not give his name and would not hand out phone numbers nor organize press trips to the front line for journalists, complete with croissants and coffee.

And the press guy was just not very cooperative.
I needed a story, and he wasn’t giving one.
Interviews with combatants, a tour through a chador factory, talks with martyr’s wives, a look at the front line, an explanation of the organization’s structure, a ‘day in the life of’….. it was just not materializing.’ Even pictures were a virtual impossibility, other than the regular photo-ops of the Hezbollah military parade on Jerusalem Day.

The guy exasperated me.
“I need to understand how your fighters think. What they feel, what they care about, what kind of men they are,” I tried one afternoon. “If I understand them, go through what they go through, I can show people in Holland a better picture of Hezbollah, and people in Holland can sympathize with you (yes, I know; the things you won’t say for a story), get a better impression of Hezbollah.”
“You want to go with our boys?” said press guy.

I felt we were making a connection. I saw an opening.
“Yes, yes, with your boys. Into the field.”
“So you can do everything together?”
“Yes, exactly, that’s it!”
“So you want to know how they move, and cook, and set up camp?”
“Yes, and train, that would be nice too.”
Press guy seemed to understand me. He was getting into the groove.
“Yes, you can do many things together. You can go with them when they go to the Beqaa Valley”, he mused.
“Exactly,” I replied shaking my head enthusiastically.
“Walk together, eat together, everything.”
“Yes, yes!”
“You can swim together.”

That swimming part threw me of.
Swim?
These guys went on swimming expeditions? Was I correct in visualizing a group of young Hezbollah fighters in the Beqaa Valley, all together in their Speedos in a swimming hole, splattering and jumping and having fun; their battle fatigues hanging from the tree branches while their M16’s were leaning against the trunk? I did not quite make the connection. We were not talking boys’ scouts here, were we?
I voiced my reservations.
“Well, swimming may not be a good idea. I don’t quite see how I, in my bathing suit, would quite fit between your fighters. I don’t think that would be very appropriate.”
“Oh, but you must do everything together. We can arrange that with the swimming. We can make it legal. You want to do everything? You do everything!”

I was not sure if I understood him correctly, and wondered if maybe something got lost in the translation. Between my pathetic Arabic and his poor English, lord knows what we had missed. But I didn’t quite like where that story went to, and so did not ask for clarifications.
The conversation quickly petered out from that point on.

And thus nothing ever became of me ‘joining the troops’.
I wonder though what would have happened had I taken him up on his offer, made it legal (?) and hung around in a swimming hole with a battalion of soldiers from God.

Now wouldn’t that have been a story?

Colors

Beirut, coming in from the port side (east side)

I’m standing in front of my building, waiting for a friend to pick me up.
She’s late, and so I stand and wait.

I look at a couple of painters that are repainting the apartment on the first floor of the building on the opposite site of the street. Most rooms are done in a decent shade, but there is this one room that is done, … well, very flashy.

Not just flashy. It hurts the eyes and the imagination. Shiny black stripes with bright yellow stripes. Violently yellow. It looks like the suit of a wasp. Or a honey bee commercial. There are some purple bubbles as well. Anyone sleeping in this room is bound to get horrendous nightmares. I can’t imagine anyone actually sitting in this room; the décor will drive you bonkers in no time. What were they thinking when they decided upon this horrendous color scheme? And stripes! Maybe she’s going to make her mother in-law sleep here, I think. Why would anyone choose these colors?

The janitor of the building passes by. He sees me staring at the apartment in disbelief. Apparently he has noticed it too.

We are of the same belief, the janitor and I. And therefore he believes that we believe the same. (still with me?).

The occupants of the apartment are of another belief.
The janitor knows that, and I know that. That’s one of those thing everyone knows in this town.

And he says, tilting his head upwards, ‘kulul nawar beyamel heck.’ (loosely translated; ‘only beggars do it like that’)

And I guess at this point we are all showing our colors.

The cranes at the Beirut port

We’re getting blasé.

The cell phone goes ‘bling bling, bling bling’.

A message.
But I am reading in bed, and the phone is on the other side of the room. Shall I get it?
Na, it’s probably an add. I don’t know how they do it, but it seems my phone number has surfaced somewhere on some SPAM list, and I get junk mail all the time. It couldn’t be important, otherwise they’d phone me.

I read on.
But the curiosity is getting the overhand.
And so I get out of bed, and get the phone.

I don’t recognize the number.
It reads; ‘We are saddened by the assassination of another member of parliament . . .’
I don't need to read the rest, I already know. I’ve gotten at least similar 8 messages the past two years.
So they blew up another guy.

I wonder who it is. It’s not in my neighborhood, because I would have heard the blast. Must have been in the east. Probably a christian.
The TV is upstairs. If I want to find out, I’d need to get out and go up.
Do I want to find out?
Na, it can wait till tomorrow.

It doesn’t really make any difference really who it is. We’re spiraling down anyways.

So schools will be closed tomorrow.
At least the kids will be happy.

We’re getting blasé.

Hamra

Hamra at Iftar time; pretty much deserted.

And I think I have pretty much exhausted the Ramadan topic with this one. No story today, just city pictures, as I am not greatly inspired by this town lately.

It's just so hot and humid lately, and there never ever seems to be any electricity. Well, there's electricity alright, but that's due to private inititatives, and the side effects are a heavy blanket of diesel fumes and a constant background humming. And the AC in general does not run on the generators. One of those typical Lebanese phrases - expressions that you will never hear outside this country - is 'Is this government or generator?'

H. in front of a shop window on Hamra, West-Beirut's main street, contemplating what she'll become when she grows up.

Time of the Iftar

It’s like 5 minutes before the break of fast in West-Beirut. The sun is this close (fingers about a quarter of an inch together) to set in the Mediterranean Sea. The mosques have just started their call for prayer. We have about five mosques in the neighborhood, and - depending on the wind - can hear either two or all five. They never start at the same time, but with regular intervals of about 30 seconds. It upsets hubbie to no extent that – in this day and age – they have not yet managed to synchronize their prayer time. I kind of like this ‘untimeliness’. It adds to the medieval flavor of the time of the day; just before sunset.

Slowly the city sounds die out, because almost everyone wants to make it in time for Iftar. No more cars on the street. And if, at Iftar time, you sit on your balcony, and there is government-electricity (i.e. the government supplies the electricity, so the private generators are silent) , you can hear the clatter of the cutlery on the plates, as thousands and thousands of people are all having dinner at the same time.

Beirut Babe

'Ain't she sweet?

Walking down the street,

I ask you very confidentially,

Ain't she sweet?'

I walked for about 5 minutes behind this lady on a main street in West-Beirut, and I swear, she had everybody's head turning. Every single man she passed by, just could not resist it. I'm sure she felt it; she was walking like she was on top of the world.

Daily Scenes in Beirut

Due to lack of space in his 2 square meter shop, this shopkeeper in Hamra has resorted to displaying his wares on top of his car. At least I think it is his car.

And Now For Some Good Blogging

Priceless!!

"Living Martyr Marwan Hmadeh announced today the issuing of new postage stamps honoring the martyrs of Lebanon. What's a better way to honor our fallen heroes than licking their behinds? Not to mention the fun that can be had by matching the destination country with the stamp of the personality it had assassinated (or just vanished in Libya's case.) "

Rest can be found here.

The Month of Ramadan

T’is the time of the year when you will find totally faded shopkeepers, heads resting on their arms, on top of their counters; too tired to even look at the costumer that just entered the store. The time of the year when at 7 o’clock, this part of town is a ghost town; even tumbleweed won’t move.

The time of the year when Lebanese for once organize dinner parties at decent hours; guest are in at 7, and out at 8.

The time of the year when the little drummer man walks the streets at 2 o’clock in the morning, waking up the neighborhood for a last meal with his shouting and his banging.
The time of the year when TV shows are even sillier than usual.

Ramadan has started today.

For the uninformed under us, (it took me a good 5 years to comprehend the whole thing), Ramadan is actually the name of a month. I know they always call it the ‘holy month of Ramadan’, but I never connected it to an actual month in a calendar, but more of a feast (like Christmas for instance) until someone recited the 12 months in an Islamic year to me.
“You mean Ramadan is a month?” I remember saying.
“Duuhhh,” was the reply.
I won’t go into the whole explanation of it, you can find it here, but Ramadan has come. This year it takes place at a time when the day is pretty long over here, and so people suffer quite a bit, because they cannot break fast until sun set (or somewhere around there).

The idea of fasting is nothing unusual; the jews do it (although I’m not quite sure when and why), and so do the christians in this country.
I’m a bit slow in these things, but another friend had to point it out to me that during the christian fast, Burger King and McDonalds always advertise with their fish burger.
“So”?
“Because they cannot eat meat! Only fish.” (Another duuhh)

In Holland, people don’t fast. At least, I don’t know any that do. And therefore it was quite a surprise to me when I learned that several of my (christian) friends in Lebanon do fast. I remember my mother telling me stories of her friends and her fasting when they were young, but those were ‘do you remember when. . . ‘ stories. Something they had done eons ago, but definitely not something of these times.

You do not notice anything of Ramadan in the christian neighborhoods of Beirut. Even in my corner there are few signs of it. But if you drive through the traditionally muslim neighborhoods, the decorated shop fronts are abundant. Just like Christmas.

Shops in the neighborhood of Tarek el-Jdide, an old and predominantly sunni muslim neighborhood (although I know of two Dutch living there) sells Ramadan decorations; lanterns, guirlandes and light strings with crescent moons and stars.

When September 11 wasn't 'September 11',

Cartoon by Lebanese artist Mazen Kerbaj.

When September 11 wasn't 'September 11' . . . . . .

we did not take off our shoes and belts, keys, small change, watches and other items at the airport conveyer belt.

We did not unpack our laptops in front of customs agents.

We did not pack our nail scissors and pocket knives in the suit case.

We did not separate the liquids from other carry-on luggage and pack it in zip-lock bags (this one totally eludes me? What on Earth is the repacking for?).

We did not fold strollers and pry warm soft teddy bears from sleepy toddlers arms’ and stuff them into x-ray machines.

We did not avoid wearing T-shirts with Arabic texts when flying.

We did not have female agents searching under our bra, and pat down our waist, chest and crotch.

And I still enjoyed flying those days.

September 11 almost passed by without me being reminded that it was ‘September 11’. But when at work I checked out some books, and wrote down the date on the check-out slip; the date has a 'heavy feel' to it.

Doors of Beirut

Another equally useless hobby of mine; photographing doors in Beirut. This particular door is somewhere near Clemenceau (West-Beirut), and H is showing off her dog suit. (Well, just the paws and head remain. Rest of the suit is missing). And boy, do they have doors in this place!

Beirut Manhole Covers

Ever heard of train spotters; those nuts that track trains, and fill entire albums of train pictures?
Well, it can get worse. Inspired by this guy, I started today of collection of Lebanese manhole covers.

It seems there is an entire other world out there, focused on man hole covers.

You may wonder; doesn’t this woman have anything else to do? As a matter of fact, I have a million things to do. Too many. This is just an addition to my already heavily multi-tasked life.

Damour River

I was chatting with a friend from Holland when I mentioned that I had spent the day in a river. ‘River?” she wrote back, “I thought you lived in a desert’?

No, I don’t. Lebanon is the only country in the Middle East that does not have a problem with water (for the moment). The country has about 40 major streams, and many more springs. Most of these rivers are fed by precipitation, and run dry in summer, but a few are perennial (about 14 of them); they have sufficient water even in the dry summer season.
Sure, it gets mighty hot in summer, but it gets mighty hot in Atlanta, USA as well, and that’s a swamp.
One of the larger perennial rivers is the Damour river. It’s not really a river in the Dutch sense of the word. Our rivers are about 800 meters wide. This one is about 6.
The Damour river is about 40 kilometers long, and starts in the mountains near a village called Dahr al-Bayder.

Why am I telling all this? Because today I ‘lounged’ in the Damour River, and had a picknick where it crosses the Jisr el-Qadi, the Arab name for the ‘Bridge of the judge’. I am told that this name originates from Ottoman (Turk) times, when the bridge was built by the local judge.

Pre-requisites for a picnic in Lebanon are a pair of surgical gloves and a large garbage bag. Other picnickers tend to just get up and leave after an afternoon in the outdoors, and in general leave their plastic plates and cups, bottles, Kleenex, coke cans, juice cartons, plastic cutlery and anything else plastic behind. So the first thing you need to do is ‘re-sanitize’ the place. Once that’s been done though, you’ve got yourself a prime spot. That is, of course, if you are not to close to one of the many restaurants on the river who believe that LOUD music is a ‘must’ for their afternoon lunch crowd.

That all said, if you walk upstream far enough , out of reach of the blaring speakers, and have filled a garbage bag or two with waste, you’ve got yourself a nice little spot, with a stream running by it.

Not bad for a desert.

(Picknick spot on then Ibrahim River will follow shortly)

Lethargy

The Israelis are ‘dropping” ammunition in Syria (what kind of euphemism is that?), Fatah al-Islam fighters are still being picked up from the streets (alive) around Tripoli, the latest Human Rights Report accuses both Israel and Hezbollah of war crimes, a claim which both vehemently deny, Palestinians are arrested for supposedly planning to assassinate UNIFIL troops, and I haven’t even touched the subject of the upcoming Presidential election.

‘We are living in history’, the honorable Fisk would say. Indeed we are.

A., L. and A. all ready for a trip to Karout, our favorite warehouse (I kid you not).

And yet, all I can blog about is a couple of Dutch women going on a shopping spree in the southern suburbs. And even that isn't bloggable.

I think it is related to the overall lethargy that seems to rule versus local news. What do I say? Any news! When the army finally conquered the Nahr el-Bared camp in Northern Lebanon, nobody at work even mentioned it. I had to hear it on CNN.

You know she is Lebanese when . . .(part 2)

You know she is Lebanese (click here for part 1) when you realize your daughter's got more shoes than Imelda Marcos, and these here are ‘only’ her slippers . You haven’t seen her sandals, and sneakers yet.

City Scenes

Void of any inspiration at the moment - I haven't returned to blogger mode yet - I'll leave it at some city scenes for the coming days. These are the guys of Sokleen, our own garbage disposal guys. Funky uniform, no?

Parking on the Beirut Corniche

Fed up with not being able to find a good parking spot on the Corniche – again – this lady tried to solve the problem creatively. I can just visualize this conversation.
“Hello?”
“Aah, honey.”
“Hi love, what’s up?”
“Well, I am calling to tell you that uh… uhh.”
“That uhh what?”
Well, you know, uhh, something happened to the car.”

"What do you mean; Something happened to the car?!?"

"Uh, well, something happened to the car."

On Battle Field Musea

I spent some time this summer roaming around WW I battlefields in Northern France. The Western front line passes right through there, and since this particular part of history has my interest, we visited a few museums.

A standard part of these museums is the ‘authentic’ battlefield; you can walk through the trenches, visit a dug-out, and roam around bomb craters where dusty dummies, dressed up in battle gear, are left for dead. The more sophisticated ones even have a night scene, with flashes (exploding bombs), or sound effects (explosions, screaming men etc).

Annemieke in front of a 'resistance base'.

And so maybe you can imagine my surprise when – while driving through Dahiyeh on my way to a plumber – I suddenly stumbled upon one of those ‘battle field scenes’. The sandbag dug-out, the camouflage netting, the military vehicle half stuck in a mount of dirt, the dead dummy; it was all there, just like in the WWI museums.

It turns out this was the ‘famous’ Hezbollah exhibition everyone has been talking about; the Spider’s Web Museum, which opened its doors last month during the commemoration of last year's summer war.
I was with a Dutch colleague and we went in. So what’s the verdict?
If you happen to stumble upon it, take a look. But I would not add it to the schedule of a ‘See Lebanon in 3 Days’ touring trip. It was a little amateuristic.
If you have a fairly balanced view of the situation in this area, this exhibition may not be a very good choice either. The display was a bit on the tacky side; the purpose too obvious, the hate very strong, and the propaganda blatant, but you should not forget that this museum is set in a neighborhood where more than 16,000 apartments were obliterated in 34 days time.
It does not have much informational value either, although you wonder where they get all this Israeli material from – they had collected an Israeli helmet from every single battalion, complete with date and place where captured.Still, it has some theme park value, complete with a sound and light show around an Israeli tank in a bomb crater (yes, complete with dummies) and a martyr's oasis where (I suppose) fallen Hezbollah soldiers can be seen on tape saying goodbye.

What I thought it was interesting is that it gives you a glance into the mind frame that a large part of the Lebanese people are in at the moment. It is good to see things from a different perspective sometimes. Not everyone thought the exhibition was worth a visit. But we (Dutch colleague and I) would definitely recommend it, but only if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

Highlight was the computer game with Hezbollah soldiers going after the ‘zionist enemy’. For the moment only available in Arabic. The English version will follow in two months. Will keep you posted.

Oh, and don’t forget to visit the souvenir shop, where you can buy the ‘Hassan Nasrallah’ fragrance, with a ‘her’ and ‘him’ version.

Exhibition runs until September 10th.

Love is in the Potatoes

I was happy to notice that even the vegetable seller has missed me. He still has some heart for me. Of course, this is not the first time he is expressing his undying love.