If . . .

. . . you're into fusion and you're in Beirut, check out this guy, Ryo Kawasaki. He's still playing Sunday (in Eight, downtown), Monday and Tuesday (in Bar Louie, Gemayze). For more information, call 70 990198.

On Olives and Groves and Sunday Afternoons

The benefits of olives are well-known. Here in Lebanon we eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we have our preferences for black or green, we wash ourselves with olive oil soap and we practically drink the olive oil ‘on the rocks’. You basically can’t go wrong with olive oil, it seems.

H, Uncle W. and cousin O. in the olive grove, chewing on lemon grass

And so what could be more idyllic than spending your Sunday afternoon on a checkered blanket in an olive grove up North, with a little picnic basket, some Kefraya blanc de blanc, and a couple of kids with a soccer ball? It was a massive olive grove with literally hundreds and hundreds of trees. And all around us, on the hills, there were more olive groves. And thus, a (semi-informative) post to celebrate Lebanese olive (oil).

The grass and wild flowers were thigh high

Not just the north of Lebanon is olive country. There are olive groves all over the south as well.
We like our olives.
There are an estimated 13 million olive trees in Lebanon, covering around 57,000 hectares. ‘This represented 20% of the total cultivated area in the country. (. . . ) The regional distribution of olive groves in Lebanon is 40% in the North, 39% in the South, 15% in Mount Lebanon, and around 6% in the Bekaa Valley.’ (Source)

You wonder with so many olive groves what we do with all those olives? Lebanon produces between 30,000 metric tons of olives (low yield) to a production high of 190,000 metric tons (in 2000).

Climbing the olive trees

Apparently we consume them all ourselves. I read here that a Western agricultural expert had commented that the agricultural sector of Lebanon was ‘export averse’, i.e. . not really looking to export.

The northern groves produce different olives that the southern ones. Little did I know, but it seems a ‘connaisseur’ can pick out the region (not the grove).

Descriptions of Regional Lebanese Olive Oils (source)
Whatever the type of the local olive variety, Lebanese olive oils are typically characterized by a mild aroma that is perceived as intense, but mellow once it enters the mouth sometimes with a peppery finish. Taste descriptions of selected typical olive growing areas in Lebanon are :
Batroun (Northern Lebanon, hilly, beautiful serene mountain region): Rich and fruity with a zesty flavor.
Koura (Northern Lebanon, coastal, with plains and hills): The four season climate and low soil acidity create a light and delicately flavored oil ideal for use in cooking.
Zgharta (Northern Lebanon, hilly with intermediate elevations): Fruity and fragrant with a subtle aroma.
Akkar (extreme Northern Lebanon, hilly with intermediate elevations): Rich with a distinct flavor of tomatoes and a strong spicy finish.
Rachaya el Foukhar (South East Lebanon, hilly with intermediate elevations): Mildly sweet with a herbal and floral aroma, oils from this region often have a distinct peppery flavor.
Hasbaya (South East Lebanon, steep hills and terraces): A rich taste and smoothly textured oil, moderately sweet with a pleasant herbal aroma.

The olive trees we were climbing and lounging in between were the Batroun version. We didn’t taste them though; the olive harvest does not start until November. We had the Rashaya version with us.

For more information on the Lebanese olive oil, check out this.

And now, for a Cultural Intermezzo

The reason why I am not getting on a bus in Lebanon, . . .

Buns of Steel

I bet you don’t have this problem when living outside Lebanon. But we do. Frequently so. It’s the stair case.

Most of Beirut’s buildings these days is high rise; 8 floors and up. These buildings have elevators, but you need electricity to operate an elevator, and that we don’t have. Or at least not constantly. Many of the newer buildings have generators, but as anyone living here in a building with another 7 or families knows; there’s always a few that don’t pay the costs of the generator. They figure, especially when they live on the first and second floor, that when the bill comes, they don’t really need that elevator that much anyway. And so the number of paying members shrinks and shrinks until the thing breaks down, and there goes your elevator.

The government does provide electricity, but at intervals. I haven’t figured out the schedule in my neighborhood yet, as it frequently changes. But it is something like 4 hours on, 4 hours off. Most people organize their schedule around this. So you’re having lunch with someone, and are about to go, when they say; “No, let’s stay some more, the electricity is not coming back until one hour,” which means they’d rather sit with you, than negotiate 10 flights of stairs. Or you’re having fun with friends, when one suddenly announces that he’s got to go home, otherwise he ‘misses the elevator’, meaning the electricity will go off.

And so we plan our lives (that is if you live fourth floor or up) around this electricity grid. I sometimes wonder what would happen if both the electricity and the generator of my building would decide to quit n extended period of time. My apartment would become inhabitable in no time. I’d run out of water, since the water wouldn’t be pumped up anymore (there’s no pressure on the water in Beirut). I’d have to haul groceries for a family and a menagerie of animals 12 floors up. Clothes wouldn’t be washed; no water. Toilets wouldn’t get flushed. Civilization (in my household at least) will suffer a breakdown.

But what a work-out that would be! I’d have buns of steel!
How did I get to this reflection? I just walked twelve flights of stairs due to generator maintenance, and there’s no electricity. I am happy though I still make it one haul. And while climbing those stairs, I think about my buns of steel.

Ninety Times

Election time is not until June 7 (supposedly), life is really slow and I am currently encumbered by domestic issues. We have a new housekeeper. Apart from the fact that she is a very nice, friendly and hard-working lady, she sort of misunderstood it when I said she could use the house phone if she felt like calling home now and then. After all, she’s got 3 children, and she’s leaving them behind at a point in their lives when they really should have her around them. And so I thought it would make her happier if she was able to talk to them now and then. I am not sure how many times I had in mind when I said ‘now and then’. Maybe once a week or so. She apparently had a different thing in mind.

I just got the February phone bill in. She called home 90 times. You read that? 90 times! That’s on average 3 times a day! To the Philippines. I’m still catching my breath here. Sweet mother Maria. Ninety times to the Philippines. I can’t take it out of her salary as she’s in dire need for the money. But I guess calling home is off the menu for a while.

La Pause Thé Ou Café, oil on canvas, 120 x 90 cm © 2002 Mona Trad Dabaji

And so I leave you with the painting of a Lebanese painter, Mona Trad Dabaji, that I would love to buy, but I guess I’ll wait until the March phone bill comes in. See if I can still afford it.

Things You Discover When You’re Not Looking For Them

What I like about this country is that is has the same diversity as most countries, but it’s all packed in a relatively small place. And you discover lots of things, especially when you’re not looking for them.

SIL and I went for a picnic last weekend. We found a perfectly quiet spot in between the Asperula odorata and the Lupinus digitatus, surrounded by olive groves, near the northern hamlet of Hamat, which is build upon a limestone cliff overlooking Chekka and the Mediterranean Sea. The place was surrounded by a stone wall, sheltered from the wind. Perfect for a picnic (34° 17’13.48”N & 35° 40’53.77”E). And so we unloaded the tribe, unpacked our picnic baskets and sat down. We did wonder why there was a picture of Jesus stuck against a tree. That mystery was pretty soon solved when three ladies came with candles to pray. Turns out we had set up shop in the middle of an ancient church, which was a shrine for the local villagers. Not much was left of it, but obviously it was still quite vibrant in the minds of the people to come and pray there. It seems the village is a popular Christian pilgrimage site where believers visit the shrine and monastery of Our Lady of Nourieh (Nourieh = Light). The place is teeming with ancient shrines and churches, and ruins, many of them apparently in spots where there used to be pagan temples before. And we sat in the middle of one.
They did not seem overly disturbed by the fact that we were conducting a full scale picnic inside the ancient church, but we figured it wasn’t very nice, and so we moved, and stumbled upon an abandoned runway. Hamat Military Airport, it turns out, although that’s a name a bit too grand for the place. I didn’t even know they had an airport up north. HMA apparently was built by the Lebanese Forces in the 70’s (cannot verify that), and subsequently occupied by Syrian troops until 2005. Since then it is sometimes used as a racing track for the local youth. It’s not more than one sorry runway, but perfect to teach a 15-year old how to drive. We then ended up in an oak forest (although these are not your regular oak trees, but rather a stubby version), where we were soon surrounded by porkers. You rarely see pigs in Lebanon, being a dominantly muslim country, and you most definitely do not see them walking around freely, but that’s what they did. I doubt these are free range pigs. Pork meat is not very popular here, even among christians. They once had an outbreak of trichinosis in South Lebanon, after eating raw pork. That’s not overly smart, I must say. Definitely not here, where at times there is little quality control.
We finally ended in Saydet el Nourieh (our Lady of the Light), a convent right on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea. Check out the view here (great gimmick). The monastery (Deir el Nourieh) around the church dates from the 17th century. The place is a Marian shrine, something I never heard of, but then I can hardly be considered an expert on the topic. So we spend an entire day on a limestone cliff, which, by the way, is on the Ramsar list (Conservation of wetlands), discovering all kinds of things we never looked for. There are a million and one things to see on this cliff. Check out this site.

A Day at the Races

Watching the Sunday races

Don’t know what to do next Sunday? Go to the horse races at the Beyrouth Hippodrome. They have races every Sunday, starting at 1 o’clock, and it’s great entertainment. I went with Terror Theo, and another Dutchie, Corinne, fully intending on breaking the house.

While that did not materialize, we did win a whopping 36,000 LBP (well, Theo did, and so he paid for lunch) with Abou El Moulouk, horse # 2, and it was an excellent day on the town.

The track houses some 100 purebred Arabian horses. In the old days owners might have over a 100 horses. These days it is all small time owners. It’s pretty expensive to maintain one, although it seems buying one is not that expensive, You can get a god one for some $700, but you won’t win any races with it.

I did not really know the horse race track for its horse races. I remember the place – like most Beirutis - as being the passage between East and West-Beirut, at times when the Mathaf (museum) crossing was unsafe because of bombing or sniper fire. Which was quite often when I came to town. This was way back in 1990, and I never did see a horse there then. All I ever saw were long lines of people with bags and bags struggling along pathways of loose orange sand through some type of forest. Those sandy roads in summer were almost impossible to navigate with my little motorcycle, and I didn’t like the ‘feel’ of the place.

These horses are on an edge, very nervous. They are not very happy with little kids around that make sudden movements.

Later I visited the place a couple of times when it staged the Beirut Garden Show (how ironic; who has a garden in Beirut nowadays?), and all I remember were dilapidated buildings full of shrapnel holes. You can still see the shrapnel in the door; reminders of a past less peaceful

But Terror Theo insisted this was the place to be on a Sunday afternoon. And right he was. They do not seem to get a whole lot of women there; we were given VIP treatment before we even entered the tracks. We got a tour of the stables; some 100 pure-bred Arabian horses are actually living on the tracks. This one was not racing today
This one was being prepared for today’s race

And when we wanted to enter the grounds, together with all the other people, they told us that ‘no, this entrance really wasn’t very good for us, we had to go where the paying people’ went in. There seems to be a non-paying and paying section. We’d rather have entered the non-paying section, but they didn’t want any of that. But even at the paying section they did not want any money, and eventually we ended up in the VIP lounge, on top of the Hippodrome, together with all the horse owners and big-time betters.
Our winning horse! Abou El Moulouk

Before the race, they walk the horses behind the hippodrome, while the jockeys go on the scales. This is where the people check out the horses, and make their bets. This is where the people view the horses up close and decide on their bets, just before the jockeys mount and go to the track.

Then the jockeys mount the horses and off to the track they go. The actual race doesn’t take much more than a minute, but the whole scene around it is very interesting. I though it was a pretty transparent affair, but one old-timer, an ex-jockey who had been racing himself for some 30 years, and betting since then, said it was all run by ‘mafiosos’ these days. The BBC had a nice article on it. An ex-jockey, and die-hard better, he’s been coming to the track from some 50 years now. He once had a horse shot dead from under him by a soldier with a machine gun. The horse died, he got away with just one bullet hole above the knee.

Most of the jockeys seemed rather deformed. Very short, with odd body ratios. But the smaller they are, the lighter, which greatly improves their chances of winning.

Short little man with odd body ratios
Terror Theo going for a bet.

The current hippodrome dates from 1918, but the first one was built already in 1885 in what is now Bir Hassan, a southern suburb of Beirut. There even seems to have been an old Roman hippodrome, just like the 2,000 year old one in Tyrus, but that one has disappeared. The grounds and all the racing set-ups is the property of the Municipality of Beirut, and is managed by a nonprofit organization SPARCA "Society for the Protection and Improvement of the Arabian Horse in Lebanon ".
And winning

The atmosphere was absolutely great. Betting is big business, and even if you’re not into betting, it is a good place to taste the Beirut of the old days.

It seems that in Beirut October everyone comes together for the Beirut Race Cup 2009. Hats and all. I am planning on being there.
Racing Babes

Skiing in 30 degrees

On March the 22nd, the Lebanese Army, and the Rangers Regiment in particular, are organizing a ‘Raid Des Cedres’. (Hat tip from Blacksmith’s)

Sports teams from the Lebanese Armed Forces, the Internal Security Forces (ISF) and the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) will compete with each other on cross country skis and snow shoes. The race starts in the cedar forest of Tannourine, and end in the Cedars of Becharra. The army has called on every civilian athlete, men and women, over 18, to compete with their men.

It has often been written in the Dutch press that the Lebanese soldiers are a bunch of hairdressers in uniform, and therefore we (some Dutch in Lebanon) feel we should heed that call. And so the Dutch posse staged a training session in the snow today. Windy? Noooh, not at all. Okay, so we braved the winds, almost got blown out of the ski lift, definitely got blown backwards, and were pretty much the only ones left on the slopes, but windy? Naah (kniesoor die daar op let). The snow was soup, half of the lifts didn’t function, and it was hot. It felt like we were skiing in 30 degrees Celsius.
But we are totally ready for this one; a race against the Lebanese Armed Forces on cross-country skis and snow shoes around the Cedars. They do require that participants fill in their blood type while applying for the race. That sounds promising. It means they expect to go all the way. It will be quite the battle.I am afraid however, that by March 22nd, there will be no snow left. My thermometer in Beirut registered 31C. The ski season is now officially over, I think. Which means we will win be default.

Warm Weather

It’s March. It’s supposed to be winter, but I think we’ve skipped spring. It’s 7 A.M., and it’s 26 degrees Celsius outside. It's a four day weekend, thanks to the muslims and the Americans this time (Prophet's Birthday & Teachers Day), and the weather is cooperating nicely.

It’s T-shirt weather. This man yesterday was fixing the carpets outside his store yesterday.

Beirut on a Sunday Afternoon

Random pictures of Beirut on a Sunday afternoon, 5:30 P.M.

I took a different route today while walking that pesky little dog of my daughter. There are some benefits to this dog (though precariously few); you have to take a walk twice a day. And so you get to see things.