Driving Lessons

A line I cut from a newspaper article from the fifties ( Pittsburgg Press)

 

This should provide me with inspiration for quite some blog posts to come; My son is going to take driving lessons.

He recently turned 17, and has been telling us for quite some time now what car he is going to drive once he turns 18. This implies of course that we (his dad and I) are supposedly going to buy him this car. Now it is tough to be the child of a mixed Dutch/Lebanese reunion. Because there is no way on Earth I am planning on buying my son a car once he turns 18. Buying him? As in ‘a gift’? Excuse me, but in Holland you work for that as a teenager. You get a summer job, and a weekend job, and you save your money for months on end, you pay for you own drivers lessons, and eventually, with the little money you’ve got left, you can buy probably the crummiest car in the neighborhood. And THAT…. is how it is supposed to be.

But since there is a Lebanese factor in the story (his dad), it goes a little different here. I pay for the driver lessons, and Dad will buy the car. We do have one compromise though; it will probably be a seventeen-hand car. And that is the tough part for the son. He wants a new car. Well, dream on baby. I got my first real new car (as in ‘not second hand’) when I was 35!

Now we all know what the driving is like in Lebanon. Most people seem to have ‘bought’ their drivers license without so much as one single lesson. As a result, most drivers are oblivious of any actual traffic rules. And even if they would have been aware of the rules, a rule in Lebanon is only a guideline.

I particularly like the one that we have about traffic lights, which only recently were installed in certain parts of town; If you DO intend to stop for a red light, please leave space to pass for those that choose not to stop for the red light. Otherwise you may find them honking their horns behind you.

I took me quite some time actually locating a driving school. Google did not provide any help, and neither did the Yellow Pages. But last week in downtown we suddenly spotted a car with Driving School on the roof, and I flagged it down. And so next week is his first lesson. I bought the ‘all-in package’; 15 lessons in a car with stick-shift, and 5 lessons on theory (traffic rules etc). I’d love to be a backseat passenger on those sessions. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, here are some tips for my son. We'll skip #3.

It Seems We Are . . . .

. . . . back in business.

Same street as yesterday

Well, that went rather smooth, didn't it? Not at all the expected civil war that we were led to believe for days now. We're are now effectively back to endless daily traffic jams. I wonder if Hezbollah can do anything about that. I don’t recall traffic jams to be on Hassan Nasrallah’s list of priorities. We will have to wait and see.

Empty Streets

Several colleagues left work early today. “The situation,” they said, and they packed their bags and went. When I picked up my daughter from school this afternoon, there were only four kids left in her class of twenty-two. Her teacher hadn’t made it to class that morning either in anticipation of ‘things to come.’

My son already got a message from his school last night; they were closing their doors for the day. When I walk past a couple of taxi drivers gathered on a corner; they’re listening to a speech of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah on the car radio. “March 14 will give a conference at 4:30,” they tell me. So everybody’s speeching today, it seems.

The streets that are usually absolutely packed around this time of day are absolutely empty. When I get home, I read his speech. Not too pretty . (Note, it is a web site of the opposition). And March 14 calls for Martyrs Square demonstration at 6 p.m.

Will there be school today? We don’t know. Should I go to work tomorrow? Let’s wait and see what’s going the happen tonight. Maybe I should go and check out what’s happening in the town. The plot is definitely thickening.

Sunday on the Beach in Amshit

On Sunday, I went and picnicked on the beach (is that an actual verb?).  It’s the second winter in a row we’ve been able to picnic on the beach in January. I know all this climate change is not a good thing for the world, and Lebanese farmers are probably not too happy with it either, but I remember Januaries spent on top of those moveable gas heaters. You know, those heaters on wheels, and I’d roll them all around the house with me. I much prefer it like this.

It’s was a gorgeous Sunday to spend outside the house. You spent yours inside the house? Afraid of things that might come? Suckers. (sorry, couldn’t resist that)

SIL and some kids

We went to Amshit, SIL and I and a tribe of kids. A gentleman with a camera passed by, asking if he could make a picture of this extended family on the beach. He was compiling pictures for a book on Lebanon, and the relationship of Lebanese and the beach. I wonder what caption will feature under our picture. I could give you some scenarios. ‘While most Lebanese cower in fear at home, this brave young family spent its Sunday on the beach.’ Or ‘Oblivious to the turmoil in the country, this family . . . .”

A poem for this picture

Anyway, the weather was absolutely mellow, the sea calm, the beach empty and clean. There’s this old house in Amshit, right on the shore, surrounded be a veritable forest. It’s a beautiful house, looks like it was built in the twenties of last century; it has this Mediterranean Revival look. I’ve got my eyes set on that one, but am afraid that I won’t get past that stage; setting my eyes on it. Maybe I should play the lottery more often.

The kids decided to make good use of our empty wine bottles (sigh. Yes, I know, I know), and make a message in a bottle. I think they spent a good two hours on that. The finding of the paper (we didn’t have paper with us, they ended up using the wrapper of the bread), the writing and the launching didn’t take much time, but the bottles kept washing ashore. Onto our own private little beach, and that was of course not the plan.

Getting the message in the bottle

Let's go launch that message

Into the sea it goes

Let's see where it's floating to

Uh oh. It's floating back to shore.

When we left, we asked the kids, “So what address did you use?”

. . . . . .

“Address? You didn’t tell us we had to write our address on it! What’s our address anyway?”

Aaaah, lovely. Lebanese kids, they don’t know what their address is.

“You mean an e-mail address?”

Well, if you find a Listel bottle with a message in it on the beach somewhere, send me in (e-mail) message, please.

On Doom and Disaster and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Doom and disaster is about to descend upon us. At least, this is what has been predicted by the media since last Monday. Depressed husbands are flipping between the channels on TV, following every press conference, and telling their wives that ‘the situation is very bad.’ Of course, we have been hearing this ‘things are really really bad now’ argument for quite some years now. “No, this time it is different, it is really very bad, I am telling you.”

Snow Boarders in Feraya (guess what I did today)

The rumor mill is in full swing. Gatherings of men in black have been reported, coup exercises, gun battles and what not. Parents have been pulling children out of school, and family members have been calling each other to come home right away because ‘something is going on somewhere.’

I find it all a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I must say, the future started looking significantly brighter the moment I decided not to watch the news anymore, or to listen to any rumors I received by SMS, or phone.

Snow-capped mountains in Lebanon

On the other hand, I am glad quite a few of you DO heed these endless predications of trouble and tribulations. Because the traffic in Beirut has significantly cleared up. Trips that usually take me 45 minutes by car are now covered in a mere 10 minutes. Lovely, all these people with cars that are staying indoors out of fear of something. Let’s keep that part up.

I had to go out last night to a housewarming party. “I don’t think you should go outside,” said hubbie, “it is much too dangerous to go outside tonight.”

Ski lift scenery 

If you, Lebanese men, have ever played with the notion of marrying a Dutch woman, let me tell you this; you do not ever tell a Dutch woman that she is not supposed to do something. It is ‘de goden verzoeken’ (tempting the gods). I don’t care if the city is on fire; I have to go to a house warming party.

“Well, I’m not going to bail you out if you get into trouble.” That’s kind of cute, because you know he will anyway.

Needless to say, the streets were as usual on a Friday night. There were road blocks, but there are always road blocks on a weekend night. There were people gathering on street corners, but people always do. The restaurants were, well, maybe not full, but definitely not empty.

Dutch with an attitude.
(You are going to tell US we can’t go out anymore because of the situation? I don’t think so. )

What is the message? Don’t listen it all. Why get miserable over something that hasn't happened yet? When the shit really hits the fan, then you may stay indoors. In the meantime, go out on the town and enjoy the weather!

Sunday

Not much going on this week. You wouldn’t say so, with a government gone, indictments coming up  and 50,000 tons of – not yet grown – potatoes exported to the EU.  I kind of liked that last bit of news. We (as in us, Lebanese) are going to actually export potatoes to Europe? I can’t quite put my fingers on it why I find this so amusing, but it has a hint of amateurism. Why not oranges? Or bananas? Seems like we produce a lot more of those.

Fruit & Vegetable Cart

All is quiet on the surface, and boiling underneath, but it’s been like that for the past 5 years or so, so I’d say there’s just not enough pressure on the magma chamber to make it explode (I’m working with my son on his Earth Science, as you may have inferred).

Neigborhood 'Dikanne' (shop)

Which leads me to another issue, the generation gap. My son makes fun of the fact that when I text friends, I spell out entire words, and use capitalization and punctuation. That particular statement suddenly solved a mystery. Some years ago, I was working at my son’s computer, when out of the blue I heard a ‘ding dong’. A screen popped up, with lots of weird looking squiggles, and very long intricately looking names and aliases. It turned out someone was sending him an SMS, or an MS, or an SM, or whatever you call these things. He wasn’t home, so I replied for him. But within one sentence, an alert appeared on the screen. ‘dnt answr its a parent’, and the conversation went dead. I never knew how they figured it out that fast. Now I know. I used standard English.

Laundry day

And so I will entertain you with some still life pictures of Beirut. It’s a sunny day, but they say the weather will change in the afternoon. Maybe I should attend to some household activities. I noticed yesterday I have 4 (four !) entire cupboards filled with Tupperware and otherwise plastic boxes and lids. That seems like overdoing it a bit.

Government-Less

Tomorrow will be the first day that we are without a government. It’s not the first time; we’ve done without a government before, and we did quite well, I might add. People seem to be quite apprehensive about it. But even with a government, we did not accomplish much, so I dare say it can’t get any worse without one.

It hit the news around 4 P.M. local time, which surprised me quite a bit, as I had read it already this morning in the Dutch newspapers (some 9 hours earlier). Now how come the Dutch papers know this well before the Lebanese do?

This reminded me of a similar situation, some 14 years ago, early April of 1996. My newspaper calls me up on a Monday morning with the request; ‘Go look around in the south, the Israelis are planning something.’

And so I call around. I call my sources in Beirut. 'No, nothing’s moving. Why?' they ask. Well, my paper in Holland says something’s going on. Then I call my sources in the south. Same story. 'No, no movement on the border, everything is quiet. Why?' they ask as well. Well, my paper in Holland says something’s going on. Everyone assures me, all is quiet.

But hey, it’s a Monday, I’m in the mood for a road trip, so hubbie and I take the car, and go for a ride down south. We decide the drive along the border of the security zone which was then still in place. That’s as close as we can get to the Israelis. But between Jarjoueh and Arab Salim, hubbie needs to go to the bathroom. We stop the car near some trees, and he disappears into the bushes. He hasn’t had the time to unbutton his pants when out of the trees, two guys in army fatigue jump, right in front of my car. What are we doing there? Uhhh, well, uhhh, we’re just looking around, seeing if the Israelis are up to something, we say.

Back into the tree they climb, crank up an old black field phone, and call someone in headquarters. Two suspicious, foreign looking characters are snooping around the neighborhood, they report. And so we are ‘escorted’ to the local bigwig in the village, a certain Abu Hussein. He receives us, very cordially. We are served cups of sweet tea and glasses of juice with a napkin folded around them. And he asks what it is we are doing here. It’s not really a conversation, more of an interrogation, but hey, he’s polite, it’s his territory, and there really isn’t much we can do. And so I repeat the same story; my Dutch news paper wants to know what the Israelis are up to, there’s movement on the border. He asks around, makes some phone calls, but he assures us, again, no, nothing is going on, all is quiet.

And so we go home that Monday, April 8, 1996, empty-handed. “Nothing going on in the south,” I fax my paper (in those days we still worked with fax machines). Three days later, the Israelis launch their Grapes of Wrath operation .

I tell you, I didn’t show my face in that village for the next ten years. As a foreigner, you’re deemed a spy anyway, as far as the Hezbollah is concerned. And if you’re roaming around the border, hanging around in the bushes and have a flimsy story that ‘I’m writing a story for my paper about the situation in the south’, well, that just doesn’t come out quite right. Especially not when the Israelis launch an all out war the next two weeks. It did keep me quite busy for a while.

Now how my paper knew what the Lebanese didn’t know, I don’t know. And why they knew this morning at 6:30 AM that 11 minister were going to walk out I don’t know either. But we are going to be ‘government-less’ for a long time, it seems.

Could be the Grand Canyon

This blog is slowly turning into a photo blog, it seems. I was in Ramlieh yesterday ; there’s an organization there, the Association for Forests, Development and Conservation (AFDC) . They have a pine tree nursery, and they work on the reforestation of Lebanon. And while I was there, I looked behind me, and was thinking; ‘this could be the Grand Canyon.’

The colors changed in a matter of minutes to an even darker red. It is funny how you always think of other places when you see beautiful scenery. Probably when you’re Lebanese, and stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon during unset, you think ‘Jeez, this could be the Chouf.” This picture was not color enhanced, these are the actual colors, and taken with a little compact digital camera.

They had a cute donkey hanging around too. I’m working on a retirement project, yep, still some years in the making, and it needs a donkey. I’d need this donkey in France, where the price of a good packing donkey is somewhere around the 2,000 euro. This donkey, according to its owner, goes for a mere $200! That's quite a bit of a difference. She’s still a little young, 3 years only, and not ready for carrying heavy loads, but still, $200 only!? Now how do I get this donkey to France?

Skiing in Lebanon

Feraya today

When skiing, you’re bound to end up in the chair lift with strangers; in my case, Lebanese men (in general). Boy, you dudes are negative about your own country! Maybe it’s just an attitude, a habit to talk yourself down so the foreigners don’t get the chance to criticize you, but I’m telling you, not much positive stuff I heard while in that chair lift all the way up to Nord , at 2336 meters.

J & kids getting off at Nord

 And so I’ll give you the positive stuff;

Price of a ski ticket: 35,000 LBP (about 22 dollars) for half a day.
Price of ski rentals: 10,000 LBP ($ 7.50) if you’re not picky, 25,000 LBP ($17) for new gear.
Number of slopes: 42 (with a little imagination)
Kilometers of ski tracks: 80 kilometers
Distance to the slope (from Beirut): 55 km.
Weather: Gorgeous & sunny 

Snow Board Dudes

Meanwhile hubbie, who hates skiing, went diving. Name me a country where this is possible. So please, be a little positive now and then, especially to foreigners, because I tell you, this is pretty special.

Hours in traffic to get back? Uhhhh. We'll ignore that one.

And We Have Snow!!

Ferarya (see the webcam for updated weather conditions)

Not a surprise, really, since it’s been raining and it is slightly cooler in Beirut this week. I went up to the mountains this morning with a small tribe this time. My kids and I were off because of the Armenian Christmas, but from other friends I heard it was a regular working day. My son is off tomorrow as well. My daughter is not. My daughter was off last Monday. My son was not. Why? I have no clue; it is hard to find a pattern in the days off and days in school.

A man of druze origins on the slope was complaining that his sect really got the short end of the stick; the druze have virtually no holidays. We definitely could use more days off. It currently feels like I’ve got more holidays than working days, and that’s always a good thing.

The slopes were rather empty. It was mainly Saudis trying their hand at skiing. What can I say? I admire their persistence at skiing and their incessant joy with snow. Their sense of style, when it comes to ski clothes, also adds ecstasy to the slopes. I’d have given up f I were a Saudi. But no, not they. The entire family goes on the slope, everyone gets hauled in a ski suits, and off they go. If they can’t ski, they will be busy sledding all day. Very cute.

And why do teenagers insist on wearing short sleeves all day, even if it is -10? This is how mine went skiing.

An Aqueduct in Sinn el Fill

A partner-in-crime of mine is currently in county. These days she’s stationed in Dushanbeh, or something like that. That’s in Tajikistan. Had to look it up. Next to Uzbekistan and Turkmentistan, or – as another of her friends phrases it – one of the Jerkistans.

Zubaida Aqueduct 

And so this is an opportunity to go ‘in country’. So we got our old guidebook out and went to look for a Roman aqueduct right here in Beirut that – according to the sources – finds its equal in Pont du Gard in Nimes, France . That one is on the World Heritage List.

Ours is partially in somebody’s orange grove, and partially in somebody’s back yard (where did I read that before?). This particular somebody build a green concrete wall right against it for a tennis court. Oh well. In a 1,000 years from now, the aqueduct will still be there, the tennis court won’t (I hope).

Technical drawing, found on www.destinationlebanon.com

In France they built an entire theme park around their aqueduct, complete with web site, educational services and what not all. You pay 15 euros just to enter the premises, and 5 euros for parking. Talking about a money maker.

How do we deal with historical monuments like this in Lebanon? Not. It took us quite some time finding it; there are no signs anywhere. It is not on the World Heritage List,  and we were the only people visiting the place, while a steady stream of commuters drove under it. Granted, it isn’t as complete as the one in France, but I’ve seen lesser ruins being blown into magnificent proportions.

The Beirut River, aqueduct in the distance

And it is, indeed, right in Beirut. Or actually, in Sinn el-Fill, a suburban neighborhood. The aqueduct was built during the reign of emperor Aurelius (c. 273 AD), so it is almost 2,000 years old, and was used to transport water from the Daychounieh spring (Some 20 km southeast of Beirut) to Beirut. The Daychounieh spring is on the eastern side of the Beirut river, and at some point the water had to be transferred to the western side of the river to channel it to onward top Beirut. (Source), hence this bridge.

The left bank. You can't acces the (larger) part on the right bank; it's all private property (go figure)

It was, at one point in time, 240 meters long and some 40 meters high. The middle section supposedly collapsed during an earthquake in 551 AD, and the upper part has disappeared over the years.

It is composed of 3 levels of arches (just like Pont du Gard) with a channel running on top, and is built slightly slanted, as the drawing shows, so gravity would transport the water. They could control the water flow, and had places where they could clean out sediments.

The auqduct, named Zubaida, apparently was also used as a way station for the Roman military in Lebanon, but other than that, there’s almost no background information on the thing. I think maybe I should write a guidebook about this country myself.

Enfeh in HDR

From the Enfeh trench over the sea, you see the cliff of Chekka.

I went to a photography work shop last year (after one of the readers mentioned I could use some help ahum . . . ), and I learned quite a bit, but the thing I found most fascinating was the HDR imaging. .

Here’s a whole tutorial on it with beautiful images. . To do it really well, you’d need a tripod. I’m just too lazy to be schlepping all that extra stuff with me on my travels through Lebanon, I already have two dogs, two kids, a picnic basket, and a camera in tow. But I was in Enfeh the other day, and these images are made without a tripod.

Through the Enfeh trench, with the pillar for the draw bridge at the end.

Enfeh is a coastal town up north, right above Chekka. I thought it’d be a beautiful place to buy a beach house, until hubbie reminded me that it’s about 4 kilometers downwind from the largest cement factory in the country. Enfeh has numerous salt pans, and is a traditional fishing village. What is really unusual about Enfeh is that it has a rocky part sticking out into the sea , almost like a peninsula. In antiquity, this was the place where people settled, as it was easy to defend. The rocky peninsula is almost separated from the main land; a deep trench has been carved out, 30 meters wide and some 100 meters long. You can see it clearly on Google Earth.  One piece of rock is left standing on which the draw bridge could rest. This way, the rock almost became an island. Who dunnit? The mayor of Enfeh (that’s how he introduced himself, the ‘moukhtar’), who I ran into roaming around on the salt pans, said it was the Phoenicians. But other sources tell me it was the crusaders. Yet another site claims it’s an ancient quarry .

There’s a crusader church (small one) standing right on the shore, called St. Catherine’s, but there’s an old byzantine church as well in the village.

And so here’s the Enfeh trench, whether Phoenician, ancient quarry or crusader, in HDR. The funky toning comes from the tone mapping, a related technique.  

Happy 2011 from Beirut

Downtown Beirut was bustling last night. Throngs of people were moving around. The funny thing was that there were few Lebanese amongst them. It was as if the entire Saudi male population between 25 and 40 had descended upon downtown, hoping for an exciting New Year’s celebration. We had a discussion about that. We all agreed upon the fact that New Year in Beirut just has to be more exciting than New Year in Riyadh or Mekka, for that matter. 

But if you want exciting, there’s much more going on in Paris or London around New Year, so why choose Beirut? We figured it must be because Beirut is easy. We speak their language, the music taste is the same (Arabic), and the women will not ignore them because they’re darker. Several of my colleagues have lived in Saudi Arabia (or KSA, as they will call it), and they all say it is very nice, as long as you’re on the compound. I don’t know. I’m glad I live in Beirut.

And you probably want to know whether the New Year’s celebration in Downtown Beirut was exciting? I wouldn’t know. We went home just before 12, drank our champagne, looked at the fireworks and went to bed. I guess you could do that in Riyadh as well. Although I don’t know about the champagne.

A wonderful, wealthy, healthy and happy 2011 to all of you.

All images taken downtown Beirut. This poor little guy couldn't wait until 12 o'clock. He fell asleep right at the table.