New Year Resolution

Ras Beirut at sun set, Sunday afternoon, 16:29 PM

Another year has gone by.

2017 has been a good year for me. At first it was an ‘okay’ year, but while spending time back home, in Holland, my father read aloud the Christmas cards he had received from friends and family (back home they still send real cards, written by hand), and 2017 was not a good year for many, it seems. People got fired, divorced, lost a car, were at home with a burn-out, had to deal with a bedbug plague, got sick, died or lost children.

Both east (left) and west (right) Beirut

And in the light of other people’s misfortune, my year turned out to be pretty good. But even without the misfortune of others, I count my blessings.

And my new year’s resolution? I will try to be a more productive blogger (She said, seven days into the new year), and will work on enjoying Beirut more. I should start by thanking everyone still reading me. May your new year be as good as my old year was.

The cargo cranes at the port

After spending Christmas and New Year’s in Holland, it is good to be back again. I do understand that Europe, or the west in general, is appealing to many people in Lebanon, and I get the economic attraction, but life outside of Lebanon really isn’t everything. I am aware that this is an easy statement to make from my position, as I, the owner of a ‘lucky’ passport which allows me to venture just about everywhere and work in many countries, don’t share the bleak outlook many Lebanese young people have. I actually have a job that allows me to live in Lebanon.

But when I look at the pictures I made in Holland, the first thing that I notice are the colors. The constant overcast skies and darkness (there were days when it seemed like the sun rose at 11 AM and the sun set at 1 PM) cast a gloomy atmosphere over everything.  And you can photoshop all you like, gloomy is as gloomy does. And then I get back to Beirut, and even in the rain, there’s bright and vibrant colors. That’s free vitamin D for you (Vitamin D fight’s diseases, reduces depression and (they say) boost weight loss) .

Boats waiting for their place in the port

Yes, I realize Lebanon is difficult for young people who need to build their own a future, but I went on a little boat ride this afternoon, and I am thinking, this is a good place, and it is going to be a good year,

Regenerating

This was the site of Saturday's early morning hike

Still very much alive, but recovering from an eye operation and so the adventuring, photo editing and typing goes at half speed. It seems to be the season; about half the staff at work is either on crutches, in slings, limping, on pills or otherwise incapacitated. And although I seem to have arrived at an age where I should no longer be surprised at the untimely death of people  my own generation, it still surprises and shocks me.  But ‘the first one’ passed away not long ago, and the awareness of one’s own mortality is present after a few near-brushes with death of friends and family. 

A break at an old shepherd's shed

This past year I received messages from four (!) childhood friends that one of their parents has died. These are moms and dads I grew up with and had conversations with. These are people I remember guiding us while we moved from childhood into adults. I am currently doing this with my children. It is a clear indication that my friends and I are now in the process of becoming the older generation. It is a humbling thought.

Beirut seems to have lost a bit of its glamour for me. Maybe it is because times are changing, and this extra one point five million people is starting to have an effect on the society as a whole.

The city is very congested, and I have come to a point where I no longer venture to certain neighborhoods because of the traffic. I feel sorry for the retail industry; I am certain that they must feel it too. A lot of my decisions on going places is now related to the traffic. If it requires more than 40 minutes in traffic, I drop the idea, or I move at ungodly hours. I am lucky that I live in a neighborhood where everything can be done on foot, but I am becoming a neighborhood hermit.

  There are some sparks, now and then, when the people here come together. Last month I did the marathon (notice how I very craftily avoid the word ‘walk’, as if giving the impression I might have run it, which I of course most definitely did not) , and the mood was good; upbeat and friendly.

But life occurs in cycles, and I feel I have ‘seen’ this cycle; it is time for a change. There are quite a few projects I have on the (back) burner, but time constraints prevent me from execution right now. Just a few more years, and then I intend to radically change course. I need to discover different parts and aspects of this country. I am looking forward to that.

In the meantime, I get inspired by hikes in the mountains. It is regenerating. One of my projects – in the years to come - is to develop some type of hiking guide in Lebanon, without guide. There’s plenty of outfits that will take you on the weekend, but you are stuck to someone else’s schedule, time, pace and route. I’d like to develop something where you can go on your own in your own time. Different hikes, with or without small kids, hikes that are good with dogs, hikes that are good for picnics and so on. I doubt it will make money, because the only people I ever meet on the mountain top are a specific kind, but money is not the issue. It’d be great to share parts of Lebanon that are still great, and pristine and ‘off-the-grid’ so the speak. And there are so many of them.

 

This one made me laugh. Some idiot probably went 'off-roading' with his girlfriend in her new sneakers. I wonder how he got her out of it. The car was stuck.  

This weekend I hiked quite a bit, so I share those images with you; a reminder that Lebanon is really a beautiful place. Something that needs to be preserved and passed on to the next generation. 

We've had to resort to 'dressing up' this one dog of ours. He looks a bit too much like a wild thing apparently, and one hunter - for lack of birds - nearly took him out because he thought it was 'a wolf'. 

Sunday Morning Walk in the Mountains above Beirut

I am sharing pictures of this morning (Sunday morning) walk through the mountains above Beirut. A friend decided to join us at 8 AM, quire courageously I might say, but the weather has been lovely lately. Temperatures are dropping (finally), fall will slowly merge into winter, and although the first winter storms will not occur until the beginning of January, the first snow has settled in the higher regions.

If it stays this way, we’ll have a wonderful ski season.

The mountains are a respite from busy Beirut. Beirut is becoming nasty these days. Last Friday I had an argument with a man in a parking lot. Actually, I had the argument. He couldn’t have cared less. To be more precise, he couldn’t give a shit.

You see, I had to buy a chair, but there was no parking to be found anywhere. It was a Friday, noon time, and around a mosque, so parking spots can be a problem then. I ended up giving my car to a valet parking guy, who parked it in a parking lot.

 A certain Issam M. was also looking for a parking spot. Issam M. was in a hurry. He wanted to go and pray but he was late. He had a Mercedes and a mobile phone, but apparently not the 2,000 LBP needed to pay for the parking lot. So he decided to just park in the parking lot entrance, and go and pray. Fuck everyone else in the parking lot. His business came first. He did not think it might inconvenience anyone that they would not be able to leave that parking lot anymore, because his business was more important than everyone else’s, they would just have to wait.

He did not leave his car open so it could be moved just in case. He did not leave his keys with a guard in case someone needed to leave. No. Issam did not do any of that. He had his number on this window, but he turned off his phone while praying.

And so here I am, stuck in a parking lot. For 37 minutes. 

What is 37 minutes in the life span of a human? Nothing.

And although it did bother me, that I should sit in a car in a parking lot, planning to do things but unable to execute them because Issam M. had to do his thing first, I would have been okay with it if, while coming back to his car, he would have looked at me, addressed me, and somehow apologized for his unthoughtfulness. Something like, ‘oh, so sorry, I paid no attention’. Or ‘sorry, I was not aware I was gone for that long’. Or just a plain ‘sorry’.

But no, Issam M. did not do any of that.  He let me wait for 37 minutes, and when he came back, he just got into his car, did not even acknowledge the fact he had let me wait, and decided to drive off. 

Me videotaping him did bother him quite a bit. He was even willing to get out of his car for that. Who had given me the permission to film him? Ahhhh, yes, indeed. Which reminded me; who gave him the permission to block me?  “I was in a hurry”, he replied. And, he said to the parking attendant, he’d been gone for only 15 minutes.  I mean really, what was my problem?  Well. It wasn’t 15 minutes. It was 37 .

I guess time flies when you pray. 

I hope he prayed for forgiveness.

Well, got that off my chest. Maybe I should post that video. Naaah, I am nice. 

And I bet your bottom dollar that I will receive comments that will insinuate I do not respect the muslim faith, to which I will reply - in advance - that I respect every religion equally. 

I also predict that there will be commenters, always anonymous ones, or ones with fake profiles, who will insult me for insulting islam, to which I will reply, I insult the christians that triple park their cars in front of the church in Kahale on the road to the mountains, thus creating traffic jams that go one for kilometers  because they cannot be bothered to walk 100 meters to church as their Sunday duty is so infinitely more important than people trying to drive somewhere else, with equal vehemence.

And for everyone who is offended enough to leave a comment, seriously, why do you bother to read me in the first place?

My Mountain House

So this would be the road to my house

I’ve got this plan. I am going to win the lottery, and then I am going to buy a wonderful Lebanese mountain house from the fifties, restore it, move into it, and spend my days reading, gardening, making marmalade and sell it for a good cause, and wearing outrageously unfashionable clothes.

I have yet to win the lottery (I am working on it), but this weekend I found my mountain house from the fifties.

And here is the house. Build right at the edge of a cliff. You see only the two tops floors. there is a bottom floor, but not visible from this level. But this would be the actual house you live in, below is just work space.

Sunday morning, as I walked the dogs along the boulevard of Sofar, I stumbled upon an open gate. That does not happen often in Sofar. The entire village, in the old days a popular summer resort, connected by railroad to both Beirut and the Beqaa Valley,  is either shot to pieces, or seems to have been bought up by Gulf Arabs. In particular one Kuwaiti family, the Kharafis. The entire row of Sursock villas, overlooking the Lamartine valley, belong to the sons of Nasser Kharifi, who died some 6 years ago. 

Quite spectacular view. Need to get some windows back in there.

With the current situation, I have doubts that any of them is ever going to visit their home any time soon. That row of villas from the thirties and forties, with red tiled roofs resting on wooden rafters, have all been restored, a little too ostentatiously for my taste, but there is one on the side that probably was evacuated in the late seventies, never to be inhabited again. And that house is waiting for me to win the lottery.

I walk here quite often, and the gate, usually closed, was open last Sunday. So I am taking you on a tour of the old Lebanon, when Beirut was – for a short while – the Paris of the Middle East.

This would be the library. I will have a fire place installed.

The 3 floor house – quite a demure dwelling from the outside - is built on two different levels. The main entrance is on the first floor, whereas at the back of the house, the service entrance is one floor lower.

The house obviously was built with a staff in mind. The kitchen is on the bottom floor, together with storage rooms, the ‘chaudière’, and some small bedrooms with tiny and basic bathrooms.  Clearly the lady of the house was not into cooking, because on the first floor, there is the living and dining room, and what I think may have been the den, with a very tiny little kitchen, more like a pantry.

I think I will even keep the original bathrooms. They are fantastic! Just some scrubbing is needed.

There are two large bedrooms, each with walk in closets, and wonderfully fancy bathrooms. You can see from the shape of the bath tubs, that these were not simple build-in tubs, but nicely shaped ones.

The second floor has more bedrooms under the slanted wooden roof, all with their own bathrooms. The windows are made of wood, and so are the banisters. The doors, unfortunately, all have disappeared. 

I love the wooden windows.

The house, or should I say, my house, has obviously never been occupied by the Syrian army, who practically occupied just about everything up on that ridge there, because it still has the original mirrors, tubs, toilets and sinks. I have seen houses in Bois de Boulogne, for instance, way up above Bikfaya, that had been totally gutted, from the wall tiles to the wall sockets, even the copper pipes in the walls had been ‘extracted’. This one is pretty intact, apart from the doors.

And the trees and the grass. I will have to buy a lawn mower. But maybe I get a donkey, he will keep it short too. Although he might end up decimating my vegetable garden as well. As yo can see, this project needs some planning. 

It needs minor constructural repairs, but other than that, it is all about redecorating the place. Okay, maybe we need to work on that kitchen, because there is no way on Earth I am dragging dinner from down to the first floor on a daily basis and back again. Heating the place will cost a pretty penny, from the looks of the massive ‘chaudieres’ that are in place everywhere, but hey, when I win the lottery, that will not be an issue.

It's got a garage as well.

The grounds are fantastic as well. It has a fountain, and massive cedar trees all around, which need some trimming. There is a garage for the cars. My dogs will be able to roam freely, although I am not sure how that will go with the chickens and the peacocks I intend to keep as well. 

Anyway, these are all details. 

Right now I am working on that winning lottery ticket. And then I need to find the owner of that house way up in Sofar.

The house from the side. You can see the bottom floor as well here.

More Road Trippin’

The little alley ways of the Saida Souq

Saturday, I took my father to visit a friend down south in Kfar Tibnit. She was still busy with trimming the olive trees, and so on our way we decided to stop at the old souq in Saida, which is probably the only souq in the country that is still authentic and working. 

The little alley ways have been paved not that long ago, and some of the alleys have been obviously restored, but the previous owners and business did not have to make place for fancy shops and business. You can’t enter with a car, and everything has to be brought in by handcar, or little electric scooters. Trades are still organized by quarters. 

You’ve got the gold souq, the vegetable souq, there are alleys where all the woodworkers and carpenters are clustered, the upholstery guys are in one street together, the mattress makers and blanket sellers in another, there are the spice sellers, the butchers, the head scarves and bra sellers, and in between you have your pastry shops and bakeries, the mosques and the schools, and in between that, you have tiny little alleys and stair cases that lead to even tinier little court yards and houses; a veritable labyrinth. Hollywood could film an entire series on the middle ages here without ever having to change a thing of the scenery.

Remove the wires and the blue bin, and you are in 1455 AD

After that, we spent the afternoon in Kfar Tibnit.  When the evening was approaching, it was time to go home. As I had gotten stuck in a nasty traffic jam in Sidon, and I do not like take the same road twice, I wondered if I could go from Kfar Tibnit straight to the small mountain village in the Shouf where we were sleeping that night. Google Maps showed that this was very well possible. Granted, it would take some time (2:19 minutes), but we were not in a hurry. And armed with Google maps, we went on our way.

The bait shop. No idea how this guy is going to get something from the back of his shop

But the night fell quite rapidly, Google maps kept shifting its path from one road to another, seemingly unsure of what road it should take, and for some strange reason, there seemed to be a massive black-out in the entire region; not one silly street light worked. Or maybe there weren’t any.

Traffic became sparser and sparser, while road constructions seemed to be on the rise. Entire stretches of tarmac just dissipated as we drove along.

Every now and then I consulted Google maps again, but the app had change to night vision mode, and in black, the map of Lebanon looked quite unfamiliar to me. I tried to get on the road alongside the Qaroun Lake, because once there, I know how to get home, but it seemed a lot easier than it was in reality in the pitch dark.

Coffee on its way

Somewhere, I knew, I had to go to the right, otherwise I’d end up in the mountains of Jezzine, and then it would be tiny little hairpin roads for hours and hours.  And so when Google maps suddenly indicates that I should turn right, off the main road into a rather narrow wooded road, but into the Beqaa Valley, I thought that be a good idea.

And so here we drive, along this tiny little road, and not a village, house or light in sight. It’s a good thing my father doesn’t see too well; he’s 102 and has only one eye. I do not see much either, for that matter. I am constantly driving with big lights, blinding anyone coming from the opposite direction, but no one is coming from the opposite direction. We are clearly the only ones. 

But I do see the flags in drums suddenly appear on both sides of the road. The logo of Hezbollah, even in the dark, is like that of Coca Cola; recognizable even when only partly visible. And then a large metal barrier, with a young man in front of it.

A road block, but not an army one. 

No gun, but the baseball cap and that typical blue parka are an open book: I have stumbled upon a gate with a Hezbollah guard in front of it.

More medieval scenes. The should organize some Air BNB's here. "Sleep in an authetic souq."

In the middle of nowhere, in the dark, on an unmarked road, with a phone in my hand.  Uhhh. How is this going to look? Hezbollah guards are notoriously suspicious, even when you have a credible story.

Saad Harriri just resigned blaming Hezbollah and the Iranians for threatening his life, and here are two foreigners in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, at some sort of Hezbollah base, claiming to be driving to a little obscure town in the Shouf which is like very very far away, while using Google maps. No Lebanese would ever be doing this.

"Where are you going?”

“Well, that way,” I point to the barrier, showing the road on my phone.

“But where do you need to go?”

Naming the little town to where I intend to drive is not going to help much; he probably never heard of it. So I try “Shtoura”. Not quite where I need to be, but it’s on the way. ”And my map says I need to drive here.”

“Yes,” he replies, and then pauses for while, “But this road is closed.”

“So how do I get to Shtoura?”

“You need to go back to the main road, and then to the right. Ask at the army check point down the road.”

Yes, about that army check point.
You see, I am not really supposed to drive through this region with a foreigner (my dad) without permission from the army headquarters in Saida. Not sure why, but that’s the rule. I sort of had banked on the fact that in the dark, the soldiers don’t really check who is in the car, they just wave you through, so I am sure as heck not going to stop at that check point and ask for directions.

Anyway. Like a good little obedient citizen, I, very nicely and very meekly, turn quietly around, go back on the main road, do not ask for directions at the army check point, and decide to just go along with the hairpin mountain roads. 

When we do get home, some three hours later, my father says, "Wonderful trip.” 

On the Road

Willows in rows

My dad is in town again. For those that read me regularly, yes, he is 102 now. And going strong.

It’s a family thing. His older brother died last year, and a few of his siblings have made it into their nineties. He does not believe in afternoon naps and he likes to go road tripping. The curvier the roads, the happier he gets.

A little bench to contemplate life on

He walks about 5 kilometers a day back home in Holland, but here he has had to adapt; he doesn’t get beyond 3 km.  He’s got a type of walker which helps him with his stability when he walks, but he complains about the sidewalks here in town. He wanted to walk from my house to the Corniche, but the pavement is so irregular, that he ended up carrying his stroller most of the way. I think all the ‘walkers’ in Beirut can relate to that. A stroll through Beirut is more like an obstacle course.  Yesterday we walked from Dar in Wardieh (beginning of Hamra) all the way to Caracas (end of Hamra). And that was after he had been walking for about 3 hours on his own. He tells me that when he was young (twenties) he’d bike home for the weekend,  and that was some 150 kilometers one way. I took him to the Tanaayel Monastery in the Beqaa Valley over the weekend, because he likes cows and farms, and the walking is smooth there.

The duck pond

I’ve written before about the monastery, but because I doubt any of you remember, I am going to unceremoniously cut and paste that bit.

Taanayel, a Jesuit Monastery with farmland and a small lake, is right along the road to Damascus, halfway between Beirut to Damascus. The land, some 200 hectares, was given to the Jesuit fathers in 1860 by Napoleon III. Originally it was a swamp (nice guy, this Napoleon, handing out crummy land for free), but the monks, with their proverbial patience of a monk (That’s a saying in Dutch; ‘monnikengeduld’), transformed the area into agricultural land. They established a large farm, a school, a seminary and a church.

It is nice to walk there, because the way it is set up is very European, and thus feels like home. The Jesuit monks planted poplars and willows, and dug irrigation ditches to help dry the marsh lands. Everything is in neat rows, and with little tree-lined lanes in between the fields and the orchards and the vines.

These days they have some 75 milk cows and a herd of goats. They produce milk and cheese, and cultivate wine, nuts and honey as well. The farm also serves as a teaching facility for the Faculty of Agriculture at the Saint Joseph University in Beirut.

Getting ready to feed the cows

There is an interesting story about how these Jesuits ended up with the land. Apparently, in 1857, they discovered that the Bekaa Valley is an ideal place for growing grapes and producing wine. Business was good, but somewhere at the end of the 19th century, a number of French priests were killed. The Ottomans, the rulers at that time, did not any problems with France, so they compensated for the death of the priests and offered the Taanayel property. (source)

The farm is still in Jesuit hands, and as such, nothing has changed much in the lay-out of the land. No trees have been cut during the war, no ugly buildings went up, and it was not used as garbage a dump. These Jesuits are old school, and very much into the ecological side of agriculture. A Dutch priest, Father Brouwers, was part of the agricultural team on the farm for a long time.

A field of Merlot grapes

The farm has seen its fair share of sadness during the war. I remember visiting them one December, and was told that over Christmas someone had stolen the major bull. “It’s probably someone’s Christmas dinner now,” said Father Brouwers, “but I doubt it’s very tasty. The beast was old. Why would you want to steal an old bull? It’s clear the thieves do not know much about the meat business.” 

Another year they got stuck up with a small trainings camp of young Palestinians which the PLO had set up on the domain. There was nothing they could do about it. It wasn’t anything really serious, more like a Boy Scout venture, but the Israelis didn’t want any of it, and dropped an airplane bomb on the 4 some ram shackle tents which housed the boys. This saddened the priest greatly. “They were just young boys; it wasn’t worth an airplane bomb.” An even sadder event was when another Dutch Jesuit priest from Taanayel, Father Kluiters, was shot twice, hanged and impaled during the war, in 1985. He’d been in Lebanon since 1974. 

On the road

These days are more joyful however, and the farm is open to visitors. You can rent bikes on the farm (go through the gate, park your car near the church and walk to the milk farm (laiterie), where they rent them in the courtyard), and bike all around the farmland. If you are around the milk installation around 4:30, you can see them milk the cows.

Heading Home

A lovely couple, somewhere in their sixties (?), on their way, or maybe coming from,  to what seems to be a social occasion.

Now that it is finally starting to cool off in town (some three weeks later than normal), Beirut is slowly becoming more pleasant. It is ‘walkable’ again. For people is cooler climates, who have never been in Beirut, this may sounds incomprehensible, but this town is practically ‘unwalkable’ in summer. Unwalkable in the sense that it is so hot and humid, that the place resembles a green house. Just walking to the post office or the supermarket becomes a feat, and you basically feel like taking a shower and changing all your clothes after every errant into town.

Four colorful ladies (my guess Syrian as their dress is a little too colorful/uncoordinated /conservative for the neighborhood) on their way home.

But now it is (almost) pleasant again. Two more weeks and it will be perfect.

On Friday evenings, after work, I gather with a few friends somewhere in Beirut for drinks, as we discuss current events, our experiences that week or reflect on life in general. We’ve been doing this for almost 15 years now, I believe, if not longer. 

Two ladies on their way from the gym (and the supermarket)

I cannot remember when we started with it, but apart from the summer hiatus, it’s a regular thing. Our partners and kids even know that this time is pretty much non-negotiable for family events. When they plan something, it’d be like “Oh no we can’t, it’s Friday and you’re with your friends.” There’s thousands of those inspirational quotes floating around the web, imploring the importance of a few good friends above wealth, a career and whatever else there’s to be had in the world, and it is quite true.

On their way from work, obviously.

And after our gathering, we split, each going her way. I usually walk back home, through town, and Beirut at dusk is at its loveliest. The temperature is cool, the light is soft and demure, and the people are all heading home (I am always reminded of this Christmas song, with goes ‘As the shoppers rush home with their treasures’.) , or to some other place to gather with family or friends. It’s this medieval feeling, of people getting back to the town, draw bridge goes up, gates close, and we’re safe and snug tight for the night.

 

Here are your 'shoppers heading home with their treasures' What I found so endearing is that the two gentlemen on the right (in blue turbans, so not Lebanese. My guess either migrant workers from Asia, or Unifil soldiers on leave from the south) re holding hands. In Europe this wold have a different connotations. Here it's just friends.

As I was walking, I saw all these lovely people in front of me, and felt like a regular Vivian Maier, and kept taking pictures. It’s been like two years since I have actually held a real camera; my phone does the job quite well.  So here you are, some scenes from Beirut on a Friday at dusk. 
And my apogees for the over-processed images. You can't see too well on a small phone screen.

These guys are obviously not going home yet. Your male version of the 'sitat el-Ashrafiyeh'