Sunday, June 26, 2005
Beirut-Beauty-June 11, 2004
How do I keep it all? I wondered while listening to the lulling call to prayer and watching the Mediterranean’s soft blue waves framed by a 7000-year-old Roman colonnade, all through a crack in the stone wall of a Crusader Castle at Byblos.
Our final travel destination before leaving this part of the world was Lebanon. We started in super-chic Beirut where the cars are Beemers and Porches and ended in Tripoli where the streets bubble with grime and human smells.
Beautiful, scarred Beirut couldn’t be more different from Cairo — from the openly liberal attitudes of its citizens to the smell of sea air and the plethora of international restaurants and designer shops.
Sadly, this beautiful city, which very much resembles San Francisco, is overly reliant on tourism and its port for revenue. Nothing much is actually manufactured or produced in the country and the years of civil war surely tainted its reputation as a place to invest. Only 4 million live here; some 12 million live outside the country. It is one of the largest displaced populations in the world. (For a great summary of the Lebanese Civil War, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War)
The city’s history is palpable and still raw. Modern, bright buildings are like preening birds with puffed chests next to bombed-out and bullet-ridden skeletons of the city’s old skyline.
The population is extremely literate, another opposite of Egypt. Bookstores with titles in French, English and Arabic pepper the main roads and alleys. I’d forgotten how easy it is to lose time engrossed in browsing bookshelves.
After two days in Beirut, we took a $1 bus ride to Tripoli, the much more conservative second city in the north. From there we took a bus ride up the snow-capped mountains to Bcharré and the land of the famed Lebanese Cedars. We visited the home of the poet, author and artist Khalil Gibran, whose thoughts on marriage Davin and I quoted in our wedding ceremony in 2001. The sleepy mountain town could have been in the middle of Switzerland or Southern Italy — up until the point where we were accosted by a persistent waiter who pestered us for advice on how to get a chef’s job in the US.
Once again, upon entering Lebanon, the psychological burdens of the past two years quickly washed away with the overwhelming beauty of the ocean/mountain scape of a tiny country that happens to suffer only because it is surrounded by evil regimes.
After touching down in Cairo, I was overcome with a mixture of sadness and gratefulness. Sadness that this intense two-year education is coming to an end — and knowing I have merely scratched the surface. And gratefulness that I was tested in a way I never would have been in my home country. Eighteen days from now I will be re-immersed in US culture, for better and for worse. Back to the land of Big Macs, reality TV and rigidity. Processing all I’ve learned, the places I’ve seen and the people I’ve met will weigh heavy over these next weeks.
How do I keep it all?
Where do I put it?
Our final travel destination before leaving this part of the world was Lebanon. We started in super-chic Beirut where the cars are Beemers and Porches and ended in Tripoli where the streets bubble with grime and human smells.
Beautiful, scarred Beirut couldn’t be more different from Cairo — from the openly liberal attitudes of its citizens to the smell of sea air and the plethora of international restaurants and designer shops.
Sadly, this beautiful city, which very much resembles San Francisco, is overly reliant on tourism and its port for revenue. Nothing much is actually manufactured or produced in the country and the years of civil war surely tainted its reputation as a place to invest. Only 4 million live here; some 12 million live outside the country. It is one of the largest displaced populations in the world. (For a great summary of the Lebanese Civil War, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War)
The city’s history is palpable and still raw. Modern, bright buildings are like preening birds with puffed chests next to bombed-out and bullet-ridden skeletons of the city’s old skyline.
The population is extremely literate, another opposite of Egypt. Bookstores with titles in French, English and Arabic pepper the main roads and alleys. I’d forgotten how easy it is to lose time engrossed in browsing bookshelves.
After two days in Beirut, we took a $1 bus ride to Tripoli, the much more conservative second city in the north. From there we took a bus ride up the snow-capped mountains to Bcharré and the land of the famed Lebanese Cedars. We visited the home of the poet, author and artist Khalil Gibran, whose thoughts on marriage Davin and I quoted in our wedding ceremony in 2001. The sleepy mountain town could have been in the middle of Switzerland or Southern Italy — up until the point where we were accosted by a persistent waiter who pestered us for advice on how to get a chef’s job in the US.
Once again, upon entering Lebanon, the psychological burdens of the past two years quickly washed away with the overwhelming beauty of the ocean/mountain scape of a tiny country that happens to suffer only because it is surrounded by evil regimes.
After touching down in Cairo, I was overcome with a mixture of sadness and gratefulness. Sadness that this intense two-year education is coming to an end — and knowing I have merely scratched the surface. And gratefulness that I was tested in a way I never would have been in my home country. Eighteen days from now I will be re-immersed in US culture, for better and for worse. Back to the land of Big Macs, reality TV and rigidity. Processing all I’ve learned, the places I’ve seen and the people I’ve met will weigh heavy over these next weeks.
How do I keep it all?
Where do I put it?
.jpg)