Christmas In Beirut

It is strange, perhaps, to sit alone in a hotel room in downtown Beirut listening to a Christmas program, sung in English with distinctly Arab accents and still feel the specialness of the season.  I can't shake the feeling though that even without a tree, without friends or family, without warpped gifts, this is indeed a special time of the year.  There are so many wishes from friends and family for a Happy, Merry Christmas and New Year.  Who couldn't be cheered by all those reminders of goodwill and love? The truth is, the gifts I do receive, so thoughtfully packed and sent,  and bring back for family and friends are still appreciated.  They're just not exchanged in the way I used to.  I was reminded today, as I walked to Starbucks, how blessed I am.  I wore a beautiful shawl from my Uzbek "daughter", a gold pendant from my Iraqi "daughter," and carried an iPhone from my Libyan "son." What a rich and wonderful life I have! And all these children adopted me--even more amazing.

For the first time in 3 years I will attend a church service tonight, the midnight mass at All Saints Anglican, in English.  I am looking forward to that so much! The lack of all the things I used to associate with Christmas has distilled the meaning of the season to what is most essential and most meaningful.  Peace and Goodwill to all in this part of the world is more than a nice greeting on a card.  It is life itself to our neighbours in the south, the east, and the north.  

It was amazing to me how fully Christmas is embraced by people of all faiths but I think I understand.  It's the music, the family gatherings, the generosity, and, even the meaning for Christians that is appreciated and celebrated.  I have had Christmas wishes from people of all faiths who seem to understand its importance on a certain level.  I suppose it's a bit like wishing Muslims, "Eid Mubarak" at the end of Ramadan but the celebration of Christmas seems to happen in both houses.  I have done one other new thing this week--gone to a mall for the first time this term.  Because of the Christmas program I've been tied to the campus full-time since September.  My colleague and I hardly shopped at all but we enjoyed being in the mall, seeing the decorations, and being off campus for a bit.  Here are some pictures of the ABS Mall's Christmas tree and Santa Village There was a Santa, Father Christmas, there and a frightened child being held close to the Ho-Ho-Ho-ing Santa for a picture.















Later, I arrived at church after many "Yameens, Schmels, and Doghris" (Rights, Lefts, Straights) to the taxi driver.  I was early and there were guards standing there from the Lebanese Army.  One said, "No one told us there was church!"  I said, "Well, there is, at 11:30.  I SMS'ed (texted) the vicar."  He replied, "Hmmm...." and "Well, you know, the Christian situation in Lebanon is ... complicated."  I answered,  "yes, I know!"  And we all waited together for others to arrive.  They soon arrived and we went in.  We sang the carols with gusto, there being no other music, we shared the Eucharist, heard the sermon, and found the guards still there when we finished at 12:50 am.  As people left, the guards gradually dispersed.  Peace on Earth.

I was wide awake and so listened to my home church's Christmas Eve service on Skype with my sister and brother-in-law (and quite a few other people too, from what I could hear).  Their music was more professional but no less enthusiastic than that of the Beirut church.

This evening I have made an early reservation at "21" in the Crowne Plaza, a short distance from my hotel.  There I will be treated in the way I have always wished--with deference and solicitude!  Hehe...  And I will be back in my room in time for more Skype calls with family and friends.  In this day there is hardly any reason to be be totally alone!

I will return home tomorrow for a little marking and to prepare a dinner for some foreign grad students who couldn't get home--1 from Syria, 1 from Iraq.  We have been granted 1 extra day off (after our syllabus/schedules were in place, of course) so will start classes on the 3rd. Then there are just 2 weeks of classes left before exam week and a break between terms.

Love and Best Wishes for a Great New Year!

Geri

 Merry Christmas everyone!  

Who knows?

Don't ask me what's going on!  I really don't think I know much any more.  Even my Lebanese colleagues seem fairly vague about the status of things in Lebanon.  My Twitter news feeds say things like "Situation Fragile in the ________ (north, south, border)" and "Lebanon struggles to hang on to neutrality amid the widening Syrian war."  Someone asked me if WMDs, such as Sarin and others would affect us.  No, I don't think so.  We're on the coast with two mountain ranges between us and the Syrian trouble.  While the distance is not far, as the crow flies, chemical weapons would not reach us and the crow doesn't fly that far and never over mountain ranges.  What's worrying is that if the allies threaten action against chemical weapons they might be fighting Al Qaeda, who have been threatening to use them against the Assad regime.  The length of this conflict has created an open door for the terrorists Assad was complaining about.  Now they really are there.

Speaking of crows, Lebanon's lack of law and order has meant that it has had an endless open season on the many migrating birds that have stopped here for centuries on their way to/from Africa.  Thanks to Facebook and other social media sites, our proud hunters have published their photos with  heaps of birds, songbirds, some endangered birds too.  Organizations such as "Animals Lebanon" are letting people know what is going on.  Songbirds, despite being against the law, are to be seen on some menus in rural areas.  They're considered a delicacy in those restaurants though I would not expect to see them on any menu in the coastal cities.

And speaking of organizations, I have recently organized a group called "Anti-Discrimination Student Group."  We received permission from Amnesty International to use this logo:

Until we get some interested art students, we will use this one. Our Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/AnitDiscriminationStudentClubBalamand?ref=hl.  At our first meeting we had more faculty than students show up.  However, we have since gathered a number of undergrad and grad students who are very keen to see this group be successful.  I am keeping my expectations low (realistic).  If the US can erupt in such hate rhetoric as I saw before our last election then what can we hope to accomplish here where the distrust, dislike (hate?), and discrimination have been embedded in religion and politics for centuries?  Nevertheless, perhaps a few students will tell other students and perhaps a few students will tell their parents.  I have contacted another group in Beirut, the Anti-Racism Movement, who work especially for the causes of foreign domestic workers who have been horribly abused in Lebanon.  They told me that, as far as they know, there are no other such groups on the other Lebanese campuses.  But I have already been warned to be careful.  Caritas, another group, Catholic, works with refugees.  Sadly, refugees are not very welcome here and, of course, Syrian refugees bring with them memories of the long-time Syrian occupation.  Our first screening went well.  We watched Freedom Writers and then discussed the possibilities of showing it to the whole campus.  Overall, there was approval with the worry that some might be offended because the teacher in the highly-racist atmosphere in the story uses The Holocaust as a way of teaching about discrimination.  I suggested that we cannot start by filtering history, no matter how we feel about the current situation to the south.  We shall see.  I don't care too much about numbers but rather, meaningful conversations and discussions that take place in a safe and respectful atmosphere.  Members of the Anti-Racism Movement have agreed they will come and talk to our classes or groups of our students.  There is a great deal of interest from the President, the Dean of Students, and faculty.

Of late, I have become rather discouraged with things here.  Perhaps it's because of being so isolated for so long.  I go grocery shopping off campus but, other than that, I haven't gone anywhere or done anything outside of work.  I could ride with my friends to Beirut if only I didn't have a Christmas Concert coming up.  I'm tied to the piano on campus and can only get practice time when the piano teacher is not using it.  I guess it will be an enjoyable concert but our rehearsals haven't been as frequent as I think they should. I was drafted by our Associate Dean, a soprano with a beautiful voice and 4 children who play and sing as well.  There are others involved, a classical guitarist from our faculty, a violist, and various alums to fill out the vocal ensemble.  

I have a tree and a crèche. They're very tiny but, they give a kind of impression of Christmas. 

Perhaps I'm also feeling a bit nostalgic for the many wonderful seasonal events shared with friends and family over the years.  My niece was my Christmas Angel for many years because she enjoyed the season so much, she made it special for me.  I have decided that this year I will go to Beirut for 3 days so I can attend an English service and get off of this mountain for awhile.

I guess I will never understand (or appreciate) the way things work (and don't work) around here.  It's always important to remember that words mean little and promises are easily made and rarely followed by the action expected.  That is tough and leads to disappointment all around.  Many of my colleagues feel the same way. One probably cannot expect that the institution can behave extra-culturally.  And when students don't believe that you will enforce deadlines and standards who can blame them? The complete disregard for the law may be incomprehensible to stable countries where there are laws with real consequences for breaking them.  I did see a police car yesterday, my second one in two and a half years.  Everyone was passing him.  His car wasn't nice enough to warrant notice or respect I guess.

 

On Wednesday of last week our Patriarch died, His Beatitute, Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East.  He was 91.  Immediately the school closed.  I was at my door when my phone rang.  Students received cell phone messages and all activity ceased.  As a matter of fact, when the tennis coach tried to come to campus to practice the next day, security turned him away!  They told him that the President had decreed "No Activity."  One of my colleagues wonders if that means no practicing the piano either.  Well, my music is pretty sad so I think it counts as a mournful activity in keeping with the week of grieving.  Classes will start again on Tuesday because on Monday they will take his "blessed body" to Damascus for final burial.  Damascus!  Some of our theology students have been involved and will probably be in the entourage going to Syria.  I pray they will all be safe.  In the meantime, we are all catching up on marking, another activity that makes us sad.

 

 

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Merry Christmas Everyone! Pray for Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men, Women, and Children.

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A good Analysis of the City to the North

Tripoli's Troubles To Come

The Views from F3, Balamand, The new apartment

Overlooking the University, to the SW

West

NNW

WNW

NNW

Moving...again and other things

Family and Friends:

Instead of trying to beat jet lag, I'm going to write this tonight so I don't have miles and piles of emails from concerned folks when I get up in the morning.

I've just watched the moving ceremony of the State Department's return of the remains of the 3 embassy employees and ambassador to the US.  I can understand how seeing the images of the past week might be alarming to many of you.

Tripoli
I've written earlier about troubled Tripoli and the desperation of a poor, uneducated populace there only increases.  They have nothing to lose either so using a film produced and directed by an American-style extremist as an excuse to riot and burn places down, in this case the KFC and Hardees, is as good an excuse as any I guess. The problem with all these protests is that I am sure that 99% of the people have not seen the movie.  Extremism on either side is irrational.  In the States, the West, it produces horrible things like the film everyone's upset about or the Koran burning and over here in the Middle East it produces other kinds of irrational behaviors.

I'd heard from a colleague today that as long as the Pope was here on his "peace" mission, Lebanon would be quiet.  He thought the Pope should live here always but, the truth is, that hasn't helped keep things quiet in Tripoli.  What happens in Beirut often has little to do with Tripoli, just 65 km. away. So, we went up to a mountain village to do a bit of shopping.  It has always been quiet there, a mostly Christian area.  Below I have written down the practical issues of remaining or leaving here.  I am not being foolhardy. 

 Moving---Moved
How many times have I moved? I just counted them up, 23 times, so far.  But in all the moves I've made, this one was by far, the most physically demanding.  First, I couldn't find boxes and, even if I had, I woudn't have been able to move them all by myself.  Second, I was living on the 3.5 floor.  Third, I needed to walk up an incline.  Fourth, I moved to the 3.5 floor!  Let's add that the "new" apartment was not cleaned, per my instructions.  I have seen the cleaning job of the crew here and could not imagine them doing any good at all--with their dirty rags and mops they could actually make things worse.  I began on Sunday and finished on Thursday evening.  It felt like a pre-sports conditioning week, hauling a backpack full of books and two hand-carry bags full of other things each time.  On Tuesday evening I found some boxes on my doorstep from housing so I filled them.  On Wednesday morning housing took them all, the TV, the mircowave, and the hanging clothes (flung in the back of the old pickup truck on top of the boxes) and hauled them up the stairs.  I emptied many of the boxes and brought them back to fill.  That evening, I looked at what was left and thought, "There is no way I can make this many trips up and down the stairs to finish this job!"  On Thursday morning I called a colleague and her husband and they cheerfully agreed, bringing the family van with them.  In short order, we loaded the van, followed it up the hill, and unloaded it.  The second load was much smaller, leaving me the recycling to deal with.

Though I am sitting amidst a few remaining boxes and bags to unload, I am very pleased with the new apartment.  I have my fingers crossed that this 3rd apartment is the answer to my allergies.  Besides that, the view here is stunning, there's no burn pile or caretaker's cottage immediately behind me and my desk looks out over a beautiful valley, harbor, and mountains.  Because this is a newer apartment things work here much better than they did in the older apartment.  There is real hot water that arrives in a timely fashion in the kitchen. The refrigerator is not moldy. They scraped away the mold in the back bedroom and repainted it so that should help...until it gets moldy again.  Of course there is a list of things I've found that were simply neglected.  The hassle of getting help for these things is pretty exhausting at times.  I don't have enough wasta (power/influence) to make people care!

Next Semester
I am somewhat prepared but must work fairly intensively next week to create the coursebooks for two courses in lieu of textbooks that students wouldn't purchase anyway.  Then there is the schedule, filled with holidays (holy days) for two separate religions that makes Swiss cheese out of any schedule.  Finally, there is the uncertainty about whether or not students can get to classes from Tripoli and elsewhere if the disturbances spread.  We shall see.

In the Meantime

• I keep my computer backed up on a hard drive.
• I have a small bag with a list of essentials
• I took my violin back to the States this summer
• I pay attention to the news.

I must work and this is where my job is.

Geri