Happy three-month anniversary Lebanon! I wrote you a poem list.

It's hard to believe it's been three months since I first set foot in Lebanon. In some ways, it feels like I have been here forever, but I still have so much to learn. I've passed the point of being submerged in the unfamiliar, and some of my initial impressions now seem laughably inaccurate.

So now, instead of listing things that seem out of the ordinary, here is a list of things that might have seemed odd three months ago, but to which I am now accustomed:

Ashoura

On Monday, late at night, as most of my stories seem to unfold, I received one of these spontaneous propositions for an adventure that pop up every now and again since I have come to Lebanon:

"Come with us to the South to see the Ashoura celebrations in Nabatiye tomorrow morning!"

What's a girl to do? I went home... packed a toothbrush, my glasses and laptop (because I am a very responsible grad student--Papa, Maman si vous lisez ceci) and hopped into my friend Kh.'s car for another Janub trip.

Quick Wiki moment:
Ashoura is one of the Shi'a Muslim high holidays. It is in remembrance of the death of Husayn, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, on the tenth day of the battle of Karbala in 680 CE (or 60 After Hijra, during the month of Muharram), which opposed Husayn's handful of followers against the army of Caliph Yazid.

Child dressed in black for Ashoura, carrying a flag with a
portrait of Husayn

Ashoura is a day of mourning for Shi'as, and many typically honor this day by wearing black. However, some Shi'as perform tatbir, a practice involving hitting oneself on the head repeatedly with the flat side of a sword's blade, drawing blood, or hitting one's back with chains. This act of grief is forbidden in many countries, and has been called haram by some Shi'a scholars, but the practice is still legal in Lebanon.

(Warning: Pictures involving large amounts of blood below the fold.)

"Wait your turn"

A story that has made the rounds on this side of the Internet has been that of Aliaa el-Mahdy, a 20-year-old Egyptian activist, who posted nude pictures of herself on her blog with the stated goal of exercizing her freedom of speech and denouncing "a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy."

The backlash has been intense, with her blog garnering several million page views, and a vast number of insults and death threats. Conservatives have glommed onto her as a sign that the secular movement in Egypt has no moral values and will corrupt Egyptian society. In turn, Egyptian liberals have distanced themselves from her, and many ask whether she has hurt the cause.

That social and religious conservatives attack el-Mahdy does not surprise me. That misogynists hurl degrading insults at her does not surprise me. But I was surprised not too long ago to hear a friend of mine vitriolically criticize her, striking a low blow with one sentence:

"Now is not the time for feminist demands, they need to wait their turn."

Al-Janub, Part II

From my last post, my trip to the South might sound like it was a sad meditation on life in a war zone—and undoubtedly it was partially that—but it was also an eye-opener on how unexpectedly normal (if such a word can be said about anything) my stay was there.

Al-Janub, Part I

Two weeks ago, during the four day week-end for Aid Al-Adha (a major Muslim holiday), two friends, H. and K., and I were invited by a Lebanese acquaintance, Kh., to go on a two-day road trip in the South (Al-Janub), where he is originally from, down to the frontier with Israel*.

If you know a little about contemporary Lebanese history, "The South" is also known as "Hezbollah Land," a portion of Lebanon more or less outside of Lebanese government control and administrated by the Shi'a Party of God (literal translation of "Hezb-Allah"), and the site of the 2006 war with Israel. Depending on who I would talk to, the South was either someplace I absolutely needed to go or had to avoid at all costs. "You'll be kidnapped!" some said. "Hezbollah people are crazy, you can't go there as a foreigner!"

The Hezbollah flag.

In short, there was no way I could turn down an opportunity to see this for myself.

Façades of Beirut

I have been doing a lot of traveling around/sight-seeing in the past two weeks. My mother came to visit for a week, which was nice family time. I was finally reunited with my camera charger, which means one thing: this site can finally have visuals to satisfy you!, my ADD-prone brethren of the Millenial generation who avoid big blocks of text like the plague!

I also spent two days this past weekend on a road trip in the South of Lebanon. A lot to talk about there. And since I know you are all clearly dying to know what Hezbollah Land is like, the new blog header is a picture taken during that trip. Consider it a teaser of sorts.

In the meantime, here are some photos which are a good representation (in my humble opinion) of some of the diversity of the Beirut urban landscape. These might just be buildings, but I can't help but think they give an idea of the dynamics of the city, which I might discuss one day once I've mulled it over long enough to have something halfway decent to write about it.

The Wayward Orientalist

So, from the beginning I have been thinking about a catchy title for this blog, something that could sum up what I want to convey here, and, lacking inspiration, I had settled temporarily for the most obvious way to describe what I was going through: In Beirut.

I have been struggling with what I should write here. How do I sum up my experience? There are many clichés and easy generalizations to make about Beirut or Lebanon, and while they might contain a kernel of truth (which stereotype doesn’t?), I can’t help but bristle with annoyance when I hear “They” statements:

Still not mastering the art of zen...

Friday, October 28
On my to-do list: Ophthalmologist appointment at 11:30 a.m. at the American University Hospital.

11:10 a.m.-Arrive at AUH building. Look at my planner, notice the my appointment is supposed to be on the seventh floor. This building only has five floors. Decide to go to Student Health Services office near the entrance for assistance. Have plenty of time before appointment, maybe the doctor could squeeze me in earlier.

Should be a piece of cake.

Surviving the Service: the first of what will undoubtedly become a series

The concept of a "service"

Beirut, for its apparent lack of public transportation, has a very practical means of moving about called the service—pronounced the French way, aka "serveece."

Basically, a service is just like a regular taxi, except it picks up and drops off multiple people along the way. Think bus, if a bus didn't have a predetermined route, and if by "bus" you meant a car built sometime back when the Soviet Union was still a thing and seat belts were an optional feature.

Some useful words

To make up for my inability to remember how to make full sentences in Arabic anymore (putting aside the whole "I speak Modern Standard Arabic and everyone speaks a Lebanese dialect" dilemma for a second), I have been peppering my English and French with a couple of expressions I have learned or re-learned in the past two weeks.

Here are some ways to amuse Lebanese people immensely/have them compliment your Arabic and boost your ego temporarily until you remember they are just taking pity on your pathetic efforts.

A brief lesson in zen or lack thereof

So I had been planning on posting about something else today, but I thought I would give you a taste of the glitz and glamour of my graduate student life so far.

In order to pay for tuition at AUB, you need to be enrolled in classes. As a new student, enrollment started on Wednesday. It takes the AUB system two days to process the fact that you are enrolled and issue a statement of fees, hence you cannot pay for tuition until Friday (today) at the earliest, and it will most probably take until Monday for your payment to be processed. In order to get my student ID, I need to have a statement saying I have paid for my tuition. Said student ID is needed for various purposes such as getting around on campus and opening the front door of your dorm. From the above timeline, getting my student ID isn't possible until Monday. Move-in day on campus is today (Friday) only, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. I have managed to be let in, but was told off for not having my ID* and told that I can't technically leave the dorm with a guarantee that I will be able to come back in unless someone is at the door to let me in and reprimand me again. And this is going to be the status quo until Monday which, in case I haven't mentioned it already, is the earliest day I can get my ID.

I am sparing you the details of my visa-obtaining process, but it is akin to the above, except ten times more frustrating.

HULK SMASH BUREAUCRACY.

*This, of course, happening as I am under the rain without an umbrella carrying three suitcases on my own because of the "boys not allowed, not even to carry big things" dorm policy.

Day 3: The luxury of getting lost

Written a couple of days ago, but I've been too busy to post until now.

I have been thinking about "L'Auberge Espagnole" for the past couple of days. In one of the early scenes, as Romain Duris' character arrives in Barcelona, he describes those peculiar first moments when places and names sound so alien, before becoming a part of the familiar.

Quand on arrive dans une ville, on voit des rues en perspective. Des suites de bâtiments vides de sens. Tout est inconnu, vierge. Voilà, plus tard on aura marché dans ces rues, on aura été au bout des perspectives, on aura connu ces bâtiments, on aura vécu des histoires avec des gens. Quand on aura vécu dans cette ville, cette rue on l’aura prise dix, vingt, mille fois.


Urquinaona, Passeig de Gràcia, Laietana. Au bout d’un moment tout ça vous appartient, parce qu’on y a vécu. C’est ce qui allait m’arriver, et je ne le savais pas encore.

(When arriving in a city, we see streets in perspective. Sequences of buildings empty of meaning. Everything is unknown, virgin territory. Later we'll have walked these streets. We'll have been to the end of the perspectives, we'll know these buildings. We'll have lived things with people. Once we'll have lived in this city, we'll have walked down this street ten, twenty, a thousand times.

Urquinaona, Passeig de Gracia, Laietana. After a while, they all become yours because you've lived there. This was going to happen to me, but I didn't know it yet.)

Beirut, with its harmonies of car horns and prayer calls, its omnipresent construction, a language so infuriatingly out of my reach... Beirut is intimidating. Part of me wants to stay inside when I am alone because I can't help but feel that I don't belong yet; and I wish that I could skip this part and go straight to mastering the place with assurance, to making it mine.

But that's not how things work. And in order to reach that level of intimacy with the city, I have no choice but to go outside and act like I belong here until I finally do.

Day 1: some initial observations

I arrived in Beirut yesterday afternoon without too much trouble, and have already seen my friend who has been living here for close to two years, which was great. I'm living in a hotel for the next week or so before I can move in on campus, and this morning has been about getting the necessary shit done (bank account, phone, etc.)

Here are a couple of things I've noted in the past 24 hours:

D minus five days, or: let there be rambling

So here it goes, the quasi-mandatory abroad blog, where I will discuss my adventures in the Land of Cedars for as long as possible before I get bored of this writing venture and decide to move on to co-author yet another unfinished novel with LKat. Long-term writing goals have never really been my strong suit, but I keep going back to them as if I can somehow distract myself from the inevitable premature demise of one project by starting another.

Anyway... I'm on the road again, off to another location where I barely know anyone... although I think I've topped myself this time. I've never before made plans to stay this long in a country as unfamiliar... and it is a little scary. It took me a while to get used to New York (although a lot of factors that made that particular move difficult are thankfully no longer relevant...), so I definitely have some apprehension about starting from scratch again. But somehow, relocating across the world to Beirut is the most sense-full decision at this point in my life—and this despite the looks of genuine concern regarding my mental health which might indicate to the contrary.

I definitely have concerns; my Arabic is terrifyingly rusty, and I know practically nothing of the Lebanese dialect. My longest stay in the Middle East thus far has been an hour spent in the Qatar airport, and what I know of Lebanon (and the Arab world in general), I gathered from books, movies, second-hand accounts... which is to say, in a sense, that I know nothing.

But knowing nothing... is strangely freeing. I am looking forward to no longer being labeled a "Middle East expert" by people around me who think I am somehow qualified enough to make assessments about an entire region based on a couple of classes I've taken or articles I've read. I want to finally experience firsthand what day-to-day life is like in Lebanon—well, day-to-day life as I can observe it from my privileged and self-consciously orientalist point of view...

Hopefully, I'll have some interesting/not-so-stupid things to share with you all (Hopefully, I will also learn to use fewer ellipses). I've been waiting for this moment for a year, and it's so hard to realize that less than a week from now, this will no longer be projections, scenarios and hypotheses; this will be real.

So here's to my new beginning.