Gallivanting around Lebanon in pictures: Baalbek

So my parents came to visit me for a week, which was a great opportunity to show them around the country I have been calling home for seven or so months, and a welcome break from relentless studying. It is very easy to spend extended periods of time without leaving Beirut, and I had been itching to get out of the capital for a while. Over the course of their visit, I took them to Baalbek, Mleeta (yes, again) and Jeita, and let them see Sur and Jbeil on their own like the grownups they are.

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.

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.