So a female lion is a lioness, right? But doesn’t “pack of lionesses” sound weird? Isn’t there another word for it? Jules prompted the discussion. I was sure there was a word but couldn’t think of it. I knew “lioness” was a word used, but “lionesses” not only didn’t sound right, I couldn’t think of ever hearing it used.
When one of us has trouble spelling a word, Jules and I often confer. This typically doesn’t get us very far. So, as we did for the “lioness” debate, we turn to the German. He’s proven quite knowledgeable but didn’t know the word for female lion. We decided to stick with “lioness.”
Thursday, March 22, 2007
(Surprise) afternoon daytrip
My phone started ringing as I attempted to tell the bus driver to let me off. As much as I like to think, “here, please,” is an appropriate way to indicate my desire to disembark, it never works on the first try. I was headed to interview my friend Ahmed about getting kids from his camp involved in a basketball program starting on Sunday. It was Wednesday.
Ahmed was calling.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Matt, where are you?”
“I’m about 10 minutes away.” There aren’t bus stops, and I wasn’t exactly on a bus. There are buses, but I’d taken a mini-van. It wasn’t a Dodge Caravan-looking mini-van. It was a box with two rows of seating in the back and a row behind the front seats facing the back windshield. The man sitting next to me had a grocery bag with a banana and a dead pigeon. At least I think it was dead. It didn’t move or make any noise. It must have been dead. The mini-van dropped me a few blocks beyond where I wanted to go primarily because my, “here, please,” went unheeded the first two times.
“Do you want me to tell the taxi driver where to take you?”
“I’m on a bus. Well, I’m just getting off the bus,” I said while receiving my change.
“You’re sure you’re close?”
“I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”
Ahmed’s grandmother was sick, and he needed to go to Saida (Sidon), about half an hour south, to bring her medicine. He invited me. We had to wait for his sister to bring the car. While waiting, we sat with some old men and had an espresso. They asked where I was from, denouncing George Bush when they found out. Ahmed played the role of translator as the man who’d made our espresso talked about Bush destroying the Middle East and America in one fell swoop.
In the amount of time we spent waiting for the car, I could have gotten my interview. Finally, however, we were ready to go. Ahmed’s uncle pulled his car from it’s spot, got out and rolled a tall, skinny, hopefully empty gas container three-fourths of a car length behind a cinderblock along the wall where his car had been parked.
We piled in. I was sandwiched between Ahmed and a different uncle in the back of what’s comparable to a mid-80s, four-door Toyota. Not much room. A three-inch cut-out of Palestine hung from the rearview mirror like an air freshener.
His sister was nowhere to be found. His mom and another woman drove separately with two other men in a different car. I failed to see why Ahmed had to be one of the seven people going on this journey.
Many of the bridges destroyed over the summer aren’t fixed yet. You can see holes or lanes completely missing as you take the detour on dirt and gravel under the bridge. The uncle seated next to me pointed to the destruction and explained it like I hadn’t heard what happened.
When we arrived, we parked by an appliance store owned by another member of Ahmed’s family. Next we walked around the corner to an electronics shop filled with TVs (flatscreen and otherwise), cd players, laptops, telephones, and hangers out (people are always just sitting in shops, keeping the shopkeepers company, I guess). I was to wait in the shop.
Ahmed’s grandmother lives in the Ain Helweh refugee camp. Foreigners, even Lebanese, are not allowed. One of the shop’s hangers out was American.
After telling him what I was doing in Lebanon, I asked what brought him here.
“Stories,” he said with a shake of the head and slight sigh. Curious.
He was a Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia (I think, I kind of forgot by the end of our interaction) but had lived in Mobile, Alabama, 17 of his 21 years. He was less than forthcoming with details but had quite a story.
He’d arrived in Lebanon a month prior with his mom, dad and sister for a two-week visit. Recently his dad returned to the States with his green card for some reason he decided not to supply, brushing my inquiry off with, of all the lines, “it’s a long story.” I was sitting in a shop just hanging out. I had plenty of time. No dice.
He was not having a good time. He was missing a semester of school, surrounded by people he more or less disdained and not doing anything. He went to the American Embassy, his only day-trip to Beirut so far, and told them his wallet and green card were stolen, hoping this would work. He said he had to go back in a few days.
The shop worker (he was too young, probably my age or thereabouts, to be its keeper) ordered us a round of pineapple drinks in cans the width of a Red Bull and half an inch shorter. I assumed it was carbonated because I was warned not to shake it. There were pineapple chunks floating around inside. I had to tilt my head back and shake the can to get the last sweet remnants through the skinny mouth of the can.
“Trying to see if you got ‘em all?” my newfound southern friend asked as he noticed me angling the can, peering in with one eye closed.
Ahmed’s uncle treated our car to dinner at a falafel place well known (or so I’m told) in Saida. I decided to have what the three older men were having to drink – milk, I was told. It was a milky, very sour, yogurt drink. The first sip almost made me vomit because it was so thick, sour and far from what I expected to hit my tongue. I tried, but I couldn’t finish it. Not my cup of tea. I should’ve followed Ahmed’s lead on the Pepsi.
Ahmed was calling.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Matt, where are you?”
“I’m about 10 minutes away.” There aren’t bus stops, and I wasn’t exactly on a bus. There are buses, but I’d taken a mini-van. It wasn’t a Dodge Caravan-looking mini-van. It was a box with two rows of seating in the back and a row behind the front seats facing the back windshield. The man sitting next to me had a grocery bag with a banana and a dead pigeon. At least I think it was dead. It didn’t move or make any noise. It must have been dead. The mini-van dropped me a few blocks beyond where I wanted to go primarily because my, “here, please,” went unheeded the first two times.
“Do you want me to tell the taxi driver where to take you?”
“I’m on a bus. Well, I’m just getting off the bus,” I said while receiving my change.
“You’re sure you’re close?”
“I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”
Ahmed’s grandmother was sick, and he needed to go to Saida (Sidon), about half an hour south, to bring her medicine. He invited me. We had to wait for his sister to bring the car. While waiting, we sat with some old men and had an espresso. They asked where I was from, denouncing George Bush when they found out. Ahmed played the role of translator as the man who’d made our espresso talked about Bush destroying the Middle East and America in one fell swoop.
In the amount of time we spent waiting for the car, I could have gotten my interview. Finally, however, we were ready to go. Ahmed’s uncle pulled his car from it’s spot, got out and rolled a tall, skinny, hopefully empty gas container three-fourths of a car length behind a cinderblock along the wall where his car had been parked.
We piled in. I was sandwiched between Ahmed and a different uncle in the back of what’s comparable to a mid-80s, four-door Toyota. Not much room. A three-inch cut-out of Palestine hung from the rearview mirror like an air freshener.
His sister was nowhere to be found. His mom and another woman drove separately with two other men in a different car. I failed to see why Ahmed had to be one of the seven people going on this journey.
Many of the bridges destroyed over the summer aren’t fixed yet. You can see holes or lanes completely missing as you take the detour on dirt and gravel under the bridge. The uncle seated next to me pointed to the destruction and explained it like I hadn’t heard what happened.
When we arrived, we parked by an appliance store owned by another member of Ahmed’s family. Next we walked around the corner to an electronics shop filled with TVs (flatscreen and otherwise), cd players, laptops, telephones, and hangers out (people are always just sitting in shops, keeping the shopkeepers company, I guess). I was to wait in the shop.
Ahmed’s grandmother lives in the Ain Helweh refugee camp. Foreigners, even Lebanese, are not allowed. One of the shop’s hangers out was American.
After telling him what I was doing in Lebanon, I asked what brought him here.
“Stories,” he said with a shake of the head and slight sigh. Curious.
He was a Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia (I think, I kind of forgot by the end of our interaction) but had lived in Mobile, Alabama, 17 of his 21 years. He was less than forthcoming with details but had quite a story.
He’d arrived in Lebanon a month prior with his mom, dad and sister for a two-week visit. Recently his dad returned to the States with his green card for some reason he decided not to supply, brushing my inquiry off with, of all the lines, “it’s a long story.” I was sitting in a shop just hanging out. I had plenty of time. No dice.
He was not having a good time. He was missing a semester of school, surrounded by people he more or less disdained and not doing anything. He went to the American Embassy, his only day-trip to Beirut so far, and told them his wallet and green card were stolen, hoping this would work. He said he had to go back in a few days.
The shop worker (he was too young, probably my age or thereabouts, to be its keeper) ordered us a round of pineapple drinks in cans the width of a Red Bull and half an inch shorter. I assumed it was carbonated because I was warned not to shake it. There were pineapple chunks floating around inside. I had to tilt my head back and shake the can to get the last sweet remnants through the skinny mouth of the can.
“Trying to see if you got ‘em all?” my newfound southern friend asked as he noticed me angling the can, peering in with one eye closed.
Ahmed’s uncle treated our car to dinner at a falafel place well known (or so I’m told) in Saida. I decided to have what the three older men were having to drink – milk, I was told. It was a milky, very sour, yogurt drink. The first sip almost made me vomit because it was so thick, sour and far from what I expected to hit my tongue. I tried, but I couldn’t finish it. Not my cup of tea. I should’ve followed Ahmed’s lead on the Pepsi.
Workout at the Co-op
While perusing the shelves at a local grocery store (called "co-op," which my German roommate called "coop," like where chickens live, much to my amusement), I came across some cheap-brand Nutella. Always the scout for a deal, I liked the price but was a bit put off by the date stamped at the top: February 27. It was about the 3rd or 4th of March. At first I assumed this was an expiration date. When I returned the next day, I’d convinced myself it wasn’t. I approached the checkout counter and the foodstuff treadmill was rolling. A bug the size of a small cockroach was scuttling along, getting himself a workout. I looked from the bug to the cashier, back to the bug (noticing the cashier follow my glance), to the woman fumbling for change in her wallet in front of me, back to the cashier. I was apparently the only one slightly put off by the bug. The potentially expired “Nutella,” however, is excellent.
Team America
The map on BBC’s Web site showed Lebanon smack in the middle of the “optimum viewing” section for the lunar eclipse. The blurb promised color changes. This I had to see. Jules and I talked about getting out of the city. (There was already a loose plan in the works for renting a car with Dan just to leave Beirut for a day.)
Saturday afternoon seven of us piled into a GMC Envoy to spend the day in the mountains. The eclipse would begin around 20 minutes to 1 Sunday morning. Our first stop, about six blocks from Dan’s, was lunch at KFC. (A wealth of US fast food joints dot the city – Hardees, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, McDonalds, KFC.)
We headed south, past the mountains of rubble from the summer’s war collected along the coast just outside the city that painted the water a brown-tinted yellow. Soon we were climbing narrow, twisting roads headed up into the Chouf area of the Mount Lebanon range. People still drove at breakneck speed, passing and double passing around corners (even at night).
Our tour guide at the former presidential summer palace ushered us along at a clip. The next thing to show us was always better. By the time we reached the second room (of three), he decided to selectively allow photography – two pictures in this room.
But hurry, next is the best room. Indeed it was. All three of the rooms we saw were basically the same – large rooms with a U-shaped couch used for entertaining guests taking up 75% of the space. In the best room, however, the couches only ran along two walls. The base of the “U” replaced with a balcony enclosed in colored glass. From inside, one could see almost all of the stone palace’s grounds. Outsiders could not see in.
Heads of state met with Lebanon’s president in this room. Now, normally visitors aren’t allowed up the step to the area with the couches and balcony. We, somehow, were special. Taylor, who knew the most about Lebanese history, asking our guide very informed questions, even got to sit on a couch for a picture.
A quick jaunt through the Turkish baths, and that ends our tour. After touring the “gardens” (perhaps because it’s winter, there were no flowers) and a collection of elaborate and amazing mosaics, we piled back into our SUV.
Next a small mountain town seated atop a spring. Locals came to fill bottles and plastic gas cans at fountains along the main road. I wandered up seemingly never-ending stairs and ended up in someone’s backyard. Not much to see. Back to our beast.
We headed up. The cedar is Lebanon’s national tree. However, most of them are gone. There are a few reserves, and one is at the top of a mountain near the village we were leaving. On to the cedars, stopped briefly by a herd of goats crossing the road.
The reserve’s entrance gate was down. We parked and walked. The sun was about an hour and a half from slinking below the peaked horizon. Clouds hung in the distance. Standing on the empty road in complete silence, I felt out of place.
“Dan, go honk the horn.” (If there’s a bad, obvious joke to be made.)
We split up a bit. The road wound, presumably, to the top of the mountain. I raced up the loose gravel of the mountainside to the trees. For once they weren’t a symbol in the middle of the flag but an actual thing. I descended and found Dan on the side of the road throwing stones at a discarded scrap of wavy metal (the kind used to roof a shack).
I joined the game but was no MVP – throwing’s not really one of my talents. We walked a bit. To our left, the terrain solidified – a limestone rock face around 15 feet high. Dan started to climb, commenting on the good grips. I followed, still having a childish love for climbing things.
Near the top, that old familiar feeling. Right arm stretched just a little too far, I could feel it thinking of a prison break. I drew it closer as I imagined myself falling backwards onto the road. I hadn’t seen a hospital (or a sign pointing to one) since Beirut. Crisis averted. Time for a beer.
We walked right until reaching the gravel again before heading back to the road. Dan went forward to find Jules, I went back to find the rest of the team. We’d bought a six-pack in the town. It was locked in the car, and Dan handed me the keys.
The clouds rolled in around the time Dan and I stated climbing. As I walked back to the car, dark, smoky wisps crossed the road in front of me. Visibility was nil. The team was waiting – thirsty.
We piled in, turned on some music and had a drink. I don’t think anyone finished before we started driving.
Beirut is covered in flags and banners. Everywhere.
“The Druze aren’t really into flags,” a teammate, Miguel, commented. “It just looks like a place.” (The Chouf is a primarily Druze and Christian area. The Druze are an Islam off chute. They believe in all of the prophets of the Jewish/Christian/Muslim tradition and reincarnation. They do not have houses of worship. They do, however, have funny pants – like MC Hammer pants but only in the crotch. The leg part fits like normal, if a bit baggy, pants.)
For dinner, we drove back through Beirut to the northern town of Jbail (Byblos), home to a Phoenician harbor and ancient ruins closed for the night. (In Beirut, the ruins aren’t even sectioned off.) We opted for Mexican food.
“Do you have a reservation?” the host asked the 7 of us.
“No, no reservation,” Miguel said.
“But we have a Mexican,” someone in the back tried.
“Yeah, I’m a Mexican.”
Success.
The food was good, and the burrito was long enough but skinny as a Somali refugee. They brought us extra hot salsa that was actually spicy. (I was a little disappointed to be eating at a Mexican restaurant but they’ve all been here for 2 or more years at school and weren’t in the mood for Lebanese food.)
On to the hookah – called nargeelay here in Lebanon. (The “n” is either pronounced or not; it seems to be a choice you have.) The eclipse started as we sat outside puffing away, a tiny sliver still illuminated by the time we finished.
The dimmed moon looked smaller as the earth’s shadow moved across its surface (and I waved my hand in the air, pointed up and said, “Hey, look. I can see me”). With the sun’s light gone, a dim red began to spread. That was the only color, and it wasn’t that spectacular. Cool for sure but a little disappointing.
I was laying on a small wall beside the sea, barely hearing the waves over traffic and horns. One car kept driving back and forth, engine revving and tires squealing like it had something to prove.
Back to Beirut.
Saturday afternoon seven of us piled into a GMC Envoy to spend the day in the mountains. The eclipse would begin around 20 minutes to 1 Sunday morning. Our first stop, about six blocks from Dan’s, was lunch at KFC. (A wealth of US fast food joints dot the city – Hardees, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, McDonalds, KFC.)
We headed south, past the mountains of rubble from the summer’s war collected along the coast just outside the city that painted the water a brown-tinted yellow. Soon we were climbing narrow, twisting roads headed up into the Chouf area of the Mount Lebanon range. People still drove at breakneck speed, passing and double passing around corners (even at night).
Our tour guide at the former presidential summer palace ushered us along at a clip. The next thing to show us was always better. By the time we reached the second room (of three), he decided to selectively allow photography – two pictures in this room.
But hurry, next is the best room. Indeed it was. All three of the rooms we saw were basically the same – large rooms with a U-shaped couch used for entertaining guests taking up 75% of the space. In the best room, however, the couches only ran along two walls. The base of the “U” replaced with a balcony enclosed in colored glass. From inside, one could see almost all of the stone palace’s grounds. Outsiders could not see in.
Heads of state met with Lebanon’s president in this room. Now, normally visitors aren’t allowed up the step to the area with the couches and balcony. We, somehow, were special. Taylor, who knew the most about Lebanese history, asking our guide very informed questions, even got to sit on a couch for a picture.
A quick jaunt through the Turkish baths, and that ends our tour. After touring the “gardens” (perhaps because it’s winter, there were no flowers) and a collection of elaborate and amazing mosaics, we piled back into our SUV.
Next a small mountain town seated atop a spring. Locals came to fill bottles and plastic gas cans at fountains along the main road. I wandered up seemingly never-ending stairs and ended up in someone’s backyard. Not much to see. Back to our beast.
We headed up. The cedar is Lebanon’s national tree. However, most of them are gone. There are a few reserves, and one is at the top of a mountain near the village we were leaving. On to the cedars, stopped briefly by a herd of goats crossing the road.
The reserve’s entrance gate was down. We parked and walked. The sun was about an hour and a half from slinking below the peaked horizon. Clouds hung in the distance. Standing on the empty road in complete silence, I felt out of place.
“Dan, go honk the horn.” (If there’s a bad, obvious joke to be made.)
We split up a bit. The road wound, presumably, to the top of the mountain. I raced up the loose gravel of the mountainside to the trees. For once they weren’t a symbol in the middle of the flag but an actual thing. I descended and found Dan on the side of the road throwing stones at a discarded scrap of wavy metal (the kind used to roof a shack).
I joined the game but was no MVP – throwing’s not really one of my talents. We walked a bit. To our left, the terrain solidified – a limestone rock face around 15 feet high. Dan started to climb, commenting on the good grips. I followed, still having a childish love for climbing things.
Near the top, that old familiar feeling. Right arm stretched just a little too far, I could feel it thinking of a prison break. I drew it closer as I imagined myself falling backwards onto the road. I hadn’t seen a hospital (or a sign pointing to one) since Beirut. Crisis averted. Time for a beer.
We walked right until reaching the gravel again before heading back to the road. Dan went forward to find Jules, I went back to find the rest of the team. We’d bought a six-pack in the town. It was locked in the car, and Dan handed me the keys.
The clouds rolled in around the time Dan and I stated climbing. As I walked back to the car, dark, smoky wisps crossed the road in front of me. Visibility was nil. The team was waiting – thirsty.
We piled in, turned on some music and had a drink. I don’t think anyone finished before we started driving.
Beirut is covered in flags and banners. Everywhere.
“The Druze aren’t really into flags,” a teammate, Miguel, commented. “It just looks like a place.” (The Chouf is a primarily Druze and Christian area. The Druze are an Islam off chute. They believe in all of the prophets of the Jewish/Christian/Muslim tradition and reincarnation. They do not have houses of worship. They do, however, have funny pants – like MC Hammer pants but only in the crotch. The leg part fits like normal, if a bit baggy, pants.)
For dinner, we drove back through Beirut to the northern town of Jbail (Byblos), home to a Phoenician harbor and ancient ruins closed for the night. (In Beirut, the ruins aren’t even sectioned off.) We opted for Mexican food.
“Do you have a reservation?” the host asked the 7 of us.
“No, no reservation,” Miguel said.
“But we have a Mexican,” someone in the back tried.
“Yeah, I’m a Mexican.”
Success.
The food was good, and the burrito was long enough but skinny as a Somali refugee. They brought us extra hot salsa that was actually spicy. (I was a little disappointed to be eating at a Mexican restaurant but they’ve all been here for 2 or more years at school and weren’t in the mood for Lebanese food.)
On to the hookah – called nargeelay here in Lebanon. (The “n” is either pronounced or not; it seems to be a choice you have.) The eclipse started as we sat outside puffing away, a tiny sliver still illuminated by the time we finished.
The dimmed moon looked smaller as the earth’s shadow moved across its surface (and I waved my hand in the air, pointed up and said, “Hey, look. I can see me”). With the sun’s light gone, a dim red began to spread. That was the only color, and it wasn’t that spectacular. Cool for sure but a little disappointing.
I was laying on a small wall beside the sea, barely hearing the waves over traffic and horns. One car kept driving back and forth, engine revving and tires squealing like it had something to prove.
Back to Beirut.
Might as well try
Most of the shops around are closed by around 8 p.m. I wanted to buy some bread one evening but didn’t want to hike to the supermarket four or five blocks away. I figured I could find something near my house so I set off on a small journey.
I kind of poked my head into the open door of a pharmacy, glancing around just in case. The pharmacist gave me a curious look. I like having the chance to explain myself when I do something I know looks odd. We’d made eye contact so I decided to just step in and get absolute confirmation on my suspicions. I didn’t see bread when I glanced, but I also couldn’t see the whole store.
The pharmacist stood as I entered and shook his head, holding his hands palms up, a bit out from his chest, in a “how-can-I-help-you” way.
“Hubus?” I said. He face bunched in a quizzical stare.
“Hbus?” I said, worried I’d mispronounced it.
“Bread? You want bread? This is a pharmacy,” he said in English.
I shrugged. “It was worth a shot,” I said more to myself as I walked out.
I kind of poked my head into the open door of a pharmacy, glancing around just in case. The pharmacist gave me a curious look. I like having the chance to explain myself when I do something I know looks odd. We’d made eye contact so I decided to just step in and get absolute confirmation on my suspicions. I didn’t see bread when I glanced, but I also couldn’t see the whole store.
The pharmacist stood as I entered and shook his head, holding his hands palms up, a bit out from his chest, in a “how-can-I-help-you” way.
“Hubus?” I said. He face bunched in a quizzical stare.
“Hbus?” I said, worried I’d mispronounced it.
“Bread? You want bread? This is a pharmacy,” he said in English.
I shrugged. “It was worth a shot,” I said more to myself as I walked out.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Hezbollah art show redux
As I sought information about the art show before I left with none, a few people told me to return the next day (Friday) at 3. Again, I arrived to find no one who spoke English well enough to explain things to me. So I just wandered the space wondering what to do.
The exhibition was laid out on the basketball court and some extra floor space. It was decorated like a military compound – fake rockets, soldiers, and a rocket-equipped truck meshed with the real camouflage nets, helmets, military backpacks, binoculars and boots.
The art was even more militant.
Most of the pieces were drawings in crayon, marker or pencil on regular sheets of paper. They lined all but one wall and were displayed on two 7-foot, A-shaped constructs on the basketball floor. There were some larger works. A few incorporated tissue paper. The wall behind where one of the baskets would have been featured 6’x3’ painted foam canvases with various things glued to them for a 3-D effect.
Several dioramas peppered the floor. I soon learned Hezbollah ran the school and commissioned children in its 14 to express their feelings about last summer’s war through art.
The first piece I really looked at showed two Israeli soldiers (recognizable by the Star of David on their helmets and shoulders) carrying a stretcher with a bloodied comrade missing half an arm. A fourth followed behind on crutches, blood pouring from his leg.
Images of death were everywhere. These kids (ranging in age from 6 to 13) clearly bought into the argument that Hezbollah won the war. Israeli gunboats burned or sank as soldiers floated in the water or lay bleeding on deck. Israeli soldiers ran in fear from Lebanese territory.
But the destruction wrought on Lebanon did not go unrecorded. Israeli warplanes dropped bombs with “USA” or “Amarica” written on the side. One thoughtful piece was a Star of David with a skull in the middle. The skull’s outstretched tongue was the American flag with a car colored like Lebanon’s flag headed from the tip into the skull’s mouth. Black and white photocopied pictures of Condeleezza Rice, George W. Bush, and four pro-American Lebanese politicians were pasted at the star’s six points.
The opposition despises Condi. Another, more clearly childish, crayon drawing had her stabbing a dove.
“She kills the peace,” a woman who speaks English and approached me as I roamed the space told me.
A few teachers and small children from a different school dropped by to see the art. One of the teachers started talking to me, offering to explain things. The children were enamored with me. They surrounded me, asking me all sorts of questions in English – amazed when I’d ask their names in Arabic, snickering when I’d mispronounce words.
(Kids learn English in school and often speak more than their parents.)
We (the teacher answering my questions and the flock of children staring at me) stopped by a diorama of a bombed-out city. Buildings of cardboard colored in crayon stood on streets of sand and small rocks. The metal frames of Matchbox cars littered the streets, and the buildings were crudely torn in half. It was a spot-on recreation of a rubble-strewn block pounded by war. A sign off to the left said, in English, “Made in USA.”
A colleague of the woman I was talking to, who didn’t speak English, started talking to the kids. “Assif,” I’m sorry, she said to me.
“Assif, assif,” I said back.
One little girl came up to me from the crowd of children.
“Are you with Israel, with America, or are you with us?”
Thanks for putting me on the spot, kid. Realistically, my own opinions aside, there was only one answer. I wonder if I’d said Israel and America whether this small mob of little girls would have come at me in a flurry of feet and tiny fists.
The exhibition was laid out on the basketball court and some extra floor space. It was decorated like a military compound – fake rockets, soldiers, and a rocket-equipped truck meshed with the real camouflage nets, helmets, military backpacks, binoculars and boots.
The art was even more militant.
Most of the pieces were drawings in crayon, marker or pencil on regular sheets of paper. They lined all but one wall and were displayed on two 7-foot, A-shaped constructs on the basketball floor. There were some larger works. A few incorporated tissue paper. The wall behind where one of the baskets would have been featured 6’x3’ painted foam canvases with various things glued to them for a 3-D effect.
Several dioramas peppered the floor. I soon learned Hezbollah ran the school and commissioned children in its 14 to express their feelings about last summer’s war through art.
The first piece I really looked at showed two Israeli soldiers (recognizable by the Star of David on their helmets and shoulders) carrying a stretcher with a bloodied comrade missing half an arm. A fourth followed behind on crutches, blood pouring from his leg.
Images of death were everywhere. These kids (ranging in age from 6 to 13) clearly bought into the argument that Hezbollah won the war. Israeli gunboats burned or sank as soldiers floated in the water or lay bleeding on deck. Israeli soldiers ran in fear from Lebanese territory.
But the destruction wrought on Lebanon did not go unrecorded. Israeli warplanes dropped bombs with “USA” or “Amarica” written on the side. One thoughtful piece was a Star of David with a skull in the middle. The skull’s outstretched tongue was the American flag with a car colored like Lebanon’s flag headed from the tip into the skull’s mouth. Black and white photocopied pictures of Condeleezza Rice, George W. Bush, and four pro-American Lebanese politicians were pasted at the star’s six points.
The opposition despises Condi. Another, more clearly childish, crayon drawing had her stabbing a dove.
“She kills the peace,” a woman who speaks English and approached me as I roamed the space told me.
A few teachers and small children from a different school dropped by to see the art. One of the teachers started talking to me, offering to explain things. The children were enamored with me. They surrounded me, asking me all sorts of questions in English – amazed when I’d ask their names in Arabic, snickering when I’d mispronounce words.
(Kids learn English in school and often speak more than their parents.)
We (the teacher answering my questions and the flock of children staring at me) stopped by a diorama of a bombed-out city. Buildings of cardboard colored in crayon stood on streets of sand and small rocks. The metal frames of Matchbox cars littered the streets, and the buildings were crudely torn in half. It was a spot-on recreation of a rubble-strewn block pounded by war. A sign off to the left said, in English, “Made in USA.”
A colleague of the woman I was talking to, who didn’t speak English, started talking to the kids. “Assif,” I’m sorry, she said to me.
“Assif, assif,” I said back.
One little girl came up to me from the crowd of children.
“Are you with Israel, with America, or are you with us?”
Thanks for putting me on the spot, kid. Realistically, my own opinions aside, there was only one answer. I wonder if I’d said Israel and America whether this small mob of little girls would have come at me in a flurry of feet and tiny fists.
Hezbollah art show
My second assignment for The Daily Star took me to a school in one of Beirut’s southern suburbs. I was covering the opening of an art exhibition. I knew the art was produced by children and the event was sponsored by one of Hezbollah’s politicians. I descended into the school’s basement.
From the stairs there was a wide aisle curtains that ran about 50 feet on each side. Bottles of juice and cookies sat in neat circular clusters on tables along each side of the aisle. At the end of the aisle, the curtains turned, enclosing areas of the 5-story school’s enormous basement. To the left, the curtained enclosure was small. It ran to the side of a stage about one-quarter of the room away.
To the right, the curtain turned and ran about 50 feet turning again and running the width of the room, making the shape of an “L” with half it’s base amputated. It created the back wall of the open area with about 500 green plastic chairs placed in rows in front of the stage. I took a seat.
People streamed in, and it became clear the 4 o’clock start time would not be strictly adhered to. I got up and stared counting chairs.
“Hello, can I help you?” a man in a suit asked, smiling at me. I told him I was with the paper and had come for the exhibit. I first assumed he worked there. In fact, he was just an attendee who spoke English and wanted to help the one person there who looked, “different.”
He offered to sit with me. Two aisles divided the seating into four sections. I sat us down in the first row of the back section nearest the stairs. People continued to enter, and the place was filling up. I realized the men were only sitting in the section in front of us. The others were filled with women and children. Women were walking down the aisle past of my friend and I to find seating.
He tapped me on the shoulder and made a “let’s go” gesture, pointing toward seating in the section with all the men.
“I think we’re in the women’s way,” he said, referring, it seemed, to the people walking down the aisle past us with plenty of room to maneuver, not wanting to directly acknowledge the segregation nor find himself sitting in the wrong place.
Soon a man took the stage to recite from the Koran, followed by a small girl reciting a poem and then a man talking about something, presumably just an introduction for the politician who several men stood and bowed for as he walked from his seat in the front row near the middle of the stage.
During the poem, someone who either worked there or was in charge of crowd control came up to talk to my friend. Soon we were standing in the smaller curtained-off where the man kept asking if I had a journalist’s credential card. I handed him the letter addressed “To whom it may concern,” that identified me simply as “the holder of this letter,” an intern.
The man was not satisfied. My friend spoke with him for a while and kept turning back to me asking if I had the card. (He didn’t seem to know what the man was asking for exactly. I knew. It’s the official journalist identification card I can’t seem to get my hands on.)
I pointed to the managing editor’s phone number at the bottom of my letter and told my friend they speak Arabic. We were allowed to take our seats, and the man reappeared in about 10 minutes to give my letter back.
My friend translated some of the politician’s speech but fell silent around the time I heard “Amreeka” mentioned a few times. Later he apologized for his silence, saying he didn’t know the English for everything the politician said.
Onto the art. Organizers opened the curtain along the short base of the “L” and people poured in. I took my time getting in, and my friend started talking to people he knew. He’d offered to help me talk to people, get some information as to what this art exhibition was all about.
As I was walking into the exhibition space, he placed a hand on my shoulder and told me he’d be right back. I saw him briefly in the crowd 10 minutes later as I looked at the giant collection, but then he disappeared. I found no other English speakers and returned to the paper with nothing more than descriptions of children’s art.
From the stairs there was a wide aisle curtains that ran about 50 feet on each side. Bottles of juice and cookies sat in neat circular clusters on tables along each side of the aisle. At the end of the aisle, the curtains turned, enclosing areas of the 5-story school’s enormous basement. To the left, the curtained enclosure was small. It ran to the side of a stage about one-quarter of the room away.
To the right, the curtain turned and ran about 50 feet turning again and running the width of the room, making the shape of an “L” with half it’s base amputated. It created the back wall of the open area with about 500 green plastic chairs placed in rows in front of the stage. I took a seat.
People streamed in, and it became clear the 4 o’clock start time would not be strictly adhered to. I got up and stared counting chairs.
“Hello, can I help you?” a man in a suit asked, smiling at me. I told him I was with the paper and had come for the exhibit. I first assumed he worked there. In fact, he was just an attendee who spoke English and wanted to help the one person there who looked, “different.”
He offered to sit with me. Two aisles divided the seating into four sections. I sat us down in the first row of the back section nearest the stairs. People continued to enter, and the place was filling up. I realized the men were only sitting in the section in front of us. The others were filled with women and children. Women were walking down the aisle past of my friend and I to find seating.
He tapped me on the shoulder and made a “let’s go” gesture, pointing toward seating in the section with all the men.
“I think we’re in the women’s way,” he said, referring, it seemed, to the people walking down the aisle past us with plenty of room to maneuver, not wanting to directly acknowledge the segregation nor find himself sitting in the wrong place.
Soon a man took the stage to recite from the Koran, followed by a small girl reciting a poem and then a man talking about something, presumably just an introduction for the politician who several men stood and bowed for as he walked from his seat in the front row near the middle of the stage.
During the poem, someone who either worked there or was in charge of crowd control came up to talk to my friend. Soon we were standing in the smaller curtained-off where the man kept asking if I had a journalist’s credential card. I handed him the letter addressed “To whom it may concern,” that identified me simply as “the holder of this letter,” an intern.
The man was not satisfied. My friend spoke with him for a while and kept turning back to me asking if I had the card. (He didn’t seem to know what the man was asking for exactly. I knew. It’s the official journalist identification card I can’t seem to get my hands on.)
I pointed to the managing editor’s phone number at the bottom of my letter and told my friend they speak Arabic. We were allowed to take our seats, and the man reappeared in about 10 minutes to give my letter back.
My friend translated some of the politician’s speech but fell silent around the time I heard “Amreeka” mentioned a few times. Later he apologized for his silence, saying he didn’t know the English for everything the politician said.
Onto the art. Organizers opened the curtain along the short base of the “L” and people poured in. I took my time getting in, and my friend started talking to people he knew. He’d offered to help me talk to people, get some information as to what this art exhibition was all about.
As I was walking into the exhibition space, he placed a hand on my shoulder and told me he’d be right back. I saw him briefly in the crowd 10 minutes later as I looked at the giant collection, but then he disappeared. I found no other English speakers and returned to the paper with nothing more than descriptions of children’s art.
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