Living Sabra and Shatila...

2 pm…

Sweltering heat…

Sabra and Shatila.

We swapped Beirut’s Corniche into an other face of the Lebanese capital: the refugees’ camps.

As our bus drop us out at the entrance of the Camp, I was surprised to see a happy crowd waiting for us, braving the blistering heat and gathering all around the Ghobeiry Municipality modest square, erected in memory of the victims of Sabra and Shatila’s massacres.

Nothing fancy…No names engraved in marble, no benches, no rose-bushes…just a few fluffs of shriveled up grass, 3 posters with horrible pictures of the massacres and a date…1982…

The Palestinian refugees living in Sabra and Shatila seemed extremely happy to see us: men with Keffiehs (Palestinian traditional white and black scarves), women with lovely black and red embroidered dresses (typical from Palestine too) and hundreds of kids togged up in their nicest outfits, running all around us, offering flowers and laughing in a frenetic concert of “Where are you from?”

When asked the same question back, they all had the same answer: “Palestine!” and could name their home villages and even sometimes the neighborhoods, which I found quite interesting. Those kids were born in Lebanon, they belong to the 3rd or 4th generation of descendants of 1948 Palestinian refugees and they have never seen Palestine.
And yet…they still call it home and proudly claim that they shall definitely come back “mahma tala azzaman” (no matter how long it takes)

Touching…

Especially knowing that in all Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the question of Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right to return has always been a bone of contention, as soon after 1948, Israel passed a law forbidding Palestinians’ return, and assigning all their land holdings to a custodian of absentee property (!!!!!!!!!)

I have discussed several times this issue with Israeli friends and found myself often confronted to 2 types of reactions:

- Either a strong denial, claiming that this would be the end of the Jewish state. In fact, the large numbers of refugees (1948 refugees’ descendants number around 5 million today), together with the much higher birth-rate of the Arab population as opposed to Jews, would soon create an Arab majority in Israel and the country would loose its “Jewish specificity”.

- or a more moderate speech, recognizing the tragedy of 700 000 Palestinian women, men an children expelled from their lands in 1948 but considering other solutions to the problem, such as an official recognition of Israel’s exactions in 1948 with public excuses and possibly financial compensations for land dispossession.

But Palestinians’ aspirations to go back keep growing, and their hopes never fade away, as this poem of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish tells…

“I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....”

I asked one of the teenagers who was proudly lifting a Palestinian flag and making a “V” sign with his fore and middle fingers: “What makes you sure that you will come back?”
He seemed surprised by my question.
Despite their terrible living conditions in Sabra and Shatila, there is no room for doubts or discouragement.

"Like the day always succeeds to the night,he said,the return always succeeds to the exile"

And he added, with a sad smile:

“At the moment, Palestine lives in us, until we get to live in it again, someday…”

Time to leave.

I didn't want to leave.

Sabra and Shatila are often described as "places you don't want to see".
But for some reason,many of us wanted to see more...to hear more...and to let those have-nots of History feel that there are people who still care about their fate.

Our bus team had lost all his enthusiasm on the way back to the hotel.
No socializing, no singing, no gossiping...Everyone was quiet and pensive.

I couldn't stop thinking about the kids' smiles and unwavering confidence in their return to Palestine someday.

Someday...Like the day succeeds to the night...

Party - Lebanese Way :-)

Back to Beirut’s glossy neighbourhoods…

Despite 17 years of fratricide war (1975-92), a back and forth military occupation by both Syria and Israel and a country currently made into a puzzle by the different political parties, Lebanese people are still famous for their unshakable will to enjoy life and Beirut hosts one of the most vibrant and original nightlife in the Arab world.

Gemayzeh street.

Previously named Rue Gouraud (after the French general), it has become the new “place to be” in Beirut, with its lovely mid-50ies stone buildings, colourful shops and stylish pubs. Dozens of cars are queuing up to get into the narrow street, merrily honking every now an then and droping off hundreds of revelers dressed up in an impressive show of fancy fashion designers, reminding me of some “hot” spots of Casablanca.
Brazilian clubs, French bistros, Jazz bars, Tapas taverns, Arguilé cafés and many other nightlife little wonders are lining up along the street, featuring some very funny/weird(?) names such as “Le Perroquet bourré” (the drunk parrot”),“Gauche-caviar” (the Caviar-Left, in reference to very liberal/capitalist left-wing political movements) or “Barbu” (the Bearded) etc. Gemayzeh definitely deserves its “Little Soho by the Sea” nickname, lending itself perfectly to the Spanish party-way "Marcha": one drink here, one other there, until the sunrise.

After a nice diner and "Drinks-round 1" at Le Petit Café, we happily decided to start off the Marcha at a Jazz bar.
Stone walls, wooden benches, leather couches (for a few lucky ones), red ambience - very East Village-style - and a dangerously HOT singer (right, chicas?) that made us immediately renounce to the “Marcha”...
Official excuse: overtiredness of course ;-)

Watching Beirutis’ party-way confirms the famous French adage “Tell me how you party, I’ll tell you who you are”. Lebanese people do everything with EXCESS. They drive like crazy, dress excessively posh, party hard, laugh loud, drink heavy, dance till they drop and have a huge thirst for fun, totally understandable in a country torn by political unrest for decades.
In Morocco, since Casablanca’s suicide-attempts in May 2003, the merest rumour of a terrorist attack or a simple security alert in a club would keep everybody at home for weeks and weeks. In Lebanon, instability has become part of people’s daily life and not only no one cares anymore, but the feeling that one might loose everything at any time has given them an unmeasured passion for life...which they just decided to live day-to-day, enjoying every single moment of it.
I was even told that it’s been quite common in the past to have them hit the clubs in one part of the city while bombs were hitting another…

Sacré Lebanon!

Mount Lebanon

Mount Lebanon has historically defined Lebanon.

Its snowy peaks have given the country its name “Lebanon”, from “Laban” which means “white” in Aramaic (a Semitic language still spoken in some parts of the Middle East) and many patriotic songs refer to the white mount as a symbol of the country.

We arrived to Baakleen, lovely town in the Shouf Mountains, a district of Mount Lebanon governorate.
Birth place of Emir Fakhereddine Al Maani, who founded “Lubnan el Kebir", (the Great Lebanon) and fief of Lebanese Druzes (a Muslim minority) and Christians, this lovely town stands proudly on the Mount, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

After a yummy home-made breakfast prepared by local women (oregano and paprika bread, olive oil and goat cheese), and a warm welcome speech from the Mayor of the city, we started the ride through the mountains.

Mediterranean mountain villages have all this “little something” in common, and cycling through Lebanon’s mounts, I felt several times that I could have been anywhere in Spanish Alpujarras or Moroccan Rif. White houses with flowery balconies and charming orchards, small stone-built churches with red bricks rooftops, little ceramic fountains plazas and olive and pine woods between villages…What an amazing feeling of tranquillity and security, as opposed to Beirut’s hustle and bustle and endless security check points!

The region seemed totally spared by the climate of political instability and a group of over 250 women passing by cycling was definitely an uncommon event that brought out of their houses many people: women, men, old, children, youth, waving to us and hailing “Marhaba!” (Welcome!).
I was touched by the many shops’ owners leaving spontaneously their counters and standing at the edge of the road, offering us juice, fruits and candies. What a good excuse to stop a little bit (especially in uphills!), rise up our glycaemia and have a quick chat with Druze people.

This curious Muslim community has principles that are greatly influenced by Greek, Sufi and Gnostic philosophies and claim to be a reformatory sect, rejecting traditional religious practices and privileging spirituality. They follow the Sunni train of thought on history and their principles focus on honesty, loyalty and altruism. They’re known far and wide for their hospitality and warm welcome of visitors to whom the doors of any Druze home, wealthy or modest, should always be open.

A few “improvised” stops, yummy snacks and little chats later, I realized that I was running far behind my cycling mates and decided to speed up a bit, responding (with regrets!) to many other invitations to fruits/candies/juice-stops by polite “Yaatekom el Afieh” (May God give you good health).

A little after we passed Sheheem, where local NGOs welcomed us with more sweets and the traditional Lebanese Dabkeh (a Middle Eastern dance in circle), and in a totally unexpected steep slope, my bike’s fore tyre went down and I had my first fall off.
Nothing serious, just a few scratches and a sour ankle but Jawad our “Beirut by bike” team boss was firm: no more cycling for me today, I had to join the little emergency-minibus… :-(

By the beginning of the afternoon, we reached Jiyyeh, a seaside town famous for hosting the country’s largest power station. This power station, along with the nearby bridge connecting Beirut to the south of Lebanon was severely bombed by Israel in the July 2006 attack and the resulting oil spill released over 16000 tons of crude oil into the Mediterranean sea, destroying marine life along Jiyyeh’s coast and reaching as far north as Syria and Turkey…

The vision of the disemboweled cooling towers brought us back to Lebanon’s reality of constant instability and frequent wars, after a short break in the peaceful and quiet environment of Mount Lebanon.

But the multiple cranes and concrete blocks’ transporters around the bridge - which reconstruction is almost finished - showed an other reality…the one of a country challenging wars and instability and never ever saying die :-)

Riding the Beqaa Valley...

An other beautiful sunny day!

My face and shoulders have already suffered a few sunburns from the past days cycling and my sunglasses have left horrible tan marks on my face: very red nose and cheeks and very white circles around my eyes.
“Pray not to meet the man of your life today!” joked one of the chicas.
Oh he’d better not show up today if he doesn’t want to take to his heels…Even my super-powerful Glam Bronze powder has become helpless!
But then...if he’s really “the man of my life”, shouldn’t he love me just the way I am? With my sunburns, red nose and horrible tan marks?
Girls’ morning talks :-)
My chica pointed at her watch to stop my romantic thinking: we were late (as usual).
“You will have plenty of time to elaborate on the “man of your life” theory while riding through the Beqaa Valley today!”

Lebanon’s major farming region and agricultural source, the Beqaa Valley is famous for its vineyards and some of its wineries’ history goes back as far as 6000 years.

We started the ride from Kab Elias, the 3rd most important city of the Beqaa after Zahlé and Baalbek and a clearly pro-March 14 Alliance town, with blue ribbons (the emblematic colour of the movement) and portraits of former Sunni Prime Minister Rafic El Hariri everywhere.Politics again!

We enjoyed an other yummy home-made breakfast prepared by Kab Elias women, a Dabkeh spectacle performed by children (the population of Kab Elias is very young, 60% are under 25) and…a 150 women-line to get to the bathroom!
One of the local women came to invite me for coffee at her place in a very rudimentary English - which I found so cute! - and when I responded in Arabic and told her that I was an Arab, she hugged me and insisted that I come. “ Haidi ussulna” she said (These are our traditions). I would have gladly accepted if I didn’t have 60 km cycling ahead and after some tough negotiations to decline the invitation, she got me promise her to visit her house whenever I come back to Kab Elias.

I had made so many friends this way during my previous trips to the Middle East and recall particularly this Palestinian family in one of Jerash refugees’ camps in Jordan. I was travelling alone from Amman to Jerash to visit the Roman city ruins and sat by their daughter in the bus. She first thought I was a foreigner and started struggling with the few English words that she knew to hold a decent conversation. I was amused by her efforts and let her practice a few minutes before I switched to Middle Eastern Arabic and told her hat I was from Morocco.
Hospitality is not a random nice Arab tradition. It is a cultural must and every Arab should honour “Abir a’ssabil” (the visitor) and offer him/her meal and shelter, no matter how modest they are. My bus-mate invited me to share their lunch, called up the extended family (her siblings, aunts and cousins) to come over for tea and meet the “Moroccan guest”, and took me with a dozen of her relatives to visit the Roman city.
I first felt a bit embarrassed and though I was originally planning to spend a quite afternoon meditating between Jerash ruins, far from Amman’s hectic and cosmopolitan way of life, I found myself surrounded by a happy noisy little crowd, who had mobilized the whole afternoon to take care of me. So nice to feel like a little princess, be it for a short afternoon :-)

One of the Danish cycling mates who saw the whole negotiation process with the Kab Elias lady smiled to me and said: “In this region, loneliness has no room!”. She was so right.

The Beqaa villages are scattered between olive groves, wheat fields and huge vineyards, and the whole valley is surrounded by snow-capped mountains’ peaks of the Anti-Lebanon mountains range on the one side, and Mount Lebanon’s on the other, giving it a little air of Moroccan Atlas (without Marrakesh’s palm trees though)

Very pleasant ride and lovely sceneries but a bit less fun than yesterday, as most of it was on countryside roads, outside the villages and with no contact with the people (and no fruits/juice or candies’ invitations :-)

Poetry at Chateau Kefraya

We reached the Chateau Kefraya domain, one of the renown vineyards in Lebanon, and as most my cycling-mates rushed to stock up on dry fruits, gracefully offered by our winemaker host in pretty baskets, I obviously skipped (hate dry fruits!) and went straight to the wine tasting tent, where I enjoyed a quite substantive aperitif :-)

Back to the Chateau’s main tent, I met with the Iranian team and as soon as I pronounced my family name - Khachani (which means “from the city of Khashan” in both Arabic and Farsi) - I got an official and unanimous approval on my Persian origins and an extremely interesting lecture on Kashan’s history and architecture:

Located in the province of Isfahan, Kashan was one of the primary centres of civilization, more than 7000 years back. It is famous worldwide for its silk and carpet factories, its rubies’ shops and its architectural masterpieces, such as the Tabatabei house and the Aga Bozorg Mosque. It is also known as one of the most traditional and conservative cities in Iran. The contrary would have surprised me…Apparently, conservatism in my father’s family has far reaching origins! :-)

“Do you like poetry? asked one of the Iranian girls. You MUST like poetry! Kashan is home to one of Iran’s foremost modern poets! His name is Sohrab Sepehri.”

You got me there lady… How can I not like when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found its most subtle wording? Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn. It is not a thing we see - it is a light by which we may see - and what we see is Life.
Poetry is just the evidence of Immaterial Life...Life in its most beautiful expression...How can I not like it?

And if Kashan is home to poetry, then it is definitely our hometown!

The Iranian mate started telling me some of Sepehri’s verses, trying somehow or other to translate from Farsi to English but even though I couldn’t grasp much of it, I could capture a bit of the beauty of Sepehri’s poetry. After all, Alfred Houseman was right when he said that it may be inadvisable to draw out the meaning of poetry…Perfect understanding sometimes almost extinguishes pleasure. As Sepehri said:

We are not to comprehend;
The secret of roses, but maybe
Swimming in the incantation of roses

Thinking Love at the Beqaa

I don’t know if it was the wine or the poetry but as we left Chateau Kefraya and started cycling again, my mind got back to my early-morning meditation on “the man/woman of one’s life”.

The idea of having “one person meant for you” is quite tempting. I know it sounds terribly fogy but I kind of like Plato’s theory of 2 humans originally combined split in half and condemned to spend their lives searching for each other.
Life would then be the restless quest for this one-and-only half of one's soul. And when you meet, you just feel a magnetic pull towards one another, nothing words or reason could ever explain, it’s just there…an indefinable chemistry and the deep feeling of belonging together.
What a beautiful feeling…
New York City …3 years back…One of my Iranian-French flatmates (Iranian again, what a coincidence!) was describing to me her soul-mate experience. She said “We didn’t need to talk, we were above words. Our skins were talking for us, it’s just like if they had recognized each other”. It sounded like a fairy tale…the fairy tale everyone wishes to live.

But then…what if you never meet THAT person?
What if you never experience THAT chemistry and feeling of belonging?
And what if you do, but a person who seemed “meant for you” at some point of your life doesn’t seem so anymore at an other point? Wouldn’t it be limiting to think that you could experience the soul-mate thing only once in your life?

Human mind is not a static thing; it keeps evolving, shaped by life experiences. Isn’t it the same with love? Aren’t we able to love different people, differently, and at different stages of our lives? Or do we love different people but always keep that unique soul-mate-type-of-love for ONE person, just like Fernando Ariza - the hero of Garcia Marquez's novel "Love in the time of Cholera" - loved Fermina Daza, (his adolescence crush) 51 years, 9 month and one day, despite the many many women who crossed his life...

I still remember the first guy I “loved” :-) I was 8 years-old and he was 10. He was French and his name was Gabriel. God I LOOOOOVED HIM!!! I would always join the “catch me if you can” team at recess and spend it running after him…Of course, I never told him anything (what the hell would an 8-years-old girly tell a 10-years-old boy!) and the following year, his father got a job somewhere else and they left Fez…Destiny brought Gabriel back on my path a few years after: I was 15 and when I talked to him, I immediately realized that if we had met later, not only would I have never fallen in love with him but I would have probably never even looked at him. He became one of those hippy pot-smokers and heavy metal lovers…So not my type :-)

I know an 8-years-old crush can't really be considered as "love" but isn't love at the end a matter of timing?
Or would your soul-mate, the “one-and-only”, be above time-considerations?


....


The road to Rashaya, little town on the mountain top, was getting more and more difficult. Sinuous up hills had succeeded to the flat road and I had to get off my bike several times and walk it up.I was exhausted, thirsty, hungry (yes it happens!) and could barely wave to the villagers who came to greet us.

We finally reached charming Rashaya, at the foothills of snow-capped Mount Hermon. Rashaya is a mostly Christian and Druze mountain town, with typical red brick rooftops houses and tiny streets, and is famous for its local jewellery factories and shops.
According to Deuteronomy 3:8, Mount Hermon served as the northern boundary of the Promised Land. It was also a possible site of the “Transfiguration”, where Jesus took his disciples, Peter, James and John for prayer and conversed with Moses and Elijah, who had appeared beside him.

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!

After what seemed to me to be the yummiest meal ever (nothing special though, the usual Lebanse Mezze and rice with meat), I took a little walk around with one of the chicas and two Turkish mates and stopped by a terrace, with a great view of majestic Mount Hermon.

Since the 6-Days war in 1967, the southern slopes of Mount Hermon have been occupied by Israel and unilaterally annexed in 1981, along with the Syrian Golan heights. This sector of the Mount is believed to be heavily patrolled by the Israeli Forces, as it is a strategic observation post for monitoring Syrian and Lebanese military activity.

It seemed to me that no matter how far could one go, the conflicts of the region would always pop up,often unexpectedly, like in this quiet and charming little mountain town.

It was getting dark and quite chilly. Time to leave…

The Civil war...

May 6th

The Lebanese government decided to suspend Beirut airport security chief Wafiq Shqeir for “alleged ties to Hezbollah” and declared the Shiite militia’s private communications network to be illegal.
Hezbollah denounced the government’s decisions, claiming that its private network was essential to its resistance against Israel in the south and took control over the main roads of the capital in protest, blocking the way to the airport and shutting it down.
This coincided with a strike originally called by labour unions to protest against the government’s economic policies and to demand pay raises and the strike quickly escalated into street battles between supporters of the government and Hezbollah militants…

“It looks like the civil war has definitely started…” said one of the Lebanese mates.

I came to the Middle East to see what it was like to live in this powder keg, and political troubles had to be part of the experience. Surprisingly, I wasn’t really preoccupied by my own situation as a foreigner trapped in this time bomb, where any random little incident seemed to be able to set war wheels in motion. I guess my 250 wonderful cycling mates’ positive spirit was behind that feeling of relative tranquillity :-)

But I was really worried about my Lebanese friends and about Lebanon itself. What had happened was the expectable outcome of a 17-months political deadlock, where tensions have been adding up for too long and could find no other way out than violence …
The government’s decision to fire Wafiq Shqeir was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, just like Austrian Archduke François Ferdinand’s assassination in 1914 plunged the whole European continent into the murderous 1914-18 conflict.

First phone call... Mom :-)

A mother is never as cute as when she’s worried about her kids!I tried to reassure her the best I could, blaming the Medias for exaggerating things and she seemed surprised to hear me talking more about the lovely Lebanese places, sceneries and people rather than a way to actually fly back home the soonest.

Leaving the Middle East was none of my intentions at the time...

Dad’s turn…Extremely worried and a bit angry because he was originally opposed to my travelling to the Middle East in such uncertain times. His own version of mom’s tender “Hello darling” was (literally): “Where the hell is your stubbornness going to drive you?” Daddyyyyyyyyyy…he is so cute when he is upset! I grew up hearing the stubbornness thing almost everyday, and would always answer with the famous Arab quote: “Man shabiha abahu fama dalam” (The one who looks like his father is not to blame).

I guess it is always more difficult for people who see the conflict from outside…All they see is gun shoots, blood and a fast increasing number of victims everyday and they can’t help but imagine the worst.I couldn’t blame them for being worried, but I was certainly not going to give up now, no matter how long would the troubles last. The feeling of uncertainty was part of the experience, and as we reached the Syrian border at nightfall, I couldn’t wait to pursue the adventure through the Thousands and One Nights’ land: Syria.

We reached the Sham (common denomination of Syria; the Northern Arab territory, as opposed to the Arabic peninsula in the south) late at night… a breezy and quite May night...

We were exhausted and I fell asleep as soon as I put my head on the pillow.