Float On

The inside of Atatürk International Airport gives flashbacks of a snow drifted winter day spent wandering its departure lounges, the sky outside pitch-black throughout, in my memory at least. A day before I knew Lebanon, Beirut and the good friends and countless unforgettable days and small details of the last five and a half months. Arriving here earlier, I walked past the transit passenger helpdesk where I had taken part in a scramble of angry passengers rearranging snowed-off flights. Today there was nobody there. I walked to the window at the bottom of the slope in front of the main departures notice board. Where before, visibility did not extend beyond the grainy grounded Boeing 737s, today I could see all the way past the green trees at the airport boundary and to the sea.

Sitting opposite a restaurant where I wrote my first blog post away from home, I watched people of every conceivable race and appearance float by. Tanned Koreans, women in full niqab, blonde Dutch children, Saudis, formal Brits, Indians in saris, Rastafarians, hipsters, airport retail staff on rollerskates. I'm surrounded by the world, but it remains impenetrable as I sit in silence.

The lights went out on my last day in Lebanon. With my quarter plunged into an indefinite power blackout by the Lebanese electricity provider, I spent no small effort mopping water from our apartment floor after rescuing my soaking clothes from the stricken washing machine. Once the rush was over, I crammed my things into my backpack and said goodbye to my flatmates and Fustu. As I picked the little cat up, he stretched forward and gave me a playful bite on the nose. I felt a tear in my eye.

I left the apartment and hailed a taxi on the street outside. Blaming "aj'ah", traffic jams, the driver took a route I'd never seen before. Dawra, Achrafieh, Sin el-Fil and Furn ech-Chebbak all slipped past. He turned down a dusty sliproad, from where you could see back across the city from a slightly elevated position, before finally coming down on to the old airport road with its big mosques and concrete shack-like stores and restaurants. A blue sign saying 'Thankyou for visiting Bourj al-Barajneh' marked the end of the journey through town as the taxi entered the airport complex.

After take-off the plane banked sharply to the right and flew almost parallel to the Corniche for a while. I could make out al-Raouché/Pigeon Rocks and even the lighthouse and the concrete promontory of the al-Manara restaurant behind it. Before long the atmospheric haze of the Middle Eastern summer afternoon finally blurred out the Lebanese coastline and mountain range beyond.

Uncle Jim from Nabatiye

The little girl sitting next to me on the minibus to Saida tapped me on the shoulder and asked my name: 'Shu ismak?'. I told her, and we repeated it back and forth a few times until she was happy with her pronunciation. She then asked the names of my two friends who were sitting in front of me, and where we came from. Her mother, with a voice that sounded like she smoked a 20-pack for breakfast, explained that her daughter had seen her first foreigner in a restaurant and, fascinated by the yellow hair, had wanted to speak to them at every opportunity since.

My own time Lebanon is now countable in hours, but the country fluxes on with internet blackouts, burning tyres and summer holiday visitors. I'll just miss Ramadan which starts in a couple of weeks' time. I am at a loose end, waiting to leave, not wanting to wait, but not wanting time to pass. Yesterday we visited Nabatiye, a city conspicuous by its absence from any travel guide, in the heartlands of Shia country in the south. It was at the forefront of the resistance against Israeli occupation prior to 2000. Portraits of Hassan Nasrallah and Bashar al-Assad adorn city centre rooftops, overlooking the town square. The altitude of 500 metres offers slight, but gratefully received relief from the now almost impossible heat of Beirut. We found a restaurant in the large back room of a butcher's and had lunch.

With tourist attractions scarce, we asked some taxi drivers if they could take us to a former military prison further south. This turned out to be impossible without a permit from the army, which we did not have. Hearsay put us on the bus to Sour, from where it might be possible to take a back road around the checkpoint. A stocky, silver-haired man in his late sixties, dabbing sweat from his forehead with a hankerchief, sat near us and began to make conversation. Like the little girl in Saida, he had a curiosity for speaking with foreigners. Proud of his fluent English, he explained that he moved to Australia in the 1970s and came back regularly to visit. He told us the less-than-groundbreaking news that there were different dialects in Arabic and that Lebanon had suffered a lot of conflicts over the years. He explained that no-one in the West knew the real story, as the media there was too influenced by Israel and America, so he was glad we had come to see it for ourselves.

The questionable agenda of his own media sources did not detract from his genial and helpful countenance, which, along with his appearance, reminded me of a well-liked family member back home, popular for his firm handshakes, home-made pickled onions and kind, sociable nature. He pointed us in the right direction as we changed buses, bound for Sour. The taxi drivers in Sour wanted $100 to beat the checkpoint trap, so we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and early evening at one of our favourite beaches, where burkinis and bermuda shorts blend seamlessly to the sound of modern tarab music.

I leave for home in two days and turn thirty in six. The foggy veil of time is closing in on half a year in a Beirut which will soon exist only in my head, becoming ever more distant while the real Beirut and Lebanon move irresistably onwards on their bumpy and unpredictable course, unaffected by my fleeting presence.

Manouche Memoirs

Zaatar wa khaddara. Every day during my morning shift of work I hit a wall of hunger at around 10.30am. I leave the office and walk along the obstacle course that is Gemmayzeh Street, with its pavement parked cars, never ending construction and dawdling pedestrians. ‘Welcome to Lebanon!’ shouts the owner of the Le Chef restaurant, even though I’ve been here for five months. It takes me all of about five minutes to start sweating profusely as I weave amongst the morning activity. Luckily this is all the time I need to reach Snack Na Geo. I walk in and with either a nod or a gruff ‘Kifak’, the baker puts tomato, cucumber and mint on the round bread base with its oily layer of the salty crunchy local spice zaatar, and slides it into the oven on a long wooden stick with a metal plate to hold the flat dough. I pay one dollar and receive the rolled up manouche, biting into its freshly baked deliciousness as I leave, not to be bothered by hunger again for several hours.

Lebanon is a country of contradiction and incongruity, but manouche is everywhere. The zaatar and salad version is only one of a number of options which also include melted cheese; meat; and kishek, a paste cooked from labneh (a creamy milk product) and tomato. Manouche stands are a feature of streets in Hamra, Achrafieh, Bourj el-Barajneh, Saida, Sour, Tripoli, Bcharre, Baalbek and any other small town or village you can name. Taxi drivers, construction workers and housewives can be seen eating them while going about their business.

Lebanon is famous for its mezze, a selection of tasty small dishes like hummus, fried potatoes and the kibbeh meatballs, designed to be shared in a social setting. Manouche, on the other hand, is like a loyal companion. You don’t need anyone else to be around to eat it and it will always be there.

I no longer need to speak when I go to Snack Na Geo, as I’ve ordered the same thing so many times. The three bakers, two of them brothers, are always ready, working away at the big open oven. ‘Ahlan’ comes the reply as I thank them for another zaatar wa khaddara. I even saw them at Souq al-Ahad once, saying hello as they passed, still wearing the matching green polo shirts they have on at work, presumably stocking up on zaatar for a new week at the best manouche joint in town.

Monday in Tripoli

Since recent sectarian clashes it’s not been high on many must-see lists, but with no conflicts reported during the last few weeks, I wanted to go to Tripoli again, having first visited a few months ago. Foreigners were conspicuous by their absence. More soldiers walked around on the streets, most of them off-duty. However, it was safe with no tangible change in atmosphere. We filled ourselves up on delicious mezze for half of Beirut prices at a spacy restaurant in an old stone building with toilet doors that didn’t lock and a big window view of the street. The people working the stalls in the souq were friendly. Teenage girls followed us around the market, fascinated by the blonde hair of my Danish companions.

Fish, meat, vegetables, spices, religious pendants for hanging on car rearview mirrors. Hijabs, baggy trousers and other clothes made by tailors. An amount of shoes that seemed disproportionate. All this filled the souq, which is big enough for us not to be covering old ground by wandering through its narrow alleys. We came out on the side near the river and drank freshly-squeezed orange juice while looking towards the suburbs climbing the hill on the far side. In between was what looked like an abandoned market, or perhaps one that is only open at weekends. Old shoes littered the ground, big piles of them. Faded plastic shelters and tables stood untended.

Seeing what looked like another market on the far side, we walked across and found ourselves in a much poorer area. A few people glared at us out of surprise. Next to one old factory building in a state of advanced disrepair stood a mosque with several broken windows. At the end of the street a tank guarded what looked like the start of a different suburb as the road wound up a hill. The junction was blocked with barbed wire. This was possibly Bab al-Tabbaneh, where fatal clashes between pro and anti-Syrian government supporters occurred in May, but we weren't certain. We took a left turn and continued further into the suburb. A couple of people stopped to say hello. A stack of metal bars rested on a table in front of an ironmonger’s workshop on the right of the street. A boy of about ten picked one up, held it like a rifle and pretended to shoot us with it. Somehow it didn’t feel hostile. We walked past grey square crumbling apartment blocks with balconies stuck to their facades. Patches of rubble with scraps of cars filled the open space in front.

The town continued but we turned back towards the city centre, walking along in a main road until we were almost at the more upmarket el-Mina harbour area before ending up back at one of the main squares, Sahat al-Nour. Suffering from too much time exposed to the boiling heat, we stopped in the park to sit down and drink water. Nearby, fast food restaurants steamed by the street, preparing sandwiches, shawarmas and falafels as they always have. Craving the tasty Tripolitan street food, only our bloated stomachs from the earlier restaurant visit held us back. I bought some colourful flakes of soap from an old khan in the souq to freshen up the air in my apartment. We had chanced upon the ‘wrong’ side of town and returned unscathed with full stomachs and superficial shopping.

My Neighbour's House

My neighbour’s house is one of the most charming buildings I have ever set foot in. It is on the corner of the street but is set back off a courtyard, further away from the road than the other buildings. The house itself is a wonderful coming together of Ottoman arches, French windows and faded blue and white paint coats. Vines grow through yellowing Almaza crates left on the patio. There are almost as many balconies as there are windows. The interior is equally handsome. Shelves made of doors, vintage Beirut photo art, streetlights, shop signs and other relics from a previous lifetime all contribute to the nostalgic atmosphere.

Most of the buildings in the section of Mar Mikhael in which I live date from, I think, the early part of the 20^th century when the Armenian community started to spread across the river from neighbouring Bourj Hammoud. I have no idea how old my neighbour’s house is, but it is certainly a lot older than any of the others nearby.

The house is slated for demolition. The owners, presumably seeing the land as the asset, rather than the building, have ostensibly decided to replace it with a bigger, modern building that will use more square metres and provide more property to rent out. The new building would likely be of the faceless grey concrete variety, just like countless others springing up all over Achrafieh and Hamra as quickly as the heritage of these areas disappears.

There’s a story going around about the reconstruction of Downtown after the war years had left it razed to the ground. During excavations, an unprecedented amount of Roman ruins were discovered underneath the foundations of the destroyed buildings. So many, in fact, that the authorities didn’t know what to do with them. While some were preserved and can be seen today, many were cast aside, thrown into the sea in the headrush of progress. Throwing Roman ruins into the sea? This is the country that takes the wrecking ball to buildings that would be untouchable almost anywhere else. 

Bonsoir and bon voyage, New York

Taxi to Qadisha

One Sunday a few weeks ago I stood in a friend’s apartment in Geitawi at 9am. Four of us, including our Arabic teacher, had decided to rent a car together and drive to the Qadisha Valley, in the hilly interior in the north east a couple of hours or so from Beirut. The car had been rented in a stereotypically Arab way, by word of mouth. The baker on the bottom floor of the building had a son who rented out cars. They were good cars. He can rent you one for a very good price. We called to confirm the booking several times during the week. Sure, I’ll drop the car off at yours. I’ll be there at 9. No problem, ma fii mishkileh.

When the day came and neither the baker’s son nor the car arrived, no explanation was forthcoming from his switched off phone or the suddenly taciturn baker. At a loss, we flagged a taxi and asked whether he knew of any car rental companies that were open on Sundays. Sure, he knew, mish mishkileh. He’d be happy to take us there for the special tourist price of 10 dollars.  For 10,000 Lebanese lira, two thirds of this, we had a deal. He took us far into Sin el-Fil, to an establishment that seemingly only rented white Bentleys and convertibles for weddings and had a minimum rental period of four days. Great. We asked the driver if he knew of anywhere else. Ma fii mishkileh. He drove round in a large convoluted circle and ended back at the wedding company, presumably thinking we wouldn’t remember what it looked like.

Once we had taken leave of this clown we flagged down a new taxi, deciding to go to the Armenian quarter, Bourj Hammoud, in a final attempt at finding a car before conceding defeat. A white Toyota estate pulled up. We hopped in, our teacher in the front. After a couple of minutes of generally indecipherable chatter with the driver he turned around and said to us, ‘Don’t worry, he’s Syrian, and he knows someone in Bourj Hammoud’. We went to Bourj Hammoud and again were unsuccessful after a bizarre episode in which we had to shout from the street to an overweight middle aged man hanging over the side of the third floor balcony of his apartment above his flower shop, just so he could tell us ‘ma fii sayarat’ – no cars. 

We decided to ask the Syrian taxi driver, Mazin, to take us to the Qadisha Valley. He offered us a fair price immediately which wasn’t a great deal more expensive than renting our own car would have been. He was around thirty with a Lebanese wife and child, of whom he had a picture on his phone. He drove diligently, which we were as grateful for on the hairpin gravel tracks of the Qadisha valleyside as we were in the midst of the hair-raising motorway traffic. He often stopped to ask directions, and would thank the helpful passers by with the polite expression 'Kilak/kilik zaw', literally 'You're all manners'.

Lebanon is a country of diverse beauty of a kind that affects a different nostalgia on you wherever you go; whether to the white beaches of the Mediterranean, the stony hillsides in the southern interior, the verdant Chouf, or the rolling plateau of the Bekaa.  The Qadisha Valley, with its stupefying gorges and quaint Christian hillside towns, is possibly the most wondrous of all. We stopped and ate fresh cherries plucked from a tree that seemed to mark the exact centre of the valley. We visited the childhood home of the famous poet Gibran Khalil Gibran. We drove down into the valley and ate kafta sandwiches by a waterfall and visited an old church which looked like it had been grown out of the granite of the cliff. We drove up to the top of the hills and walked out amongst the Cedar trees, the national emblem of the Lebanese flag, now all but wiped out from its countryside. Mazin joined us, preferring our company to waiting in his car.

 

On the way back we were predictably stuck in the end-of-weekend traffic which causes standstills on the motorway around Jounieh. Mazin sang Syrian songs. Our teacher switched on the radio as if to drown him out. We all laughed, switched off the radio again and listened as we edged onwards.

 

European Championships?

Every time a World Cup or European Championships comes around, most discerning football fans (that is, the obsessed types that can recite Tottenham Hotspur’s squad number list or the England starting line-up from the 1990 World Cup semi-final) hope for a bit of glory for their team, or at least some memorable moments. Viewed from Lebanon, Euro 2012 is providing the excitement in waves, like the unstoppable German through ball, run behind attack. I am but a Greek defence to resist it.

Seeing the Danes defeat the Dutch with friends from Aarhus in an empty theatre in Hamra and the lengthy taxi detour that made us late for kick-off; learning how to say ‘corrupt referee’ in Italian. England’s comeback against Sweden and Steven Gerrard's Indian summer. Rain drenching and delaying the Ukraine vs. France game while the sun beats down outside. So far, it's been one to remember. The Lebanese, meanwhile, have made the tournament their business in a way unlike any I have seen before.

Shortly before the tournament began, German flags began to proliferate around Beirut, hanging from balconies, flying from shop fronts, stuck to car doors. Some truly enormous examples can be seen draped over electrical cables between buildings. This is not a phenomenon limited to one district; all over town the Lebanese are leaving no doubt as to whom ‘their’ team is. Neither can it be called surprising from a footballing point of view; it’s natural enough for the locals to pick the best, most famous team to support in the absence of their own. Barcelona are by far the most popular club team, the Spanish World and European champions the second-best-supported national team.

 

The intensity of the support for Germany, though, is misguided. Wearing a Germany replica top or flying a flag without being able to name a single one of their players is one thing. Doing it because you think it’s synonymous with being anti-Israel is another which shows a near-comical lack of understanding of European history and an entirely messed up perception of what Germany stands for as a nation. While it’s wrong to say this is the only or even the main reason for the fervent support for the German football team on the streets of Beirut, it undoubtedly plays its part. The Lebanese have had more pressing things to worry about in the past than properly educating themselves about the Second World War, but as a European you can’t help but find the whole thing slightly bizarre.

 

Walking Like a Lebanese

At some point during the last month or so I reached a saturation point. Fraying at the edges, like an old elastic band that loses its structural integrity when you stretch it too far. I felt plateaued out; like I’d done all I could here for now and that it was time to leave.

I couldn’t leave, by now I was committed. One evening a couple of weeks ago I stood by the side of the road on Armenia Street, trying to take a service taxi to Hamra. It’s a relatively long trip, and drivers are unlikely to pick you up unless their car is already full of other passengers heading in the same direction. I flagged down five, six, seven different taxis. Each time I was rejected, either with a firm ‘la’ – ‘no’– or the upwards jerk of the head and tutting noise that is an alternative way of replying in the negative, much like a shake of the head. 

I had neither the energy nor inclination to get frustrated, and had plenty of time anyway. The sky was moving from blue to mauve. I stood by the passing red-number-plated Mercedes’, Skodas and everything in between, and bided my time. Eventually one of them picked me up. Minutes later I was wandering through Hamra’s Sohoesque evening pedestrian traffic, past the bars, cafés and still-open high street stores; as bustling as the cars and cabs honking and crawling along the road beside.

One of the first things I realised when I came to Beirut was that crossing the road requires a different mentality to the one you need at home. I’m a slow learner, and it took me longer to figure out that the same thing applies to walking on the pavement. The sidewalks are narrow, often obstructed by building sites that cut all the way across into the road. Cars park bumper to bumper right up to the very edge of side street junctions. Parking valets and conversing men stand in large groups which block the way entirely, and barely notice or care when someone else approaches, wanting to get past. Old women meander along in the heat, so slowly that queues form behind them. One restaurant in Gemmayzeh, not content with the challenge already present for pedestrians, has placed an inexplicably large pot plant right outside its entrance, so big that you have to walk right around the cars parked in the road just to get by.

All this used to bother me significantly. I’d arrive at language school or the TimeOut office knocked off my stride, irritated by the countless mini-detours I’d had to take en route. I mentioned this to a friend who told me that it was one of his favourite parts of the culture here. Don’t worry, just touch the bystanders on the shoulder, they’ll move without a second glance. No-one is constantly worrying or apologising for possibly being in the way, people aren’t stressed about it, they’ll get by somehow, we’ll deal with the problem as it comes. Friendly physical contact with a stranger? At home it would set alarm bells ringing. Here, no problem.

Whether this is a genuinely Lebanese way of thinking or just an adaptation to my environment I’m not sure. But it’s contributed to a feeling of belonging here, rather than the temporary status which I seemed to have exhausted.

I’ve changed my ticket again. I’ll be here until the 17^th of July.

Cats, Cars, Graffiti

Fustu

 

 

VW Beetle, Mar Mikhael, near the old railway

Rue Armenia

Mercedes 230, classic Beirut taxi

Time Out office orphan. He died a few days later. RIP little guy.

Hamra

 

Tito

 

Abandoned Range Rover, Achrafieh

Tag supporting introduction of anti-domestic violence law, Mar Mikhael. The law was not passed; husbands can still legally rape their wives.

Bar alley, Hamra

Street kitten, Mar Mikhael

Renault 12, near Sin el-Fil

Souq al-Ahad

Head whirring, get out of bed. Take a shower. Slight improvement. Can still taste Almaza somehow. Find whatever clothes I have left that aren't emitting the very essence of 20 Lucky Strike, amble downstairs and into the morning. Cross the disused railway tracks and walk alongside them for 10 minutes, through a leafy, quiet Mar Mikhael back street. The scrapped victims of Lebanon's bad traffic and worse drivers litter a side road which heads down a hill before passing under the Pierre Gemayel Corniche flyover. Now minutes away from a hangover's worst enemy, I pass the antique and book stalls and go straight for a salty falafel sandwich, oozing with dressing and pickles. I've made it back to Souq al-Ahad.

The market in Sin el-Fil is a solid staple of many a Beirut weekend, where you can while away the hours amusing yourself browsing anything from Saddam Hussein keyrings to hammer-and-sickle coathangers to Cristiano Ronaldo bathtowels. But the traders are not to be laughed at and do serious business. Stalls sell kitchen appliances, electrical goods, fake football jerseys, watches, belts, books, spices. You can get whatever you need. There are hundreds of stalls, covered by plastic tarpaulins which are put up and taken down again every weekend. When I first discovered the souq back in March these tarpaulins kept out the rain; now they keep in the heat to steaming hot effect. Behind the main market a large area is taken up by cages. Inside the cages are kittens, puppies, rabbits, chicks, parrots, tortoises and even monkeys. I also once saw an eagle.

My personal favourite stall at Souq al-Ahad is a small used clothes stand where I've refreshed my flagging wardrobe with diverse 1990s t-shirts and printed flannel shirts. Every visit to this stall feels a bit like opening a long-sealed attic storage box, as you sift between the various items, some smart, some worthless, some plain funny.

Many of the locals that run and shop at the souq are Syrian and are from the lower end of Lebanon's socioeconomic ladder. Not many speak English, apart from 'one thousand' or 'two thousand' as they call out prices on seeing foreigners approach. Many have cassette players which blare out the names and prices of their goods on a loop, enabling them to sit back and smoke a narguileh without having to waste energy doing the announcing for themselves.

Wealthy Beirutis have a terrible attitude to the weekend market. When chatting to Lebanese in bars and mentioning a love for the souq, they commonly react with shock, asking whether it's safe to go there and why would we even want to go to such a 'dirty' place full of 'poor people'. This is mainly based on misconception as most of them have never been there to see it for themselves. I think it is somewhat symptomatic of a lack of tolerance towards other social groups by the privileged end of Lebanese society. The souq is a more welcoming place to shop than Downtown's pretentious boutiques and I have never experienced anything other than polite friendliness from the people there. Synonymous with days off, good friends and the smell, look and feel of the Middle East, it will stay with me long after I have gone from Beirut.

Beiruti

Four down, one to go. These months in Beirut have left a lasting impression.

Beirut is Trondheim. Mar Mikhael's combination of car workshops and culture. Burning gas through a 1980s heater as the cold tears through uninsulated windows.

Beirut is rainy Saturdays at Souq al-Ahad, buying new old clothes with favourite familiar faces. Taxi etiquette, Aamiyah grammar and the power of PC.

An amber-coloured Easter holiday, hangover getaway to an Aarhus-flavoured Cairo. Morning vodka with Vega on a dazzling terrace, defending the honour of a 1 foot tall white furry best friend.

A retina-threateningly bright windowless office. Pebbly beaches, Sunday traffic. The Lebanon that is not for visitors. Aching joints, mosquito bites and the view from a 6th-floor Geitawi window.

Arcing over all of it: The Corniche, Saifi, Saida, servees. Hummus, tabouleh and falafel. An apartment in Mathaf. Almaza. Tam Tam, Richard and the unforgettable Fustu. The Lebanese and their own Lebanon.

Visiting Hezbollah HQ

Deep in the mountains of formerly occupied southern Lebanon lies Mleeta, once a stronghold for Hezbollah guerrillas, today a tour de force in museum architecture and propaganda.

Sunshine bathed the rocky southern Lebanese hills as an aging blue-green Mercedes taxi took us through several small Shia towns on the way into the countryside. Many of these small towns display posters and banners along the roadside or in their town squares, showing pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other political figures and martyrs past and present from both Hezbollah and its political ally Amal. The unmistakeable yellow and green flag of Hezbollah flies everywhere here. Once the car had passed through the town of Mleeta itself, and continued up the mountainside for a few more kilometres, the $25 million spectacular that is the ‘Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark’ appeared, sitting on the crest of a hill overlooking the valley.

Hezbollah is officially classified as a terrorist organisation in many Western countries, including, significantly and not surprisingly, the United States and Britain. The truth is far less black and white, although entirely subjective. But to cut a long story extremely short, they are a Shia Muslim political party and militant group formed in 1982 in response to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which at the time extended all the way to and included Beirut, to tragic consequences. They carried out military operations and guerrilla warfare against the Israeli occupying forces until these withdrew in 2000. They now have a huge influence in Lebanese politics, holding positions in the government and with a very strong military presence in the south. Controversial for their extremely staunch anti-Israel stance, military tactics and alleged financial backing from Iran and Syria, they nevertheless enjoy no shortage of support among many communities within Lebanon due to their ability to defend the country from what many see as unjust and overly aggressive Israeli attacks, something the Lebanese Army is not always able to do. This is an attempt at a neutral presentation of a very complicated situation and any mistakes or omissions are entirely my own.

The museum at Mleeta is quite unlike any other. Built on territory from which Hezbollah fighters based their resistance efforts against occupying Israeli forces in southern Lebanon until 2000, the hillside has since been bankrolled into a first-class museum. A team of top architects worked on the museum’s design. The result is in turns impressive, surreal, bizarre and grotesque. A centrepiece named ‘The Abyss’, a huge collection of captured and destroyed Israeli tanks, artillery, jeeps and even soldiers’ helmets, is set up in a meticulously designed arrangement encircled by a walkway symbolising, in the words of the guide, the ‘tornado’ that the occupying forces found themselves caught in. The piece de resistance is a Merkava 4 tank -the pride of the Israeli army - half buried in the ground with its turret tied in a knot. ‘We have no problems with any other groups or religions, and have Christian visitors, Sunni visitors, everyone’ continued the guide. ‘The only time we have a problem is if somebody wants to occupy our land’. 

As well as The Abyss, we watched a 10-minute film in an large theatre which documented the history of the Hezbollah-Israel conflict. Including images of attacks by both sides, accompanied by Nasrallah’s powerful speeches and a dramatic score, this was a full-on propaganda broadside. We then took a walk amongst the trees and plants of the hillside, where there were several exhibits on guerrilla warfare; models of soldiers which contributed to an eerie atmosphere as they appeared through the trees; and a 200-metre long underground tunnel including a number of bunkers. The tunnel opened out onto a spectacular view over the countryside and surrounding villages. At the end you arrive at a small bunker where 'Hizbu Allah' (Party of God) is sprayed onto the outside wall. An anti-aircraft gun still stands on the inside.

On the way towards the exit, the Hezbollah experience can be completed by picking up a souvenir or two from the gift shop – a flag, a history book, or a child’s baseball cap printed with a picture of a smiling Nasrallah together with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Classes of schoolchildren ran around us, enjoying their day out. They were Muslim children - I doubt schools in Christian areas would bring their classes here - but was their trip education or instruction? I think the line at Mleeta is a fine one.

Far-Off Noises

Two weeks ago I was woken during the night by a call from a friend. 'What are you doing?' he asked.
'Sleeping'.
'Okay. Stay at home tonight, we can hear gunshots and rockets from our balcony'.

I'll admit that this is perhaps an overly melodramatic way to begin a post which will now attempt to make reassurances about the current situation in Beirut. The gunshots in question were a reaction to an escalation of some unrest in Tripoli, the northern Sunni-dominated city that welcomed us so warmly when we visited at the beginning of March. During the last month or so, there have been a number of clashes between two different Sunni factions in the area. This is actually not an unusual occurrence, but many commentators are suggesting that it is a sign of the catastrophic Syrian conflict spilling over into Lebanon, as one of these groups supports the Syrian government and the other is against it.

The unrest escalated on Sunday May 20th, when two Shaykhs from the anti-Syrian group ostensibly drove through a military checkpoint (of which there are many placed on main roads throughout the country). They were both shot dead by the checkpoint guards, provoking outrage in Tripoli and accusations of Lebanese government support for the Syrian regime. The anger spread to the district of Tariq al-Jdideh in southern Beirut, where three people are thought to have been killed as tyres were burned and shots fired. The sound carried to my friend's apartment but not to mine, far away in the quiet Armenian section of East Beirut.

The following day a 'No War in Lebanon' demonstration was held on Martyrs Square at the heart of the city. No more than around two hundred people showed up, half of them foreigners. Apathy and pessimism, or just calm from a people who have seen far, far worse?

In the nearly two weeks since the first and only unrest in Beirut since the Arab Spring, no other tangible signs of trouble have been reported. The 'no news, good news' signs so far are positive, suggesting that further escalation is unlikely. Having had the pleasure of getting to know Lebanon and learning something about its people (and I do mean the whole country), anything else would be a tragedy.

After the phone call, I briefly listened through the window, then rolled over and went back to sleep. There was no reason to do anything else. Armenia Street is as safe as any place in Aarhus, Brighton or Sudbury, and will remain so for the rest of my time here and beyond.

Girls Football Academy

Deep inside the Bourj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp, the evening sun glows through the wire fence from behind a mosque and the ramshackle houses, piled up like scruffy lego. The Girls Football Academy, Lebanon's first all-female football club, are well underway with their evening training session at Ansar football ground, a decent facility with a full-sized astroturf pitch and no shortage of equipment.

Sent to the southern suburbs on an assignment for TimeOut magazine, I arrived and introduced myself to Walid, a former semi-pro in France and co-founder along with his girlfriend and first team player Nadia. Both were welcoming and enthusiastic about their club, which, in its first season since being formed last Autumn, has already shot to the upper reaches of the national league. Although it only contains 8 teams, Lebanon's progressive women's league is the only one of its kind in the Middle East. 'The senior team's results are just a bonus though', Walid said as he returned a stray ball to a game of piggy-in-the-middle. 'The point of the academy is team building. The senior players have to be taught the technical side of the game from scratch, many of them have never played 11-a-side before. Our target is to train girls to play as a team from a younger age, so that one day they will play for their country and defend the colours of Lebanon'.

A few youngsters took a break from their training to speak to me. 'Kifik?' ('How are you?') I asked one small girl. 'Good' she replied shyly, before switching to flawless American English and explaining excitedly how she started playing football with her big brother at the age of three (her current age: 'nine and a half'), and now gets to play three times a week, and it doesn't make her tired even though she has school too. Sophie, the captain of the U14s, said 'I get the feeling you're a Newcastle fan' and looked slightly disappointed when I admitted I didn't share her affection for her favourite Premier League team. She soon forgot this though as she proudly told me about how she was selected to be captain because the coach thought she had 'experience and skill'.

Girls come from relatively long distances to play at the academy in spite of its out-of-the-way location near to Beirut Airport. One lives close to me in the Armenian quarter, another in the city of Jounieh an hour north of the capital. 'What is the mix of religious background?' I asked Walid. 'I honestly couldn't tell you' he answered. 'I've never asked anyone, it's not something that is ever relevant here'.

In a time when elite professional football is characterised by obscenely rich owners, cheating players and idiotic, small-minded fan culture, the beautiful game remains great for its ability to unite different people anywhere in the world. When one day the young players from the Girls Football Academy do defend their country's colours, maybe their country will unite behind them.


Pictures from GFA's league fixture against reigning champions Al-Sadaka, Sunday 13th May. Final score: 0-0.