Nippy!

Those of you who follow Beirut news are probably curious about the implications of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s leaving the US-backed March 14th coalition and joining the opposition party—the one that just lost the June parliamentary elections. Israel has certainly been making lots of threats about the nasty things they’ll do to Lebanon if the opposition—led by Hezbollah—plays a more prominent role in the government in the wake of Jumblatt’s move, so you may be wondering how serious those Israeli threats are. Or you may be wondering about Beirut’s gay bar scene, which was recently covered (or outed, as one gay Beiruti asserts) by a New York Times travel writer. However, I’m afraid this blog entry will not answer any of your questions on topical matters, or elucidate any of the tangled and shifting allegiances in Lebanese politics. Instead, I want to mention one of our neighbors here in the new apartment building we moved to in June. We call her Nippy.

As I may or may not have mentioned, in June Jeff and I moved to a new apartment. My first apartment was on the lightless, airless ground floor of what was really an office building, and people kept coming to the door thinking I was the concierge. In the new place, I have an extra room in which to work, with a breeze and a big, sunny window!

As an added bonus, this apartment building also has a population of cats. They are not exactly feral, or even stray, as most of them seem to have lived here in and around this building for generations. One of them in particular spends a lot of time in the stairwell, on the landing, and yes, even in the elevator. We started calling her Nippy because of her nipped ear, but then started to realize that several of the cats around here have a similar ear nip. One of my colleagues finally told me that AUB spays a lot of the campus cats. The spayed cats have their ears nipped, so as not to be rounded up twice.
Nevertheless, Nippy’s name has stuck. She herself is working hard to be able to stick around the apartment. She frequently loiters outside our door, and has been known to launch herself inside the instant we crack the door open.

Jeff and I both play with her, of course, whenever we see her in the building or outside.

She caught on really quickly to the fact that our apartment means positive human attention. Once, Jeff went out to do an errand, saw her on a lower floor, and played with her for a moment. As soon as he continued on his way, Nippy came upstairs and sat outside our door, waiting for him to return. Pretty smart!

When she makes it inside, she typically sniffs around for a while, scratches the couch, and then sits in the kitchen looking pathetic. We learned from a next-door neighbor (who came knocking one night wearing only a towel, having locked himself out of his apartment. Very sitcom-esque) that Nippy used to be the pet of a family in this building who left her behind when they moved away. I think that explains her propensity for kitchen begging, and her obvious desire to be someone’s indoor cat. For now, we are content to have her as a frequent visitor, but she seems determined to ingratiate herself into our place—or kitchen, at least—more permanently.

As for Jumblatt, Hezbollah, and the gay bar scene, you’ll just have to keep your eye on the Times or Al-Jazeera English. But you can count on “My Life in Beirut” for all your Nippy news. Signing off for now. Happy end of summer to all!

Eating A la Turka

It has been warm and humid in Beirut recently. Not quite Louisiana hot, but pretty stuffy all the same. Jeff and I decided that the uncomfortably balmy weather provided the perfect excuse to head north for a little while, so last week we caught an early morning flight to Istanbul, Turkey!

When I say "an early morning flight," I mean early--as in 6am or so, which meant a 4am taxi ride to the Beirut airport. We found our sleep-deprived selves checked into our hotel and back out on the lovely streets of Istanbul by 10am. Our first stop was a delightful cafe where I got some great coffee and we read the English-language version of the local newspaper. By noon or so, we were starving, so we headed to a restaurant called "Cooking Alaturka" for lunch.

The restaurant is only open for lunch, as cooking lessons are offered in the evenings. Every day the woman who runs it offers a four-course set lunch menu, with the daily dishes determined by the seasonal produce available in the markets. We ate there twice, and both times were wonderful.

As its name suggests, the restaurant specializes in Turkish food. One day we had a traditional dish called "Imam Bayildi," which is a roasted eggplant stuffed with tomatoes, onions, and dill. Its name means "the Imam fainted," supposedly because an Imam (Muslim religious leader) fainted because it was so tasty. I don't doubt it!

We also had some fresh green beans with tomatoes and dill,a tasty soup of red lentils and bulgur--a grain that is ubiquitous in the Middle East, and a really good lamb stew that was served atop some baba-ghanoush-style roasted eggplant. Eggplant, tomatoes, and dill seem to be really popular in Turkey. A winning combination, to be sure.

For desert we had "Incir Tatlisi," or figs stuffed with walnuts and soaked in an interesting clove-flavored syrup. I'd never really had cooked figs before, Newtons aside, and I liked them.

Many restaurants serve glasses of tea, or cai, at the end of a meal. It always comes in cute but impractical handle-less glasses in nice, decorative saucers.

At Cooking Alaturka we were served a little dish of Turkish Delight or "lokum" after our meal, and even though I was entirely full after the soup, beans, stew, and figs, I had to try some. After all, I'd seen it for sale in the bazaar and markets all around Istanbul, and it looked appealing.

It was very...chewy. Even if the lokum was a bit disappointing, everything else about Turkey--the weather, the food, and the beautiful old buildings--was truly a delight!

Summer Visitor

It's been a hot, quiet, couple of weeks here in Beirut. Most of my ex-pat colleagues have headed back to the States or Europe for the summer, and many well-heeled Beirutis are spending their traditional looong weekends in their villas up in the cool, breezy mountains of Lebanon. I've been enjoying the quiet--getting some good work done on a new paper, trying to get to the gym more regularly, and going for evening strolls around the green and leafy campus.

While most of the AUB community seems to have flown the coop for the summer, we did get an unexpected visitor to our balcony the other day: a parakeet! Mind you, our place may look idyllic, set amidst palm trees and sweet-smelling jasmine bushes, but parakeet country it isn't. It was quite a surprise, then, Jeff spotted it on the railing the other day. It spent about fifteen minutes or so hopping around out there, and then flew away. Jeff emailed a photo of it to the Middle East Ornithological Association (which, oddly, is based in England and appears to be composed entirely of Brits). On their website we discovered that apparently there was at one time a breeding population of ring-necked parakeets on the AUB campus. However, our visitor was not of that flock.

Someone from the Association emailed him back the next day and said that the brightly-colored little squawker who visited us is an African Lovebird! There is no breeding population of them here, unfortunately, so our visitor must have been an escapee from somewhere. It certainly was nice to see him. I hope he stays out of reach of all the campus cats!

Meanwhile, we are getting ready for a quick trip to Istanbul and continuing to enjoy quiet summer days here. I'm sure before we know it, it will be time for the fall migration back to campus--the human kind, that is.

Sweet, sweaty Syria

Jeff and I recently returned from our second trip to Syria. This time we headed north to Aleppo, up near the Turkish border. We had a great trip...once we got into Syria, that is. It took us a good four hours for them to let us cross the border from Lebanon. Four hot, thirsty hours. Luckily we had a couple bagels (from our Beirut source) and some water with us, but it was still somewhat uncomfortable. On the other hand, we felt really victorious when we finally got across and headed to our hotel in the little town of Hama. Here's Jeff in front of one of the waterwheels, or norias, in Hama:

The next day we started sightseeing with gusto. First we visited the Musyaf castle, which the Crusaders conquered in the early 12th century. After the Crusaders, a sect known as "The Assassins" took it over.

I thought Musyaf was pretty impressive, but then we visited the ruins of Quala'at al-Hosen, or Krak de Chevaliers, which is by all accounts Syria's most grand and well-preserved castle.

It was, of course, blazing hot in Syria in late June, and the desert air was much dryer than Beirut's seaside humidity. The thing I noticed (and appreciated!) about both castles was their ability to maintain cool temperatures even in the mid-day heat. Those massive stone buildings were really quite practical desert structures.

We saw another fascinating bit of desert architecture when we visited what are commonly called "beehive houses." They are conical mud structures that used to be used as housing by the Bedouins who live in Syria's desert. Nowadays they are mostly used as storage, and the villagers live in more prosaic modern cement houses. One Bedouin family keeps a beehive house open for viewing by the few tourists who travel through, and we had tea with him inside it. The house had airholes at the bottom of it, and there was quite a nice draft coming through. It wasn't quite as cool inside as the massive stone castles, but it was very pleasant nonetheless.

Speaking of clever air conditioning methods, Jeff and I had dinner one night at a restaurant in a restored old building. We sat in the building's courtyard, and every so often jets of water would spray out and cool the area. It looked as nice as it felt.

Before leaving Hama, we also visited some Roman ruins at Apamea:

When we were finished sightseeing around Hama, we headed north to Aleppo. We had fun walking through the souk, or bazaar, and visiting the old citadel that dominates the town. Here we are atop the citadel:

After a day of walking the streets of Aleppo, we repaired to the Baron Hotel bar for some cold Turkish beer. The Baron Hotel is famous as the place where Agatha Christie stayed while writing Murder on the Orient Express. It was also frequented by T. E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia), whose bar bill is on display inside.

Before I say more about the sights we saw, I must say that the biggest thing I will remember about Syria is how incredibly nice and welcoming the people are. Everywhere we went, people asked where we were from. When we said "America," nearly everyone said that they were very glad that we were there, and that they hoped our country and theirs could be friends. Many, many people asked us to sit and talk with them and have tea. No one had anything good to say about former president Bush, but they were all able to separate American people from American politicians. One man said "American people good, Bush bad."

The most surprising, and moving, thing to me was that several women dressed head-to-toe in all-black hejab (in the heat!) went out of their way to be friendly to me. One kissed me on both cheeks and said (in rough English) that she hoped her daughter would be able to marry an American man. Another woman gave me some candy and smiled broadly. It was sweet how they went out of their way to make me feel welcome.

Another time, Jeff and I were walking past a tiny little tire shop and the proprietor waved us in, brought in some chairs for us, and handed us chilled bottles of cherry soda. We sat and drank soda and tried to make small talk despite the language barrier. For awhile we took turns naming American brands of tires! It was really funny, and just so sweet how hospitable they were.

We went on to visit another town to the south and saw some more ruins, including those at Ugarit, where a written alphabet dating from 2000 BC was found. I can barely imagine something that old. Also at Ugarit were ruins of temples to pagan deities Baal, the storm god, and his father, Dagon.

While all the sights (and sites) we saw were fascinating, it is the Syrians' genuine goodwill toward Americans that I will remember most. If an Arabic-speaking woman in full hejab were ever to go sightseeing in the U. S., I can only hope that Americans would be as hospitable to her as the Syrians were to us.

Happy 4th of July to all!

Cyprus

After teaching my last class of the semester, it was a marvelous break to get away to the island of Cyprus for a few days. Cyprus is only 112 nautical miles across the Mediterranean from Beirut--for us, a quick 25 minute flight on Cyprus Air--but it feels like a world away. Cyprus is a member of the European Union, and the major language spoken there is Greek. All the roadsigns, menus, etc. were in Greek. Luckily for us, Cyprus's lovely weather makes it a vacation haven for the Brits, so most of the tourist-oriented things are written in English as well as Greek. It was the first place Jeff and I had visited since being in Beirut where we didn't need a visa. Passing through passport control in Cyprus was wonderfully easy, and provided a great start to our relaxing vacation.

One of the fun things about Cyprus was getting to sample some Greek food. We went to one place called Militjis that had a great view of the sea as well as super traditional food. Jeff had roast pork on a spit (hard to find in the Arab world), and I had tavas, which was lamb, potato, tomato, and spices baked together in the oven. And the ovens are these neat dome-shaped things out on the patio.

Some of the island's private homes had those outdoor ovens, too. Speaking of private homes, many of the places we walked past looked like charming little cottages with plants and flowers everywhere. It was neat to see that the whole island hasn't been swallowed up by tourism yet.

We were hoping to get to visit the natural history museum in Larnaca while we were there, but it was closed. There was, however, a weird little zoo area where huge birds like peacocks and pelicans were penned up in cages that were too small for them. Poor little things. That didn't stop us from posing for pictures in front of them, though:

A visit to Cyprus would not be complete without lolling around pool- or beachside in the Mediterranean sunshine. We slathered on the SPF 30 and did just that.

It was a wonderful respite from the noise of Beirut and the stress of grading. And since it's only a 25 minute flight, who knows, maybe we'll make it back there again!

Lebanese Elections

It is hard to believe that I have very nearly finished my first academic year at the American University of Beirut. All in all, it has been a really good one. I get to teach interesting courses to small classes of articulate and polite undergrads from backgrounds very different from mine, the campus is beautiful, my sunny office overlooks a palm tree and some good-smelling flowering shrubs, and there are cats everywhere. Add to that some nice colleagues and pleasant weather, and it is no wonder the year went by so quickly.

 

When I realized that the June 7^th parliamentary elections were a really big deal here, I started to wonder if my quiet first academic year would end with a "bang"…literally.  Lebanon's two major political entities are the ruling pro-Western March 14^th alliance, which is backed by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, among others; and the March 8^th alliance, of which Hezbollah is a key member. March 8^th, also known as "the resistance," has the support of Iran and Syria. In the run-up to the election, many were predicting a March 8^th victory, but (not to spoil the suspense for anyone not following the news) that did not happen.

 

It sounds as though the actual voting itself was fairly calm, with fisticuffs limited to northern Lebanon. There was a lot of what sounded like celebratory gunfire in the streets of Hamra (my neighborhood) on the Thursday night before the election. I'm not sure what they were celebrating that early, but it was enough to make me stay in most of the weekend. It was the first gunfire I'd heard since I've been here. However, some of my colleagues were convinced that the noise was from firecrackers going off and thought I was crazy for worrying about it.

 

 AUB's final exam schedule was all messed up due to the elections: school (and most everything else) was shut down on the Saturday before and Monday after elections, I guess in case things got tense. Luckily, things did not get tense, and I'm sure the students appreciated the extra time to study.

 

I was surprised about the March 14^th coalition's win. I think everyone was. Some in the media have speculated that Obama's speech in Cairo might have helped tip the balance in that direction, but it's hard to say. I still find Lebanese politics so completely mystifying that I can't really identify any clear causal relationships. Part of what made the election so confusing for me is that there didn't appear to be any domestic issues talked about in the campaigns. No one is promising a chicken in every pot, or even promising to fix the holes in the sidewalks.

 

Another surprise is that the leader of Hezbollah gave a calm, gracious, and seemingly sincere concession speech. Although there were rumors that there would be an immediate coup if the opposition lost, that has not happened.

 

Add to that the fact that none of my students have yet complained about their final grades, and it looks like my summer is off to a smooth start. I'm looking forward to traveling in the Middle East with Jeff, catching up on some reading, and taking a quick trip to the U. S. sometime later in the summer (I haven't yet decided when). For now, I'll keep my eyes glued to Al Jazeera English's website to see how elections go today in Iran. I'm hoping that theirs will be just as peaceful as ours.

Biodiversity Day at AUB

The end of the semester is finally in sight. I have one more week of classes, then a bunch of grading, and then it's over until late September. Whew! It's hard to believe that I've almost finished my first year at AUB. It's been a pretty good one so far, I must say.

One of the many end-of-semester events that have been taking place lately is IBDAA, or AUB's biodiversity celebration. "Ibdaa" means something like "creative energy" in Arabic, and it seemed like a good way to describe the 140-plus student projects that were on display on Friday afternoon. A big outdoor area on campus was full of bulletin boards displaying colorful posters detailing the results of chemistry and physics experiments related to biodiversity or recycling. Some students were displaying buttons they had made out of potato starch. Other students explained to me how electricity can be generated using lemon juice, zinc, copper, and a bunch of wires. Still others showed how to make soap, or how to make "white coffee", which is really hot water infused with rose or orange blossom essence.

Students from my American Wilderness class added a touch of the humanities to the largely science-dominated event. Several had made posters comparing conservation efforts in Lebanon (unfavorably) to those in the US. One student profiled the Palm Islands off the coast of Lebanon, which had recovered from a plague of invasive rabbits only to be victimized by the oil spills resulting from the 2006 war. Other students wrote creative pieces in which the natural world figured prominently. It was fun seeing the students looking so proud of their efforts.

A literature student of mine made a fun game that involved guessing one of six natural scents and then touching a wire to the answer, like in the game "Operation."

Another student made a poster detailing land mine use around the world. The map showed the countries that still have land mines in them (i.e., most countries), and the countries that did not (the US, Canada, most of Europe, and some of Russia). The poster then explained that the countries that don't have mines in them are the countries that provide them to the rest of the world. Nice. She then shocked me by saying that in 2000, a good friend of hers had been killed by a landmine in the south of Lebanon. The friend and her whole family had been killed when their car detonated one of the landmines that still littered that area.

It was nice to get a chance to talk to my students more than I usually have time to during the normal routine. It was a moment to slow down a bit amidst the hectic end of semester. We'll get another chance to slow down on Monday, which the government suddenly and surprisingly declared a holdiay: National Liberation Day, which I think marks the liberation of some southern villages from Israeli occupation. It is a holiday on the calendar, but I'm told that it is unusual for schools and offices to shut down for it. Is it election related? Some think so. Whatever its motivation, I will relish the time to rest and get caught up before the semester ends for good. And happy Memorial Day to all of you!