Onward to Palestine

Done for the time being with friendly old Jordan (where, amusingly, everyone I met thought I was Russian), I struck out on the morning of August 9 for the Allenby/King Hussein border crossing about an hour's drive from Amman. Allenby is the one border crossing open to Palestinians, so there's a lot of traffic, and all of it gets thoroughly checked. When I first got out of the servees, I got mistaken for a Jordanian and sent to the long, chaotic line for Arab (i.e. Jordanian and Palestinian, because no other Arabs can really get a visa to enter Israel) travelers. When someone realized I didn't belong, I got shuttled into a bizarre unmarked corridor by myself where I was asked to pay a customs tax and hustled onto a fancy bus to take me across no man's land to the Israel side of the border zone. At the entrance to the Israeli complex, a ginger-haired 18-year-old in a polo shirt and a yarmulke shuffled around with a person-sized machine gun strapped across his chest. Welcome to Israel! the sign read. I waited in line for about 45 minutes before I reached the classification stage. "So where are you going after you leave Israel?" this teenager asked me after an amicable chat. "I'm flying from Amman back to Cairo!" I said cheerfully, thinking to myself how much these Israeli border patrol people seemed and talked just like people I went to college with. (After all, half of them are American anyway.) "Cairo?" he stopped. Then he marked me down a "3", which ensured me a nice little interrogation inside. As I waited in line, I overheard the gray-haired passport control official quizzing the Palestinian man ahead of me on his ancestors' first names. When it was my turn, I had to stand on my tiptoes to see and hear well -- perhaps this is on purpose, as it throws you off balance a little. The man flipped through my passport and asked me to recount my itinerary before entering Israel, seeing if I would lie about Lebanon, I think. "How many days were you in Lebanon?" he barked at me. "5," I said. "WRONG. SIX," he countered. He directed me to a cordoned-off area reserved for those being questioned further. The Palestinians with whom I shared the space immediately struck up a friendly conversation, and were also rather happy that they weren't the only ones being treated like criminals. But I was not to wait for long. A tall Russian man from the Ministry of the Interior strutted over to ask me a few questions about Clare, since staying Ramallah is a red flag, and demand the phone numbers of anyone else I might know in the country. But then I was sent on my way, taking a bus to Jericho, where there is a rather sad Palestinian Authority customs post that did nothing but look at my passport photo.

Soon I had taken a servees to Ramallah (by a roundabout route, because the direct roads in much of the West Bank are closed to Palestinians) and met up with Clare in Minara, the center of the city. I had always imagined that traveling in the West Bank would be very tough, but in fact it's very organized and people are very eager to help you find your way -- partly, as Clare explained, because Palestinians really want visitors to have a positive impression of Palestine. (On the other hand, as I found out in Jerusalem, asking Israelis about travel to or within the West Bank, was like talking to a wall... Israel bans its citizens from going to Palestinian cities except where settlers have moved in.) Ramallah doesn't have a lot of tourist sites, especially since Yasser Arafat's tomb was closed, but it is a livelier place than most West Bank cities. The seat of the Palestinian Authority, it's where most expats are based and has cafes, movie theaters, a decent selection of restaurants, and the like. Clare and I went for a walk through the city, baked cookies, and ate a delicious dinner on her lovely vine-covered patio with her roommates and their Palestinian friend who had just been granted his first permit ever to travel into Israel.

The next morning Clare and I embarked on an epic self-tour of the West Bank. First stop: Hebron (Al Khalil). This is military occupation at its most obvious. The shared Israeli-Palestinian road that we took to Hebron was lined with Israeli flags, with Israeli settlements perched on nearly every hilltop. The West Bank is divided into Areas A, B, and C, with Area A controlled by the PA and Area C controlled by the Israeli government. This map gives you an idea of the proportional size of these different areas and consequently what a large portion of the WB is Area C. When we first arrived in Hebron, we were in the solidly Palestinian part -- giant posters of Arafat and Abbas, all writing in the Arabic, the whole nine yards. But then we neared the main historical attraction, which is the Tomb of the Patriarchs, part of which is reserved for Muslims and part for Jews. After passing a small Israeli army checkpoint, we approached one of many soldiers milling around the site and asked him where we could enter the holy site. He explained that because it was a Friday during Ramadan, only Muslims were allowed in all day. "But I know you're gonna go back home and tell everyone anyway that the Jews don't let the Muslims pray!" he said to us coarsely... "But so you're from New York, do you like the Knicks?" After passing a few Orthodox settlers praying outside and a horde of soldiers who yelled at us - "Dangerous up there, very dangerous!" we ascended into a Palestinian neighborhood directly adjoining the Tomb. The streets were empty but for the checkpoint boxes and an occasional Palestinian who looked at us with as much suspicion as the soldiers. On our way back, a soldier overheard us speaking Arabic to a Palestinian couple and barked at us to present our passports to him. I'm not sure what he was looking for, but all he muttered was - "Hm. You've traveled a lot." Standing behind him were 3 foreigners of various ages in brown vests. They were observers from the World Council of Churches who are sent to conflict zones to, in this case for example, escort Palestinian children to school in neighborhoods where settlers would otherwise throw stones, and to simply offer a watchful presence. We then walked to the old Palestinian souk area, which was closed down during the Second Intifada and is now off-limits to Palestinians, inhabited by a few settlers but a ghost town for the most part. The municipality's sign read: "These stores were closed by the IDF for security reasons after Arabs began the 'Oslo War' (aka the Second Intifada) in September 2000, attacking, wounding, and murdering Jews on this road." Nearby, a settler-erected sign, also in both English and Hebrew, read: "These buildings were constructed on land purchased by the Hebron Jewish Community in 1807. This land was stolen by Arabs following the murder of 67 Hebron Jews in 1929. We demand justice! Return our property to us!"

Israeli soldiers walk through the former souk in Hebron 

Not so far away, the "new" souk was bustling. We stopped for a long time at the stall of Women in Hebron, a local, all-female embroidery cooperative based in the old city that sells all kinds of beautiful bags, keffiyehs, jewelry, and clothing. (Apparently they've been so successfully that other shopkeepers have started falsely claiming that their products are also made by women!) But despite the apparent vibrancy of the souk that day, it all goes on under the watchful eye of both army and extreme settlers. That is to say, settlers have moved into the upper floors of the homes and shops in this Palestinian neighborhood, to the point that some Arabs can no longer access their own front doors and must climb in through the windows. The shopkeepers have also strung up tarps and wire netting to catch the trash thrown by the settlers down onto the Palestinian street. It was a shocking sight. Here is a photo, looking up from within the souk:

The Hebron souk, with settlers' trash

Nearby, leading around the perimeter of the souk, is a segregated road. The wider section is for soldiers, settlers, and tourists, while Palestinians are only allowed to use a smaller shoulder of the road blocked off by concrete barriers.

With heavy hearts, we made our way from Hebron to Bethlehem, which is awash in tour groups and feels much less troubled. We did not linger long, though. Rather, we made a beeline through the Old City for the main attraction - the Church of the Nativity. It is apparently the oldest continually operating church in the entire world and was built in the 4th century over the cave believed to be the site of Jesus's birth. One enters the church through the so-called "Door of Humility", an oddly tiny little opening aimed to remind the visitor of the sanctity of the place. While of course the church has been through lots of phases over the centuries, a piece of Constantine's original mosaic is visible through a cutaway in the floor. Decorated with the colored glass chandeliers typically of Orthodox churches, the site is actually divided square inch by square inch between various Christian sects. At one point, all the visitors were shushed and a service of some kind began at the front, with a trio of long-bearded and black-robed Orthodox priests chanting and waving incense before the altar. In the basement of the church, we visited the star that is said to mark the exact spot of the birth, and against which pilgrims were prostrating themselves. A few feet away is a candlelit area where Mary supposedly laid Jesus in the manger.

Entering the Church of the Nativity through the Humility Door

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to linger in Bethlehem because we had an invitation. We were to have dinner in the city of Nablus, the largest in the West Bank, with a family Clare had befriended last year while working for an NGO there. We had iftar with Ryme, the 26-year-old mother, and her three very cute kids, Kareem, Mohannad, and baby Qais. After the home-cooked meal, we entertained the extremely energetic kids with games, chasing them with a broom, and a visit to the juice man. Then the extended family arrived for an extended visit. I kept thinking how scary it would be to have three kids at 26 years old. I was exhausted after a couple hours. But then Ryme's husband, Ramy, arrived with a fresh, warm platter of Nabulsi kunafa just for us. Kunafa is a traditional pastry filled with cheese, soaked in sweet syrup, and topped with pistachio shavings for which Nablus is famous -- and, as luck would have it, we had fallen into the home of a real, live kunafa shop owner. Before going to bed, Clare and I went for a stroll in the Balad. It was alive and decorated with Ramadan lights, but there were very few women out; those who were were all well covered and with their husbands. As Clare explained after a year of living there, Nabulsi women essentially do not go out after age 16 and all have arranged marriages, since there are no coffeeshops or other venues where men and women might hang out together.

We spent the night at Ryme and Ramy's place and in the morning went to find Naseer Arafat, a friend of a friend of my dad's. We met him at one of Nablus's few remaining soap factories (most were destroyed during the Second Intifada), and there watched it being brewed in a giant olive oil cauldron, then dried in cone-shaped stacks. Mr. Arafat took us to his office in the old souk and explained to us his work as a conservator reconstructing the old city of Nablus after much of it was destroyed during the intifada and the violence there that continued until 2010. (It was the center of resistance fighting.) The old buildings he has restored largely date to the Ottoman period. In addition, he showed us around the craft training center, art library, and children's library he runs in his family's own old soap factory. Afterward, Clare and I took our own stroll around the old city. Reminders of the conflict were never far: practically every other building had a martyr poster or plaque pasted to it. These are kind of unsettling photos you might associate with Palestine: young men photoshopped into photos with enormous guns. There were empty spaces where entire houses had been wiped out and photos of the families who had lived there just a few years ago.

Typical martyr poster in the old city of Nablus

A short taxi ride away but still within the city of Nablus, we visited Balata Refugee Camp, the largest camp in the West Bank. Built for 5,000 Palestinians from Jaffa in 1948, the 1 square km now holds 28,000 people. The residents of the camp continue to have many children, 6 on average, and have them young (our guide told us about a 32-year-old friend of his who is a grandfather). Only two roads are wide enough for cars to pass through, and most are barely wide enough for a person on foot. The drab concrete slab homes, some still remnants of the temporary housing erected in the 1950s, bear down on you as you pass through these sad, colorless alleys punctuated only by the occasional student mural or lone tree. The community center at the entrance, next to the cookie-cutter blue and white UN school, is a bright spot: it has a children's library and game room, a computer lab, meeting rooms, and a guest house. One of its employees, an amiable 30-something man named Mustafa, gave us a brief walking tour of part of the camp. He himself bore the scars of the Second Intifada: he was shot twice while driving an ambulance in and out of the camp.

Across the street from the camp's entrance was an oddly stark contrast: Jacob's Well. An Orthodox convent and church, it is built around the well where Jesus supposedly spoke with a Samaritan woman. (Indeed the Samaritans still live in Nablus, now on a hilltop overlooking the city.) What seemed so foreign after walking through Balata were the lush, tranquil gardens surrounding the church, and the tour groups with nametags and fanny packs strolling about inside.

Back in Ramallah that night, Clare and I went out to dinner with some of her expat friends at the hip Cafe La Vie. We then went downtown to experience the Ramadan lights and shopping scene, purchasing, as Eid gifts for one another, flip flops shaped like fish from a street vendor. At the ice cream shop Baladna, the cashier quizzed me on my politics as he rang up my cone. "Bush?" he asked. "Tsk," he answered his own question. "Obama?" Also "tsk."

With Clare and my new woman-made keffiyeh in Ramallah

Petra and Madaba

So I missed the one daily bus from Amman to Petra at 6:30am. I went to one of the bus depots and found someone claiming to be a servees (shared taxi) bound for Petra. It turned out to be a crazy ride: a graying South African man, straight off the plane, made for constant entertainment by waving his guidebook in the air, grabbing the driver's seat, and shouting things like "Stop! Stop right here! I'm getting out! Slow down! I have a kid to raise! He's not my kid, but I'm raising him anyway!" And then, when this didn't convince our toothless driver to reduce his speed: "You're just showing off because there's a girl in the car!" Yehya, the driver, was unamused, and kept telling me in Arabic that the man had a jinn in his head. Meanwhile, halfway through the 3.5 hour drive, which took us 2.5 hours, we discovered that Yehya had not slept in 48 hours but because he was fasting would only douse water on his face to stay awake. This led to him begging me to drive for half an hour so he could take a nap. I did not think this was a good idea, so I refused. When we (happily) rolled into Petra at last, the skinny souvenir salesman in the backseat crooned in that English accent shared by all souvenir salesmen and only by souvenir salesmen throughout the Middle East: "Weelcoom to Beeetra!"

Being alone at Petra was a sublime experience whenever I could catch a moment of peace from the pea-sized postcard vendors who came to trot along beside me at regular intervals. Or the donkey drivers shouting: "Bedouin limousine! Think but don't think too much." (Or the Petra pickup line, "Come have a beer in my cave!" Tempting.) One enters the main area of Nabatean Petra through a long, cool sandstone gorge that would have served as the approach to the city 2000 years ago as well. The city's architecture is a blend of Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and other influences, as Petra was a commercial crossroads that bridged the West with the Eastern trade routes from India and China through Arabia. When it opens, you've arrived at the Treasury, the jewel in Petra's crown. Here I am doing my thing at the Treasury:

For the whole day I just padded along down the main road of Petra, visiting the Urn Temple, the theater, the rockcut tombs, and the Great Temple (where a Brown U. dig has partly reconstructed things). A long-haired Bedouin guy who was working on the dig -- who looked straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean, it was uncanny -- struck up a conversation with me for awhile and told me how many tourists at Petra are quite mean because they assume they're being cheated and will fight tooth and nail for the last penny. Hm - I could see both sides. By the end of the day, I had earned a reputation among the camel and donkey guys as the girl who walked too much, since I continuously refused their offers of a ride, but also made friends with many of these guys. Eventually I reached the beginning of the ascent to the deir, or monastery. In the blazing heat, this was a pretty arduous hike, with the added hazard of donkeys scrabbling up and down the rocks beside me. But at the end I arrived at the top in one piece and was rewarded with a sweeping view of Wadi Araba -- as a sign noted, the top of the world. When I turned around to head back, a Bedouin who had invited me to tea in his tent at the top of the world (it's a shtick) told me, "See you soon, big baboon."


Petra was certainly a hard act to follow, but I did have another full day in Jordan and not enough time for the fabled Wadi Rum. So I set off from Amman for Madaba, a city with a larger proportion of Christians (1/3) than most of Jordan. After flourishing in the Byzantine period, the city was depopulated between the 9th and 19th centuries, when Christian families from a neighboring area moved back and revived the place. People go to Madaba for its mosaics. Despite this, I seemed to be the first visitor of the day just about everywhere and the caretakers were holed away reciting Quran. First I hit up the archaeological park, built around the Church of the Virgin from the 6th/7th c. and an earlier mansion. The massive floor mosaics were virtually intact, my favorite being the mansion's scene depicting the characteristics of the Greek tragedy of Hippolytus and Phaedra frolicking about. The pint-sized Madaba Museum had yet more mosaic fragments to offer, and then, at the Church of the Apostles (of which only the floor remains), I was permitted by the guard to enter the cordoned area and examine close up the depiction of the personification of the Sea. Interesting as the main event in a church devoted to the apostles. I saved for last St. George's Orthodox Church, known for its mosaic map of the Holy Land -- or at least bits and pieces of it. It is, I was told, the oldest surviving map of the Holy Land (550s AD), but despite its longevity I had a hard, hard time making out anything other than the cluster of homes that marked Jerusalem and the River Jordan.

Before heading home, I stopped at Mt. Nebo. This is the spot where Moses supposedly looked out at the Promised Land -- and died. A sign at the small shrine pointed out landmarks, but mostly I saw barren land (no spires of Jerusalem) and what I think was the Dea Sea. My wanderings brought me to an evening stroll around through the average areas of Amman and to Husseiny Mosque, where while allowing myself a moment for contemplation an Egyptian tea-seller bamboozled me into drinking suspect mint tea from the giant pot on his belt. At maghrib,  the crows naturally evaporated and I had a clear run up to Wild Jordan. Not only does this Jordanan-inspired health food restaurant offer stunning views of Amman's Citadel and glittering lights, it organizes eco-tours, runs some kind of library, and other trades. Nevertheless, Jordan is actually kind of known for its ecotourism and environmental projects, so hopefully these initiatives will be successful. After dinner, I met up again for a nargileh with Mahmoud the perfume distributor and let him reminisce about his days in Cairo.

On the Ground in Jordan

My flight to Amman took only one hour, but it took me back to what felt much more like the Middle East I knew. There was no doubt that Ramadan was in full swing in Amman, and I found it essentially impossible to eat during the day. My home in Jordan was at the apartment of my Princeton friend Sheeba, who was studying Arabic there for the summer. She lived in Jebel Weibdeh, a leafy residential neighborhood positioned atop one of Amman's many hills. While she prayed inside the mosque, I struck up a conversation outside with a middle-aged Palestinian-Jordanian perfume distributor named Mahmoud, who bought me coffee and regaled me with stories of his 9 children and his days studying in Cairo at AUC. Afterward, Sheeba and I went together to downtown Amman, known as El Balad. It was alive and happening around 11, as is to be expected during Ramadan, although the scale was much more manageable and far less chaotic than anywhere near Cairo's downtown.

I only had a few days in Jordan, and since there is not a whole lot to do in Amman itself, I pushed myself to get an early start in the morning. On the bus to the Roman ruins of Jerash, north of the capital, I met an Irishman who had studied literature and classics and just finished the Transsiberian Railroad, so we traveled together for the day. Although the daily chariot races at Jerash were canceled due to Ramadan, there was lots to see. The city's heyday was in the 2nd century AD, when a visit from the Emperor Hadrian sparked a massive building project. Naturally, there was the requisite triumphal arch, as well as two amphitheaters, an oval-shaped forum still lined with dozens of columns, the agora, the cardo maximus, the baths, the nymphaeum, and so on. Entering one of the theaters, a random Jordanian man approached us and asked where we were from. "America?!" he said, ignoring my Irish companion. "Jordan and America best friends! Special photo because America is so good." It's been a really long time since I've heard anything like that in this part of the world with no expectation of money involved. (This is not to say all Jordanians feel this way: I also heard the typical "we all hate America but like Americans" take.) The men outside the little museum went and found us grapes to eat, although they were fasting, and gave us their little radio to listen to the news. The bathroom attendant pleaded for my hand in marriage on behalf of her green-eyed son. Fruit vendors on the street went and found a bus for us. So far, I was liking this place and its people quite a lot.

Jerash, Jordan

From Jerash, the Irishman and I caught a bus to the citadel of Ajloun. I would say it's your typical castle (built in the 12th century to protect against Crusader attacks) in an arrested state of decay. But it certainly offered some great views of the mountains and valleys of Jordan. Somehow there were no buses back, however, so we ended up hitching a ride all the way back to Amman with some friends of the castle guards.

Beiteddine, Tripoli, and Other Encounters in Lebanon

We started our day with a healthy dose of manakish, which is sort of like a small pizza with zaatar on top (or a variety of other toppings). Then we took a stroll through downtown to Maghen Abraham synagogue, which Miriam had heard about because it is apparently being restored. While it was technically on one of the big tourist map billboards, it was tucked away in a hard-to-access pedestrian-only zone in the middle of a construction site. We could only peer in from the road, and were told by a nearby guard no photos, but indeed there were restored Hebrew inscriptions in the process of restoration. From there, we went a short ways to the gut of the old Holiday Inn, once a flourishing (though heinously designed) highrise hotel near the Beirut Corniche, now a relic of the quickly disappearing violent past sandwiched between glass-encased office buildings and new hotels. Only the shell remains, and much of that is covered in holes. The army had parked a row of olive colored tanks inside the ground floor, as if ready to defend this ghost of a place if the need should arise. (The other building we saw with an equally ominous presence was the gutted half of an egg-shaped movie theater downtown: until we asked, we couldn't tell if it was a war relic or a building marked for demolition. At residents' request, it has been left as a kind of monument.)

Thinking we'd go hiking amongst Lebanon's famous cedars, we took a bus south to the mountainous area known as Chouf. When it proved logistically impossible to get to the official cedar reserve, we spent the afternoon instead at Beiteddine Palace, itself nestled in a quiet wooded corner of the hills. Formerly a palace of the Ottoman governor, it is know the president's summer palace -- evident from the fax machine, laptop, and telephones stationed around the compound. Although Italian influence was obvious in the design of the grounds, the Ottoman-style meeting rooms were accented with stained glass, plush divans, and exquisitely painted ceilings, and there was a lovely mosaic collection in the basement. 

Back in Beirut, we met up with the lead singer of the popular Lebanese band Mashrou3 Leila, who is a friend of Adam's, for a walk through appropriately hip Gemmayzeh. This was following a hilarious miscommunication earlier in the day, when after forgetting to save my number, he thought I was his Canadian producer for several hours and was giving me the details for the band's production meeting. Hamed pointed us in the direction of an equally trendy cafe-bar called Internazionale, where Miriam and I watched the bartender chop mint with imaginative gusto. As we were returning, we stumbled across the Armenian Quarter, or at least street. This was where we had our best meal of the trip -- at a lovely restaurant called Mayrig. I had succulent kebab meat covered in sour cherries and thin bread crisps. For dessert, we shared giant maamoul cookies stuffed with warm cheese. More content than ever, we then met up with Ali, a Lebanese friend of several of my Egyptian friends. He took us to a place called Harissa where there is a giant statue of Our Lady of Lebanon stationed high on a mountain -- a modern but extremely popular shrine. From the top, we had a nighttime view of what seemed like the entire coast of Lebanon. Afterward, since Lebanon is so small, we decided to check out the Byblos port just a little bit to the north. The alleys of the restored old souk surrounding the port were packed with partygoers in tight miniskirts and stilettos: at night, chairs, tables, and thumping beats come out and the entire area becomes a giant bar sandwiched between the sea and the occasional ancient ruin. 

...

Brief interlude from Cairo... reporting on my discovery of a new favorite treat from the corner bakery. It is essentially a giant, warm pig-in-a-blanket except less greasy. And of course no pork. This was after my somewhat failed attempt to buy a really great pillow at Tawheed wa Nour and before I solidly befriended the fruit man who was recently moved in right outside my apartment building. Not only does he have tasty-looking bananas for sale, but he offered his maybe 15-year-old son to me in marriage and gave me an exotic white pear for free to prove he meant it. Anyway, today I went downtown to the refugee services program at St. Andrew's church and signed myself up to teach high school history (world and U.S.) to a class of 20 teenage Sudanese refugees every Saturday. They are going to be taking the GED in the spring, so they have to do all world and American history in one year. More updates when I start teaching on Sept. 8.

And now back to Lebanon...

...

So the next day we decided to see a different side of Lebanon: the country's second city, Tripoli. Unlike Beirut with its many Christians and laidback ambience, Tripoli is 98% Muslim and clearly much more conservative. We saw no other foreigners the entire day, perhaps because they've been discouraged by the ongoing reports of violent clashes around the edges of the city (where there are many refugee camps and spillover from Syria has exacerbated existing tensions). First things first: we visited one of several Hallab Brothers sweet shops. The counter that stretched the length of the entire shop was filled with platters of freshly made Ramadan pastries. See below:

Hallab Bros. Sweets, Tripoli

We then wound our way through the streets of Tripoli up to its citadel. The ticketbooth was unmanned, and the people strolling around inside the ruined castle were soldiers, not tourists. In fact, there were several tanks stationed at its base, enjoying the view over the city. To get from there to the great mosque, we had to walk down past stone homes and souks that looked to have been continuously inhabited for hundreds and hundreds of years. The Great Mosque, built in the Mamluk period, was much simpler in design than most in Cairo. Inside, even though a sermon was being given, dozens of men were fast asleep on the carpets. (Ramadan life is tough.) We were approached by a friendly art professor named Jamal who -- since, as he said, had neither a wife nor a mother -- offered to take us for the afternoon around the other historical highlights of Tripoli. We visited the madrasa of the Great Mosque, and then the oldest hammam in the city, which may have been built as well by the Mamluks in the 14th century. It is now (but not long) out of use, covered in cobwebs and peeling paint, but nearby was another, newer one in the same style which was still in use (as evidenced by the enormous men in towels lounging in the corner).

One of my favorite corners of Tripoli was the Khan al-Saboun, the quiet old caravanserai where soap of every shape and scent is manufactured and distributed all over the world. Many of the soaps were molded into cute shapes - cookies, tomatoes, stars, etc. Jamal then walked us to an art emporium where he sells some of his own work. If you have ever been to a family home in the Middle East and wondered where they got that massive black painting in the Louis XIV gold frame with the Qur'an verse in shiny gold calligraphy, you now have your answer. In addition to the calligraphy, the store sold  the paintings of many local artists for popular consumption. Jamal took us upstairs, asked for a calligraphy pen and paper from one of the associates, and proceeded to write our names as calligraphic flowers. After this lovely stop, Jamal took me and Miriam to the Taynal Mosque. We waited at the gate as Jamal secured for us the required modesty cloaks with the pointy hoods. In the inner sanctuary, a sermon was just beginning, so we lingered in the first room of the mosque for awhile and listened.

'

In my modesty cape inside the Taynal Mosque, Tripoli

In the early evening, we left Tripoli by bus for Byblos. Unfortunately, the archaeological site was closed by the time we got there. Instead, we ate a dinner of fresh fish (something called farideh) at a restaurant overlooking the marina in the old port area. Like clockwork, the lights went out halfway through the meal - the electric company was still on strike. Back in Beirut, we met up with Ali and his friend came to pick us up in their Mercedes for a night on the town. Lebanon is full of shocking contrasts over a very small area: one moment you're cruising past strip clubs with flashy neon lights, the next you're surrounded by women in abayas. While the massive rooftop nightclubs for which Beirut is famous require reservations in advance, Ali and Samer led us to first to Fame, a Gemmayzeh bar that pounded with Pitbull and J-Lo, then to the slightly more low-key Prague, in Hamra, which alternated between the Egyptian classical singer Abdel Halim Hafez, Edith Piaf, salsa, and rock just to keep things surprising. By 3am we were out in the Beirut suburb Jounieh at an Irish-inspired pub called Hooligans. Yes, Beirut has a little of everything. 

One thing I thought about during this night out was how much easier it seems to be a foreigner in Lebanon than in Egypt, or at least to blend in. In Cairo, for better or for worse, I am constantly aware of sticking out. This manifests itself in both good and bad ways: people are typically extraordinarily hospitable to foreigners on the one hand, and on the other, I constantly feel conspicuous while walking in the street, and therefore subject both to more harassment and to people looking to make a buck off me. In Beirut at least, I never felt conspicuous as a foreigner, perhaps in part because of dress there, but perhaps also just a different attitude. 

The next morning, a Sunday, was my last in Lebanon. Our attempts to go shopping were foiled because apparently everything is closed in Lebanon on Sundays -- I guess the Christians won that one. So after a last Beiruti snack at Cafe Younes, I headed to the airport for the next phase of my journey.

Brushing Shoulders with Hezbollah: A Day in the Bekaa Valley

Okay, so the title is an overstatement. Actually the closest we came to brushing shoulders with Hezbollah was seeing their t-shirts and murals. But, the Bekaa Valley, where Miriam and I spent our second day in Lebanon, is indeed the headquarters of this notorious group. When we left Talal Hotel in the morning, we asked whether it would be hard to find food during the day in the Bekaa, given its relative conservatism. "What?! THIS IS LEBANON," our buddy at the front desk said to us, as if we were total imbeciles. With that we set off in a minibus packed with a jolly band of plumbers in matching blue suits. The minibus, minus the plumbers, careened up through the mountains, allowing us two hours of scenic views across cedar-covered valleys dotted with little white houses. Mountains, like rain, are something I have not seen since I came to Cairo. There was no in-your-face transition when we entered Hezbollah territory. As a Lebanese friend later explained it, while Hezbollah is essentially responsible for the security of the Bekaa, all the institutions of the regular Lebanese government, including its army, have a clear presence there. Certainly there were more posters of Hezbollah leaders and Islamic slogans posted along the highway, but not more. We did pass a giant green banner that read: "Madinat al-Imam al-Sadr Tarahhab Bikum" - the City of Imam Al-Sadr Welcomes You, and though it seemed like a checkpoint, a fellow passenger merely yelled out that his daughter was sick (she wasn't) and we sailed on through. In the fairly sleepy town of Baalbek, we passed a flashy, domed shrine to the daughter of Hussein (grandson of Muhammad) in the typical Shi'a style before the minibus dropped as near the entrance to the Baalbek historical site. Immediately a man approached us hawking Hezbollah t-shirts along with his Baalbek magnets and figurines. Apparently the yellow t-shirts with green logo and giant gun are a popular souvenir -- but try making it through customs with one of those! Next to the ticket office, there was also a giant Hezbollah mural with an image of Nasrallah, a missile, and Tel Aviv inside a gun sight, with the slogan: "For every building destroyed in Dahieh, we will destroy one in Tel Aviv." (Dahieh is a Hezbollah-dominated neighborhood of Beirut that was carpet bombed during the 2006 war with Israel.)

As for the site of Baalbek itself, the pictures tell most of the story. We spent the middle of the day hiking amongst the ruins as we would at any other ancient Roman site. The Temples of Jupiter and Bacchus are the main attractions -- larger and better preserved than most in Rome. The sacrificial altars still stand tall, and the Bacchus Temple itself is almost completely intact. Part of the complex was converted into a Byzantine church, although pagan cults continued into the 6th century, then into an Arab citadel. Yet only a few traces of these later incarnations remain: the site is a slice of ancient Rome nestled in the forested mountains of eastern Lebanon. One of my favorite parts, though, was the 19th-century graffiti carved - in many cases quite artfully - into the walls of the Bacchus Temple by erudite European, as well as Arab, travelers when the site was popularly rediscovered in the West. As we left, we stopped by a German exhibition on Kaiser Wilhelm II's visit to and initiation of excavations at Baalbek at the turn of the 20th century.

Standing amidst the remains of the Jupiter Temple, with Bacchus Temple behind us

Inside the Bacchus Temple at Baalbek 

From Baalbek we caught another minibus to the Ksara Vineyard, the most famous winery in Lebanon (yes, paradoxically in Hezbollah territory) and certainly the place to go for an afternoon snack in the Bekaa. After our tour of the caves and tasting, we hitched a ride on a regular bus that happened to be driving by. The friendly woman seated in front of us told us that she was a refugee from Homs, in Syria. So was the man sitting in front of her. Indeed, we were only 60 miles from Homs, an easy jaunt in easier times. When we found a taxi from Chtoura, a crossroads, to the Umayyad ruins at Anjar, our driver offered to take us by the rural Syrian border crossing nearby. We paused for a moment there to watch vans laden with suitcases filtering in through the checkpoint. There's lots of traffic going both ways, our driver said, and he pointed to a few Syrian taxis alongside us on the road. The Anjar ruins seemed nearly forgotten, tucked away in this forested border town. The crumbling arches lining the ancient main street glistened in the last warm light of the afternoon - and there were baths, and a palace, but it was hard to identify much. 

It turned out at the end of the ride that our taxi driver was crazy and tried to charge us $50, throwing our generous payment out the window in disgust. But, to our surprise, when a crowd gathered around us, as one always does in this part of the world, the men all took our side. They actually attempted to determine the cause of the conflict and reason with the man on our behalf. Unfortunately, I cannot imagine this happening in Egypt. Eventually we won and climbed aboard another minibus that took us through a dusk joyride back to Beirut. I made friends with baby Raheem, with the fauxhawk, as a giant moon rose over the mountain crest. A pink and yellow mist billowed beneath us, masking the valley far below as we floated back to the city. 

In Beirut, we made friends with the Christian juice man Georges Makhlouf, who spoke with an uncanny New Jersey accent and told us he liked Costa Rica and Pittsburgh way better than any place in the Middle East. "Once I went to Syria... for one day," he told us. "I dunno how ya guys do it."

Day One in Beirut

My long-awaited vacation began on July 31 with a late-afternoon flight to Beirut. I've been dreaming of going to Lebanon for awhile, probably in part because it's on the State Department's warning list of countries to avoid and who doesn't like a healthy dose of danger and intrigue while on summer vacation. Perhaps paradoxically given Lebanon's reputation as the stomping ground of kidnapers and gun-brandishing Hezbollah partisans, it actually offered a calm respite from the hectic din of Cairo.

My friend Miriam and I checked into Talal "Hotel" near the Beirut port and in between the trendy Gemmayzeh district and the quiet but sophisticated downtown, which has been rebuilt since the civil war but is still in the process of being revitalized. Our basic room opened out onto a large balcony with a Mediterranean view. Not bad for $20 a night. But within 15 minutes of our arrival, the power had gone out and the motley crew of hostel staff was bumping around with flashlights. It turns out Lebanon's electricity company is protesting something and cuts the power throughout the country for several hours every day. We took the opportunity for an evening stroll down Gouraud St. in Gemmayzeh, filled with candlelit restaurants and hip bars, to Place des Martyrs. This large open area, now mostly a huge parking lot, is where major protests have been held in Lebanon for decades. But this day it was calm, and the cars circling the square stopped politely for pedestrians to cross. (This was a true culture shock after playing pedestrian Russian roulette in Cairo for the past 2 months.) We soon marveled at the fact that there are also recycling bins in Lebanon! What's more, Lebanese women were strutting around in tight shorts and tanktops. It felt incredibly strange to be walking around with bare shoulders all of a sudden. At La Tabkha, the cozy "cantine libanaise" where we had our first dinner of inventive mezze, we were greeted with a "Bonsoir", an aperitif, and balls of lebneh doused with herbs.

The next morning, we decided to explore the downtown, known as Solidere. For security reasons as much as aesthetics, a large cobblestoned area surrounding the Lebanese parliament and radiating from a restored Ottoman clock tower, replete with Rolex face, has been cordoned off for pedestrians. The clean and leafy area looked brand new, like much of Beirut, whose historic buildings have been restored with great care since the end of the war in the early 1990s. Then, occasionally, you stumble across a building pock-marked with bullet holes or black and hollow. Still, it is not hard to forget, in many areas of Beirut, that such a destructive war ravaged the city so recently. Off Nejmeh (or Place de l'Etoile), as the clock tower square is called, we stepped into the Orthodox Church of St. George. An archaeological exhibit in the basement showed us the Hellenistic, Byzantine, medieval, and Ottoman layers of the site, as well as the modern ruin of the church in the 1980s before it was reconstructed. Across the square we visited a mosque, Al-Omari, formerly a Byzantine basilica. The call to prayer that sounded as we wandered seemed oddly out of step with the stiletto heels, Venetian-style apartment buildings, and tinkling glasses of the sidewalk cafes. It was quite easy to forget entirely that it was still Ramadan.

From Nejmeh, Miriam and I embarked on an epic trek to the National Museum, a small but lovely collection of ancient artifacts - mostly Roman statues, a few mosaics, pots, bronze figurines, and glassware. Quite interesting was the short film detailing how the museum's curators saved the artifacts from destruction during the war by encasing them in concrete boxes, burying them, and using all kinds of other inventive tactics. From the museum we proceeded to Hamra, the busy shopping district that feels more like a downtown should. I dined on a bagel with feta and minty lemonade at Cafe Younes, a popular hangout for students at the American University of Beirut and doctors at the AUB Hospital. A walk through the lovely, green AUB campus, mostly built in the late 19th century, led us to the Corniche. Lined with sleek high rise apartment buildings, the Corniche is a place to see and be seen. People were swimming and men bronzing in their Speedos in the afternoon sun. We dined in Hamra at Bread Basket, next to a pair of Syrian engineers who were escaping the conflict across the border. While Beirut itself felt happily peaceful - despite warnings of potential Syrian spillover - this was the first of several encounters that showed how small this bubble of calm really was.

Posters of Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, late spiritual leader of Hezbollah, in a more conservative quarter of Beirut 

Nejmeh by night 

Home for Eid

I ended Ramadan as I started it, with staying up to see the dawn. As of sundown last night, the month of fasting is officially over, and three days of partying begin. Yesterday was my first full day back "home" in Cairo, but thankfully I still have 2 weeks until the start of the fall semester. It's strange to feel that being back here is relaxing, because that is not something one often feels in this chaotic and overcrowded place, but it is in a way. I spent the day sleeping, sorting through photos from my trip, and going for a stroll in the nearby Botanical Garden with a few friends. As far as botanical gardens go, it's a sad place: most of the plants are stiff and brown, the grass is overgrown in many places, and the handwritten labels tacked haphazardly to certain trees are faded. The cactus sanctuary, the only place that looked well-maintained, was locked. The place has certainly seen better days and larger crowds -- but it is nevertheless a sleepy oasis of green amidst the gray, congested streets of Dokki.

In the evening, several friends came over for a final iftar, and we ordered cheap Yemeni food from the place around the corner. Once the guests had gone, I passed out on the couch for a few hours. I woke up around 1am to the pop of fireworks somewhere nearby. I left my apartment and found the streets were crowded and noisy -- even small children were running free in the middle of the night. I met my friend Nina in her neighborhood of Mounira, across the river, and together we walked to Sayyeda Zeinab. Of course I had to stop again for the mystery dessert miziz (see my earlier post for details) at Rahmany's before we headed to the mosque. It was about 3:45am and everyone was still going strong. Streams of women poured into the mosque with us (the men's side is separate), and one young woman was engaged in a shoving match with the elderly shoe guardian. Nina and I nestled ourselves in a back corner and listened to the melodic voice of the imam over the loudspeaker chanting verses from the Qur'an. At 3:53, he switched to the azaan, the call to prayer, and all the women stood up in unison. It was the beginning of fagr, the dawn prayer. It lasted maybe 10 minutes before the lines of bowing women dispersed and many gathered in small groups to chat with friends. One lady came around with a box of free dates, offering one to each of us. And so began the festivities of Eid.