This past weekend I had a chance to explore beyond Beirut’s borders. I discovered a needed breath from the city in the Chouf mountains on Saturday and the warmth of family life in the charming Southern surroundings of Sidon (see email).
Chouf Mountains and small town Batloon (North Central Lebanon):
Rising early morning Saturday to meet a colleague and her family from the Waldorf school of North Carolina, I was told I’d be picked up in a silver Mercedes. Not realizing the oodles of silver Mercedes parked in the street and driving by in multiples, I had a hard time finding the family’s driver. Once together, our early morning departure hour was pushed forward due to numerous family visits along the way towards our destination. At the grandmother’s house alone, I spent a few hours chatting away with my colleague’s husband, a successful pediatrician in the States who closed up shop to start an eco-village in Chapel Hill. That morning, we spoke in three different languages between him, the grandmother and children, while we munched on the chocolate covered almonds that she insisted I tried and listened to tales of when Israel bombed Beirut. The balcony railing still wears the scars of the shrapnel that exploded from a bomb that detinated in her front yard.
Once on the road, it took another couple of hours to find our destination. Every time we stopped for directions, we were told, “Go upwards” in Lebanese; nothing more detailed. So up we climbed from the foot covered in banana plantations, until we reached what looked like the edge of the earth. Crawling up the spine of the Chouf, we could literally see the deep Bekkaa valley which drops into rib cage formations. Olive trees dominate, giving the terrain a biblical appearance.
Perched at one of these picturesque ledges were two old men selling fresh pears, apricots and plums and smoking hookah pipes. We simply had to say the family’s last name whom we sought and one of the old man’s eyes lit up like kindling as he pointed enthusiastically to a palace nestled above our heads.
Before heading there, we were asked the ever-frequent question, “Where are you from in Lebanon?”. A simple question meaning so much more in this country. Here it determines, “Are you a Christian, Druse or Muslim?”, “With whom does your loyalty lie?” and “For what are you fighting politically?”. More clever than to take a polarized political view, my American-Lebanese friend responded, “I am from the side that will fix this country”. The old man chuckled, bearing his missing teeth, patted him on the back and handed us both small pears.
The house of my colleague’s friends is beautifully designed. The high arch frames, massive doors and ivy vine covered windows, perfectly outlined the lustrous silhouette of the Chouf Mountains on the veranda. Relentless screams of joy and outrage from the six children playing in the living room took me back to my own childhood with three vocal sisters.
After lunch, my colleague and I took the children to an enormous castle overlooking all of the valley. It was constructed by a man who was, as the story goes, reprimanded by his teacher when he took his imagination beyond the guidelines of a school project, designing his future home as a castle. Refusing to believe his fantasies could not become reality, he set out to build his ostentatious dream as an adult. The castle still stands on top of the mountain and is a tourist attraction for everyone who drives the winding roads of the Chouf.
Saida ands it’s village life:
Traveling to Southern Lebanon by service bus alone was quite the adventure on many levels. For one, I learned about the public transportation “system”. The bus station consists of double parked buses in an abandoned lot and groups of men shouting repeatedly the destination names of their buses. If you are lucky enough to hear your destination called or are found by the drivers themselves (who are not shy about approaching you), you simply hop in the oversized van. Departure time? As soon as the driver fills every seat in the van with passengers. Surprisingly, this system works. Only waiting 10 minutes or so, our 12 passenger service van took off in the direction of Saida.
Along the way, between an old man giving a sermon to politely nodding passengers and the passengers we dropped off and picked up in the middle of the highway, there was never a dull moment. Remembering what my Muslim friend advised about traveling alone as a woman, I kept my hands folded in my lap. According to him, this is a sign of a woman’s religious reverence. The miracle of the service bus is that it arrives at your destination in relatively good time (in this case 1 hour)and for only two thousand lebanese lyrah, or less than $1.50, no matter where you go in the country. The disadvantage is you never truly know what or who you will find along the way.
Once in Saida, I walked the historic port consumed by fishermen’s motorboats and nets, still speckled with the day’s early morning catch. I got lost in the action packed souks between the towering, 8th century city walls. For the most part, the people were quite pleasant except for a man on a hot pink bicycle who relentlessly followed me until I yelled him away in Arabic, telling him, “Halas, yella!”, or “Enough, go!”. Around noon, I met my friend, Fatima, whose family is from Sidon, for breakfast with two other friends of ours visiting for the weekend. From there, we headed to her town just North in the mountains to meet all of her relatives.
Spending time with her extended clan was the most revealing about the area and culture of the South. In the village culture of Lebanon, it is very standard for family’s to treat their guests as royalty. You would have thought an entire army was coming over from the amount of food Fatima’s Aunt placed before us on her olive tree surrounded patio overlooking the horizon. There were mountains of grape leaves rolled tight and oozing lemon juice; skewer after skewer of three types of kabobs and grilled vegetables of every type; tabbouli we helped prepare with Fatima’s grandmother; hummus and baba ganous dripping with puddles of olive oil and mounds of fresh garlic;kibbe nai (raw meat) dressed with parsley, tomato and onion; fruit platters showcasing all of the surrounding trees’ harvest, including raw almonds....and the list goes on!
After three and a half hours of lounging around this beautiful meal, socializing in my broken Lebanese and shooting rocks with pellet guns with Fatima’s war veteran Uncle, Mahmoud, we decided to take a “short” visit to a “nearby” mountain before departing for Beirut. Mahmoud’s predicted 10 minute excursion turned into a 4 hour car tour of the South’s mountain villages. Six of us stuffed into his car like a jar of pickles, side by side, singing along to Farouz and breathing in the fresh air and rich country landscape.
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