Lebanon Day 3
It's terrible here - we are forced to eat great food every day and there is nothing we can do about it!!
Saturday, after the post, we went to Wadih's stage "factory" (a warehouse where he and number of employees build stages for events at various venues in Lebanon) to hang out for a while before packing the ancient-van-with-character with the stuff we needed for the night. While there we had lunch - such informal meals in this country seem to bore down to "pancakes of unleavened bread filled with hot stuff" - meat, spinach, cheese etc.
We then went into central Beirut to the Club Social - um - social club (well, bar really) to do our first concert. We were due to start at about 22:00 but with socializing with the owner and - yes - eating (and the general lack of life until later) we didn't get started until 23:00. We played all the songs we had prepared in two sets and all seemed to go pretty well - well, except for the fact that my monitor gave up the ghost during the first song of each set (I abused Chris's MP3 ear buds as a stop gap so I could at least get some idea that I was playing at least the correct song). There were probably about 70 people in the club in all - and they all seemed to like us - though comments such as "oh your style of music is SO ME!!! But could you do some more well known songs" made us wonder a bit!! Actually, after we had finished, Jon and Chris had a very good "chat" with the owner, and Charles with his son. We got quite a few fan contact forms returned which will be followed up by the band's permanent members when we get back.
With the pack up happening at 1:30 in the morning, we didn't get back to the school until about 2:00. Wadih had to go on and supervise the building of a stage at the poshest hotel in town at 5:00am!!
So Sunday had a bit of a slow start - up at 9 - or 10 - or maybe later. We skipped church due to our late night/early morning, and just lazed in the morning. Jon and Chris were feeling very much the worse for wear with colds. At 1:30 Wadih picked us up and transported us to his parent's apartment in central Beirut - where he had grown up. He regaled us with stories of watching one side in the civil war launch mortars from one side of the apartment complex to hit enemy posts on the other side, and rushing to take pictures of the rockets as they passed - and many other tales of a war that just seemed to become part of daily life for "normal" people. At the apartment we met (or became reacquainted with in the case of Chris and Charles) Wadih's wife Lindy, his two children John and Jessie (who go to the school where we are staying), his astounding mother and father, his uncle, and his father's carpenter! Wadih's parents are astounding indeed - a lifetime of service to the Lord with many a story about evangelizing in difficult circumstances - you can see where Wadih gets his love for the Lord from - and his story-telling prowess!
Lunch consisted of a few dishes I HAD heard of - Humus, Tabbouleh, even shepherds pie - and a few that were new to me - "k'ber" (that's phonetically written!) and sort of whole-meal bread filled with meat, "bubba-ger-noosh" (yes, that's phonetically spelled too!) which was great but I have no idea what was in it!
After lunch it was back to Wadih's warehouse to pack up the PA for Monday, with the help of Said, a sound engineer and friend of Wadih (but then it seems everyone in Beirut is a friend of Wadih!!). We took that lot back to the school where we are staying - because the next gig was to play the two assemblies at that school! at 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning on Monday!!! A fairly standard setup and sound check was followed by an earlyish bedtime - though no hope of a long night was held since we had to get up at 6:00 to be ready.
Which takes us to today - we did indeed get up on time and headed down for a 7:30 start. We played four songs with a general theme of forgiveness, in two assemblies and I think it would be an understatement to say we were well received! I think the students also intended to take full advantage of temporary permission to scream (though one was warned "If you even start to make a noise like that when you have left this room you will find out what happens!"). We ate more "unleavened bread filled with stuff" for breakfast (this time cheese) and then went out at recess to talk to the students. I was not considered the oldest in the band (though I am by far) - Charles was referred to as "the old guy who sings" even AFTER they found out my true age!!! After that we struck the sound system, took it to another school across town where we play a couple of slightly later assemblies on Tuesday, then returned to - well, write blogs and emails and generally waste away the afternoon before Wadih picks us up to eat at his place tonight - where I will be in trouble due to having taken a bit too much editor's license in writing an SMS response to Lindy for Wadih while he was driving!!
By the way, I forgot to mention that as we taxied to take off on Friday an announcement came over the plane speakers that one of the navigation computers had crashed. They were trying to restart it but in the mean time would we all please check that our phone's were off - erm, on checking I found that mine was still ON! It appears I may have inadvertently delayed take off by about 15 minutes - sheepish grin (whats the smiley for that?).
More later, then (the taxi is coming we have just been told!!)
Saturday, after the post, we went to Wadih's stage "factory" (a warehouse where he and number of employees build stages for events at various venues in Lebanon) to hang out for a while before packing the ancient-van-with-character with the stuff we needed for the night. While there we had lunch - such informal meals in this country seem to bore down to "pancakes of unleavened bread filled with hot stuff" - meat, spinach, cheese etc.
We then went into central Beirut to the Club Social - um - social club (well, bar really) to do our first concert. We were due to start at about 22:00 but with socializing with the owner and - yes - eating (and the general lack of life until later) we didn't get started until 23:00. We played all the songs we had prepared in two sets and all seemed to go pretty well - well, except for the fact that my monitor gave up the ghost during the first song of each set (I abused Chris's MP3 ear buds as a stop gap so I could at least get some idea that I was playing at least the correct song). There were probably about 70 people in the club in all - and they all seemed to like us - though comments such as "oh your style of music is SO ME!!! But could you do some more well known songs" made us wonder a bit!! Actually, after we had finished, Jon and Chris had a very good "chat" with the owner, and Charles with his son. We got quite a few fan contact forms returned which will be followed up by the band's permanent members when we get back.
With the pack up happening at 1:30 in the morning, we didn't get back to the school until about 2:00. Wadih had to go on and supervise the building of a stage at the poshest hotel in town at 5:00am!!
So Sunday had a bit of a slow start - up at 9 - or 10 - or maybe later. We skipped church due to our late night/early morning, and just lazed in the morning. Jon and Chris were feeling very much the worse for wear with colds. At 1:30 Wadih picked us up and transported us to his parent's apartment in central Beirut - where he had grown up. He regaled us with stories of watching one side in the civil war launch mortars from one side of the apartment complex to hit enemy posts on the other side, and rushing to take pictures of the rockets as they passed - and many other tales of a war that just seemed to become part of daily life for "normal" people. At the apartment we met (or became reacquainted with in the case of Chris and Charles) Wadih's wife Lindy, his two children John and Jessie (who go to the school where we are staying), his astounding mother and father, his uncle, and his father's carpenter! Wadih's parents are astounding indeed - a lifetime of service to the Lord with many a story about evangelizing in difficult circumstances - you can see where Wadih gets his love for the Lord from - and his story-telling prowess!
Lunch consisted of a few dishes I HAD heard of - Humus, Tabbouleh, even shepherds pie - and a few that were new to me - "k'ber" (that's phonetically written!) and sort of whole-meal bread filled with meat, "bubba-ger-noosh" (yes, that's phonetically spelled too!) which was great but I have no idea what was in it!
After lunch it was back to Wadih's warehouse to pack up the PA for Monday, with the help of Said, a sound engineer and friend of Wadih (but then it seems everyone in Beirut is a friend of Wadih!!). We took that lot back to the school where we are staying - because the next gig was to play the two assemblies at that school! at 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning on Monday!!! A fairly standard setup and sound check was followed by an earlyish bedtime - though no hope of a long night was held since we had to get up at 6:00 to be ready.
Which takes us to today - we did indeed get up on time and headed down for a 7:30 start. We played four songs with a general theme of forgiveness, in two assemblies and I think it would be an understatement to say we were well received! I think the students also intended to take full advantage of temporary permission to scream (though one was warned "If you even start to make a noise like that when you have left this room you will find out what happens!"). We ate more "unleavened bread filled with stuff" for breakfast (this time cheese) and then went out at recess to talk to the students. I was not considered the oldest in the band (though I am by far) - Charles was referred to as "the old guy who sings" even AFTER they found out my true age!!! After that we struck the sound system, took it to another school across town where we play a couple of slightly later assemblies on Tuesday, then returned to - well, write blogs and emails and generally waste away the afternoon before Wadih picks us up to eat at his place tonight - where I will be in trouble due to having taken a bit too much editor's license in writing an SMS response to Lindy for Wadih while he was driving!!
By the way, I forgot to mention that as we taxied to take off on Friday an announcement came over the plane speakers that one of the navigation computers had crashed. They were trying to restart it but in the mean time would we all please check that our phone's were off - erm, on checking I found that mine was still ON! It appears I may have inadvertently delayed take off by about 15 minutes - sheepish grin (whats the smiley for that?).
More later, then (the taxi is coming we have just been told!!)
posted by Martin Bartlett at 3:13 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks Martin for that. I hope you're happy with yourself. You embarrassed us all. Silly foreigners
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