A "Tyre-ing" Thursday
Come on, gimme a break, the puns are gonna be bad SOMETIMES!
The day began fairly... oh, wait, I haven't addressed Wednesday night's meal. So, the unknown place was a favorite felafel restaurant of Wadih's kids - and what we basically got was enough of every form of humus known to man to feed everyone at Thursday night's gig (which, when you get to that bit, you'll find isn't as impressive as it sounds right now). Just how many forms of humus ARE there?? Plain humus, humus with meat, humus with egg, humus with pine nuts, felafel (which is basically deep fried balls of humus) - I'm sure I have forgotten a few too! I DID manage to restrict my eating to only three of the Arabic tortilla things stuffed with veggies and humus in all its forms, only to be stuffed myself with 6 flavors of ice cream at the next stop. At least we finally GOT the promised ice cream (no, the stuff served for dessert on Wednesday did NOT count).
And so to Thursday - which started very promisingly weather-wise (and continued that way, just so you aren't waiting in suspense for news of flash floods and lightning strikes). From the window in the school's kitchen we have a spectacular view of the mountains further up from our own lofty altitude of 900 feet. What we HADN'T seen before was the snow-covered higher peaks behind the relative foothills in the foreground. Now they WERE - um - spectacular? (hold on, looking up synonyms...) sensational? pick your own here! We got our "taxi's coming" phone call at just before 11:00, and thankfully this time the driver both knew where we were supposed to go AND spoke very good English. Charles explored the limits of personal boundary intrusion again by asking him loads of questions, but, as always, managed to strike up a serious meaningful conversation. Due to the clarity of the day, the view coming down from the foot hills into central Beirut was breathtaking (or pick your own synonym again).
Our destination was the offices of Youth For Christ (again). The plan was for Wadih's brother-in-law, Johnny, to drive us down to Tyre, show us around, feed us, and get us back in time for that evening gig. It was a little disconcerting to find that a) his English isn't great, b) he took Charles's tongue-in-cheek offer to drive seriously (the offer was quickly retracted) and c) he'd never driven an automatic before, but the journey eventually got underway "safely" (I use the term loosely - we entered the Beirut traffic chaos in an appropriately aggressive manner).
Once he got used to the car, Johnny was a mine of information concerning the political situation in Lebanon - I'm not even going to attempt to address it here - suffice to say its impossible to imagine a more complex and sensitive situation. Johnny also explained his own journey from an Assyrian catholic background to a true faith in Christ with Evangelical affiliations. It turns out his mother tongue is Aramaic, and he can understand 70% of the movie "The Passion Of The Christ" without translation!
The route to Tyre took us ALONG the green line road, with the ever-present evidence of its former strategic importance in times past - it really IS green in many places, with fields on both sides and being tree-lined for much of the way. Once out of Beirut, the demolition derby calmed to a mere bumper car ride, and it was possible to admire the view - which consisted of a bewildering mix on modern apartment developments (including expensive seaside properties), run-down-looking Arabic-style townships, wild palm trees, and fruit plantations (with oranges and lemons visible in the groves), all embedded in the ever-present mountain foothills. This part of Lebanon (which approaches the border with Israel and is, consequently, a very sensitive area) is a Shi'ite region, with a strong (but apparently unpopular) Hezbollah presence (the flags and propaganda posters are everywhere). The UN presence becomes more evident the further south you travel.
For the entire way we had the Mediterranean to our right - it was a (another synonym for spectacular) blue in the fine sunny weather that we were experiencing at last. We passed through Sidon and saw the ancient fortress island breached by Alexander the Great in 333bc. After that, and three security check points, we arrived in Tyre - a very Arabic-flavored city with a visible UN presence. We visited the remains of Greco-Roman Tyre, focusing on the remains of the huge hippodrome once used for chariot racing. I always have a feeling of confused awe when visiting this type of antiquity - firstly the remains represent MANY consecutive generations occupying the site so making sense of them is difficult, and secondly the occupants probably thought that their civilization was as invincible and eternal as we have the habit of thinking of ours!
We ate lunch somewhat late (various sandwiches and freshly squeezed juice cocktails purchased at a restaurant recommended by Wadih himself) and then headed back by a somewhat faster, but less scenic route, arriving at the LES at 5:00pm, where we were able to rest before the evening activities got underway ... (see the next post - we have to leave in 5 minutes for FRIDAY's gig! Yes, the last YOU knew was that we didn't HAVE a gig on Friday, wasn't it!).
The day began fairly... oh, wait, I haven't addressed Wednesday night's meal. So, the unknown place was a favorite felafel restaurant of Wadih's kids - and what we basically got was enough of every form of humus known to man to feed everyone at Thursday night's gig (which, when you get to that bit, you'll find isn't as impressive as it sounds right now). Just how many forms of humus ARE there?? Plain humus, humus with meat, humus with egg, humus with pine nuts, felafel (which is basically deep fried balls of humus) - I'm sure I have forgotten a few too! I DID manage to restrict my eating to only three of the Arabic tortilla things stuffed with veggies and humus in all its forms, only to be stuffed myself with 6 flavors of ice cream at the next stop. At least we finally GOT the promised ice cream (no, the stuff served for dessert on Wednesday did NOT count).
And so to Thursday - which started very promisingly weather-wise (and continued that way, just so you aren't waiting in suspense for news of flash floods and lightning strikes). From the window in the school's kitchen we have a spectacular view of the mountains further up from our own lofty altitude of 900 feet. What we HADN'T seen before was the snow-covered higher peaks behind the relative foothills in the foreground. Now they WERE - um - spectacular? (hold on, looking up synonyms...) sensational? pick your own here! We got our "taxi's coming" phone call at just before 11:00, and thankfully this time the driver both knew where we were supposed to go AND spoke very good English. Charles explored the limits of personal boundary intrusion again by asking him loads of questions, but, as always, managed to strike up a serious meaningful conversation. Due to the clarity of the day, the view coming down from the foot hills into central Beirut was breathtaking (or pick your own synonym again).
Our destination was the offices of Youth For Christ (again). The plan was for Wadih's brother-in-law, Johnny, to drive us down to Tyre, show us around, feed us, and get us back in time for that evening gig. It was a little disconcerting to find that a) his English isn't great, b) he took Charles's tongue-in-cheek offer to drive seriously (the offer was quickly retracted) and c) he'd never driven an automatic before, but the journey eventually got underway "safely" (I use the term loosely - we entered the Beirut traffic chaos in an appropriately aggressive manner).
Once he got used to the car, Johnny was a mine of information concerning the political situation in Lebanon - I'm not even going to attempt to address it here - suffice to say its impossible to imagine a more complex and sensitive situation. Johnny also explained his own journey from an Assyrian catholic background to a true faith in Christ with Evangelical affiliations. It turns out his mother tongue is Aramaic, and he can understand 70% of the movie "The Passion Of The Christ" without translation!
The route to Tyre took us ALONG the green line road, with the ever-present evidence of its former strategic importance in times past - it really IS green in many places, with fields on both sides and being tree-lined for much of the way. Once out of Beirut, the demolition derby calmed to a mere bumper car ride, and it was possible to admire the view - which consisted of a bewildering mix on modern apartment developments (including expensive seaside properties), run-down-looking Arabic-style townships, wild palm trees, and fruit plantations (with oranges and lemons visible in the groves), all embedded in the ever-present mountain foothills. This part of Lebanon (which approaches the border with Israel and is, consequently, a very sensitive area) is a Shi'ite region, with a strong (but apparently unpopular) Hezbollah presence (the flags and propaganda posters are everywhere). The UN presence becomes more evident the further south you travel.
For the entire way we had the Mediterranean to our right - it was a (another synonym for spectacular) blue in the fine sunny weather that we were experiencing at last. We passed through Sidon and saw the ancient fortress island breached by Alexander the Great in 333bc. After that, and three security check points, we arrived in Tyre - a very Arabic-flavored city with a visible UN presence. We visited the remains of Greco-Roman Tyre, focusing on the remains of the huge hippodrome once used for chariot racing. I always have a feeling of confused awe when visiting this type of antiquity - firstly the remains represent MANY consecutive generations occupying the site so making sense of them is difficult, and secondly the occupants probably thought that their civilization was as invincible and eternal as we have the habit of thinking of ours!
We ate lunch somewhat late (various sandwiches and freshly squeezed juice cocktails purchased at a restaurant recommended by Wadih himself) and then headed back by a somewhat faster, but less scenic route, arriving at the LES at 5:00pm, where we were able to rest before the evening activities got underway ... (see the next post - we have to leave in 5 minutes for FRIDAY's gig! Yes, the last YOU knew was that we didn't HAVE a gig on Friday, wasn't it!).
posted by Martin Bartlett at 2:43 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home