23.8.2012
I just almost had a heart attack. Seriously a heart attack. I’m linked up on fire department things on Facebook and they were showing the mask of a firefighter that was completely melted. There was an article and I saw it was in Maryland. Then it said it was in Lutherville (where I’ve done three training classes) and was googling and freaking out because it said the firefighter had died. Because of the slow internet it took like 15 minutes to figure out it’s a new release of details and reports on what went wrong when a firefighter I knew through friends died in January of last year. I was sobbing I was so afraid because I know EVERYONE in Lutherville and met this guy maybe once, but oh my gosh, it scared the shit out of me. I thought I was going to throw up. Then I saw the picture of it and really
thought I was going to throw up because it’s just a melted piece of plastic because it took them a long time to find it. I’m still shaking over it.
I’ve seen so much damaged equipment, but got so pissed over that. I was like, that’s fucking Mark’s mask that he died wearing! You pulled that off a dead man and are holding it up for people to look and gawk “man that sucks” at.
I went and talked to Alana and she helped me calm down and everything and we ended up laughing over Suleiman and the opening to Super Troopers “We’re already pulled over. He can’t pull over any farther!!!” Suleiman is really sick and is being a baby. She was rubbing his arm and he made a noise and she asked if he wanted her to stop and he said “Just tell them I’ll call them tomorrow.” then she asked if he wanted them to leave a message and he said “I don’t like this episode of The Simpson’s.” To be fair they were watching The Simpsons…
For the apartment, Beirut kind of slopes up from the sea and for Hamra, Hamra Street is kind of the heart of things. I’m living almost the same distance from the street but above instead of below it and only like two blocks laterally from where I am now. So it’s really not going to affect my travel habits, but a bit longer walk home which is no big deal.
(Talking to dad, but I don’t want to forget)
The beach will probably be really crowded for Labor Day. I can’t believe so much time has passed! Falling Water would be really nice because it does give the feel of a vacation. Speaking of vacation we’ll have to hope things get better here for you to visit! Things aren’t that bad for me besides convincing taxi drivers to take me to the camp. A lot are cagey about it anyway, but now NO ONE will drive me in. I still wave and say hello to the soldiers and about 5 shopkeepers everyday! So much racism. That’s something that was funny. When we met our new landlord she was obviously Christian and she knows I work at a hospital and she asked which one and I froze and looked at Suleiman and he said the camp and she said that was a great cause. Pfew! When they were talking I turned to the couple we’re getting the apartment from and kind of whispered that I don’t want to look sketchy, but get mixed reactions when saying I work in the camps and they smiled and agreed.
22
So today was the most frustrating day in the world, but ended on kind of a good note.
I don’t think I can really divulged what I did today in the warehouse, but it was tedious and unnecessary and I was supposed to be at the hospital so I was really fucking pissed because I wasn’t doing inventory I was doing shit a fucking retarded monkey could do. I came because my boss “needed” me – what she said in the e-mail. There were three girls there who just knew her so I was like, why are you wasting my time on a day you know I work somewhere else to do this shit? I hope no one had a heart attack or was shot or anything in the camp that I could have helped… Karim was there so it made things a little more tolerable.
Hoping everything went through with the apartment I showed him my apartment because he’s thinking of moving to Hamra.
So I came back are was getting ready for my Arabic lesson and felt totally under prepared and had just gotten a notebook to have just for Arabic. Halfway there I realize that I didn’t bring all my papers that I wrote out. The driver was nice enough to go back to my apartment and then to my tutor’s apartment and was reasonable about the price and even said sorry, but I understood.
My tutor (Gaith) said I was actually doing really well and that he sees us progressing more quickly so that was a really good thing Then I was happy that I talked to Karim because he lives in that general area and is paying less than half that what I usually agree to. So I decided to be firm with a taxi driver. He said “ok, ok” and I got in and then we were talking prices and he wanted to charge me what I usually pay and I was saying no, I know that is too much. So I said, fine, let me out of the car, you lied to me when I got in so let me out, you’re not getting anything now because you’re an asshole (I only called him an asshole after I got out of the car.) ALSO, I said to take me downtown because I can get the bus from there. He was asking the same high price for half the trip. I demanded he let me out and we were on a main street, but no, he drove me to the middle of a neighborhood and told me to get out there. Mind you it’s one of the nicest neighborhoods in Beirut, but I had to hike to a main street. I haggle with a new taxi driver to get me downtown and he’s still charging me too much, but with the bus I was still cutting the price in half.
So he’s driving me to downtown and the service thing where you can pick someone else up. He picks up a girl who speaks English and I tell him to drop me at this corner where the bus is. He is telling me there is no bus there and so is she and I’m telling them I take the bus from there all the time. He’s going to take me to a “bus stop” when you flag a bus down like a taxi. I finally got home, but had enough of people telling me false things for no reason. Also, I paid to go downtown and he drove almost all the way into Hamra for the same price he wanted more than double for when I got in initially. Fuck taxi drivers here.
PS – I’m on my period. Haha.
Since then it’s been fine here. I haven’t heard from Alana or Suleiman about the apartment, but everything should have gone through fine. If it works, which I see no reason why it won’t, we will probably move Sunday. It’s really really nice and a very modern feel. I’ve exhausted myself a bit with this e-mail but will tell you more about it later. Hope all is well there. Sorry, I truly exhausted myself writing that, haha. Now I can get at least back from Gaith for
half the price!
22
So Alana just got back and we are going to sign the lease tomorrow.
So the apartment has a really interesting and more modern layout even though it’s an older building. It has an elevator. Thankfully because we are the PENTHOUSE! When you walk in it’s the dining room with a big glass top dining room table. Then it’s really nice, right off to the left there’s the “salon” which is like “den” in the US. It has nice sofas and also there’s like a folding door that you can close for privacy or if you don’t want to let noise out even though it’s kind of isolated. To the right is into the kitchen. The half bath is there and the kitchen is all up to date and everything. There is also a generator and it’s nearly impossible to run out of water which is a concern in the back of your mind here. There’s a little kitchen nook and then that goes out onto an outdoor patio with a light so you can go out there at night and just hang out or if you have people over dine al fresco! If you go straight back there are the two bedrooms and the main bath that is really big. The tiles show it was made probably in the 1970s because they’re that sea foam green color, haha. It’s still really clean and everything, though. The bedrooms are both huge. There’s also a balcony that starts at the salon and goes around the whole apartment to the end of the second bedroom. It’s carpeted, but a really short carpet so pretty easy to clean. It’s the same as the first one we looked at that it’s an extra $50 a month, but again there’s no comparison to my apartment now and this one. We move
in Sunday and I’m SO excited!!!
19
Nothing too much has happened politically or whatever here today. The
only thing is Hezbollah has started talking more. Who knows. I’ll
keep you updated. Mitch’s girlfriend is visiting Kurdistan before
classes start and left so at least the airport is still working!
Love you
Kira
19
Hey,
I don’t know if I’m more impressed with Jack of the O’s. (Jack – my cat – is very reclusive and my dad just moved in with his girlfriend and he is coming out little by little. Also the Baltimore Orioles – my favorite sports team – is moving up in the rankings and as of September 8th are tied with the Yankees in first place.) Haha. I’m glad Lena is being patient with him. Right now there are disputes because some people want to do damage control with the army, but Hezbollah doesn’t and they are a big chunk of the government so… Poor Nana and everyone that thinks all of that is going on in Beirut. Yea, all the reports are coming out of Beirut – so that’s why all the news stories say Beirut because they’re published here – because so few can even get into Syria
We found an apartment! It’s more like the first one where it really has a homey feel. It’s big and spacious and it’s the top floor so we have a balcony that wraps around the entire apartment and then a separate like patio with some furniture so we can go out and sit at night. Most of it faces a parking lot so they said it is really quiet at night. Location is great. It’s basically the same distance from the major street here, but up rather than down.
I feel really bad for the couple because they have only been here for a couple months and the husband is on a Fulbright scholarship – he’s a professor – but Fulbright canceled all their scholarships in Lebanon because of what’s going on. So they got majorly screwed. We are really excited about it, though! They leave Saturday night so we are probably going to move in Sunday. A tid bit of Shadenfreude here, hehe.
It’s funny here with people renting because it is still pretty conservative especially since the people who own the buildings are older so Alana and Suleiman are engaged and I have a husband or fiancée in the States. Don’t worry, it’s not like a bit we are going to keep up. Mostly the apartments we are looking at are trying to avoid the student and swinging singles crowd so we are trying to make ourselves as grown-up as possible. As long as we don’t start having some wild parties everything is going to be fine.
……………….
Ok, so I started writing this e-mail a good three hours ago. Alana asked me to run pepto bismol to Suleiman because he was sick. What happened? First they put the top of a liquor bottle (you know those plugs with the small pouring thing) in it and we all took shots of it out of shot glasses. Then Suleiman got sick again and didn’t want to
take more.
I wanted to wait for him to make sure he was ok. What happened? I got three vodkas on the rocks and two shots with three guys I randomly met while waiting for him when he’s asleep somewhere upstairs. Only in Lebanon. Oh, and the one guy said he wanted to ask me a question and said how they had talked politics, religion, sex, philosophy and everything else and he asked me how a wing-man worked. Only in Lebanon. Also, first time this time around in Lebanon I’ve been called out (jokingly and drunkenly) as CIA. The one man worked in Gambia and I rattled off some Wolof and he said “American girl, fourth time in Lebanon, speaks some Arabic and working in “volatile” areas, and speaks some Wolof but claims never being in West Africa has to be CIA.) YIKES!!!
16.7.2012 – “I’m going to rip the eyes out of your head and piss into your dead skull. You fucked with the wrong Aid Worker!” (A Few Good Men reference)
Posted: 07/09/2012 in UncategorizedI texted Alana and she hasn’t written back about the apartment and haven’t heard back yet.
Today I don’t know if it was a real migraine, but I had all the symptoms except for the extremely excruciating headache. I stayed in bed until almost noon and then just kind of drifted around. That’s another reason I’m hoping the apartment works out is because 90% of the time there is a pile of dishes in the sink. I TRY to do mine as I use them, but sometimes don’t feel like it or don’t have time or something. So Mitch complains about the dishes in the sink and a good 80% are his and then he complains the drain is clogged from when I strained rice or spaghetti. I would totally clean it from the drain if there weren’t 20 dishes hiding it… Anyway, I end up doing the dishes a lot because I don’t want to hear complaints, I need dishes too, and I don’t like going to get a dish and having 100 fruit flies fly out of the sink.
Going through like three neighborhoods, so the taxi wants more money. I can take it from $10 to about $7, but that’s really the best I can do. Luckily where the bus drops me after the hospital is a big hub so I can probably get a cheaper price from there. Looking at it all it balances out a little bit, but not enough. I’ve also started to run into sectarianism. Except when I’m going to the hospital if I’m in my scrubs I say I’m working at AUH (American University Hospital) because I’ve seen people bristle when I mention the camp. It’s really rolling the dice with people. Funny enough the people I pay the least usually take me closer to the hospital. Especially now that I can say in Arabic that I live in Hamra and volunteer in the camp the drivers tend to be nicer. I guess also if they’re willing to take a lower price they’re more willing to drive into the camp. One problem coming from tutoring with Gaith (my Arabic tutor) is he’s in a VERY Christian stronghold on the fringe of a VERY Christian area going back to civil war days. That’s why it’s good I’m catching a taxi from neutral downtown where the bus drops me because I’m sure I’d be charged $20 to go from the camp to his apartment. Going from there to Hamra where I live is really just distance because Hamra is a really mixed area especially because of the universities and everything it’s like going from Little Italy to the Harbor instead of the MLK area to Little Italy. I guess that might be why there is more violence and confusion in Hamra with the Syrian refugees is that I see it kind of like Washington, DC. No one is really “from” Hamra, just the outskirts.
Don’t think much else is going on. I have a TON of Arabic homework, but it’s good because I need to learn ASAP and we’re doing verb conjugations, but he said as soon as we have that down we can get into conversation. So I have to master the conjugations by Monday so we can start going.
I talked to Adler last night at like 1 in the morning. The only reason I said it was ok to call that late is because I bought extra credit on my phone and sometimes he puts things off for so long because I know he’s busy – he’s in the middle of getting his paramedic so is doing rotations at hospitals. My credit expires so I was afraid he’d put it off until after my credit expired and that’d just be money down the drain. The conversation was pretty frustrating as far as what he “knows” and what I “KNOW.” It was late and a LONG day and he was kind of all over the place so he’s going to send like a checklist of things that he would need or want to get done as far as deploying people to here or Turkey.
One thing that he proposed and everyone here laughed here when I repeated it was to create a class specifically with different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Everyone here was like, Kira will create a new civil war!
PS – Right now it is really this one man and his family and his grievances, but some of the Gulf countries are urging their citizens to leave, but it’s just a “who’s bigger” or posturing of this guy against the corruption of the Gulf countries in Lebanon. (Funny, looking back now that it’s September 7, 2012 things are going like a roller coaster). And of course someone like Qatar or UAE have their own perfect versions of everything that they wouldn’t dare a scandal. The Lebanese Tourism Minister is encouraging people to come visit Lebanon. As far as being an American someone would have to be extremely stupid or a BIG organization to kidnap an American and Hezbollah kind of has Lebanon frozen because they want nothing to do with it for their own preservation, but will get into it if they’re poked enough. Some journalists were kidnapped in Syria and kept for barely a day because people freaked out so much that they let them go because they realized they were out of their league. Basically, I’m trying to address the things that you might hear on the news so you hear it from this perspective and what’s going on REALLY on the ground and not a headline “Saudi is telling all its citizens to immediately evacuate Lebanon!” They are also doing it to push Lebanon down even more because it’s kind of the backwards cousin of the Arab world. Especially because Saudi and the Gulf are so locked down and carved out and we barely have a government and most of that is due to a “terrorist” organization pulling out of the government. (I put it in quotes because Hezbollah has military, social, and political wings so it was the politicians that pulled out who are for more Islamic rule, but not to necessarily militarily take over anything. Except maybe taking a more offensive stance with Israel…). Anyway, Lebanon can be so up in the air that no one wants to be caught in a scandal so that’s why these crazy Lebanese families or clans are pushing the hands of the rich Gulfers that are here because they know it’s going to get a reaction and kind of snub them. Well, that’s the Lebanese situation right there in a funny little pistachio shell, haha.
Alana just called and invited me to a beer at the bar her boyfriend owns.
PS – Sometimes we drink often because to kind of cope with all the chaos here that is happening already you need to sit down and have a beer. That’s all I have to say about that. After losing a patient and seeing a flaming dumpster because they’re not letting water into the camps a brewsky is a lot easier than divulging your inner feelings to everyone every day.
PPS – I almost punched someone in the face because Lebanon gives the camps “free” electricity organized by UNRWA and everything and they get a whole 2 hours of it a day so they have their own version of a power plant there and I mentioned that it was funny that they had two power plants and someone make a snide comment that they didn’t pay for electricity. I thought of the fans going in and out at the hospital every day and the un-filtered and not desalinated water that is also in the hospital because I tried to splash off my face. I ended up putting alcohol on a piece of gauze and wiping my face down. The conditions there are SO bad that I almost fucking lost it.) Took everything inside me to not “rip the eyes out of their head and piss into their dead skull because they fucked with the wrong aid worker” (from A Few Good Men)
11-15.7.2012 – Dodging dumpsters to bodily projectiles and losing a man
Posted: 07/09/2012 in UncategorizedJust a short update. Today I got up and had like a hangover from the week. I’ve just been so stressed and most of it is gone. I still have no idea what I’m going to get back from that security office in Bourj el Barajneh, but if anything it will buy me time and be proof enough to take to the main office if I have to go there, too.
One funny thing is because it was Friday – which is the holy day for Islam – they closed at 11 and we literally got out at 10:59:50. They STAPLED my stuff. My passport is STAPLED!!! I didn’t tell you that we were going through everything with this one guy and he sent us upstairs and Omar and I literally ran and there was a man in class-B military uniform with two stars on his shoulders and a big nice office and desk. We hesitantly handed him my papers and he frowned then went “America! Ahlan wa sahlan!” (basically welcome) and stamped it and took it. It was literally about 10-20 seconds to 11, haha.
Joe and I are going to watch Paranormal Activity. It was so funny. He was watching something on his computer, but we didn’t have power. I didn’t feel like going out, but went on the balcony and just had some juice and wrote notes for my blog so I didn’t lose my battery half way through typing. We ran into each other in the kitchen and he said he knocked on my door to watch an episode of The Wire and was really confused because he didn’t hear me leave and was confused if I was sleeping because I had already taken a nap, haha. I said I was on the balcony and he was said “That’s where you were?!?! I knocked on your door like four times and usually you at least yell that you’re
sleeping! Ha!”
15.7.2012
Last night turned out really weird. For one I felt bad because I just did not sleep Sunday night and kicked myself for not going to the hospital because that meant I really had to go today. Especially because of this whole permit mess. Part of staying up was staying up because Joe is leaving and I wanted to be there for the last hurrah.
Anyway, so it’s early and I meet Mitch, Joe, and Joe’s friend Max at a bar afraid I’m going to lose him in a sea of bars soon. Then we come back here. Then Alana was having this kind of reserved party thing already at a bar. Well they have like an hour or two to kill before that so they’re going to go to this local bar. I felt bad just saying, sorry, I have to volunteer tomorrow, so I went with them and it was only until 11:30 so I thought I could pull that off.
Real fast – I’m talking to Alex on Facebook chat and we’re having a blast. I just talked to Alana and we went out on our balcony to smoke and she came into my room 2 seconds later and her boyfriend fell asleep and they were on these pink pillows and fuzzy blanket. A picture was taken. We should hear for sure about the apartment tomorrow. There was a snag – of course – because it’s Lebanon. Luckily Suleiman, her boyfriend, is Lebanese and can talk to him AND Alana said he’d get a kick out of helping me with my Arabic.
So it’s between 11:30 and 12 and I’m headed home and they’re headed to Alana’s party thing. Like 20 minutes later Alana calls me asking where we are. Long story short she called like 4 times and we couldn’t find Joe. So now we’re all going nuts trying to find Joe because there are about 5 blocks between where he left me (basically 50 ft from our apartment) and her and they said they were going there… I don’t know all what happened, but they came back here or something and she wanted me to come. UGH.
All is well. We did lose a patient at the hospital today. No, no one died that we know of. There was a nearly deaf man who could barely see and we decided to admit him and did all the paperwork and put a hospital bracelet on him. Couple hours later “wayn mareed?” (Where’s the patient) “ma baarif, mumkin ICU…” (I don’t know, maybe ICU…) We called all over the hospital and apparently without anyone noticing… So there is probably a deaf and mostly blind man with a hospital bracelet wandering around Bourj somewhere.
Aw man, there are very very very few times I’ve ever been grossed out by blood and gore that I almost lost it. I almost lost it today. There was a man – who was successfully admitted to the hospital! – with multiple infected HOLES in his leg. Let’s just say while taking the dressing off my stomach was tested, but so were my physical
reaction dodging skills! We had to open the middle curtain because two doctors and I were dancing around to dodge things coming out of his leg projecting past the distance to the curtain. Aw man, just typing now I’m getting nauseous, but I held my tools and gauze the whole time. I did put a mask on for that one. Mostly because of the smell… I was banking on my glasses stopping any projectiles. It made me think of starting off as a firefighter and always being terrified I was going to throw up in my mask. Oh man, that would be awful. These were these giant holes in this man’s leg that you could toss a marble in from across the room. The doctor was pulling out surgical mesh and it was all infected and the most awful smell ever – the smell of dead and rotting tissue. Pulled out either puss or blood squirted out and I had the gauze clamed in a tool and had to stop it and then irrigating the wound. Holy Shit (who ever came up with that slogan…?) is was a hot mess – which can be literally interpreted because there was not AC at the time (and when I say AC I mean fan) – and my brow was sweating like hell and kept reminding myself to check my sleeve before wiping it. It was like I felt the germs and infection in the air. Back to throwing up in my mask…
I won’t go into it too much, but I saw my tutor on MONDAY and he gave me TWO verbs to conjugate for homework. He knows I want speaking, but wants to make sure I have present and past tense so we can make sentences. He was like lecturing me that I couldn’t rattle off all the conjugations past and present. I was like, dude, you evaluated me Sunday, one lesson Monday, gave me two little things, and it’s WEDNESDAY and I’ve not mastered it. I was tired coming from the hospital too and am going to see if I can talk to the NGO that I’ll be free by a certain time on Tuesdays and Thursdays or Friday (which after two months is still up in the air…only Lebanon) so I can see him on a day that I haven’t been sweating and dodging bodily fluids and losing disabled elderly people for five hours then a 45 minute commute… Anyway, I know everything, it’s just memorization at this point and I know I can have that done by Monday. I did a couple times want to stop him and say “I haven’t studied Arabic formally in three years, you gave me these two days ago…”
Not much after that. I’ve been so tired the past couple days. I will be honest that there are some fucked up things going on with Syria right now. I’m not scared (maybe a little scared…) – I don’t feel like it’s changing my daily life besides more dangerous at night – but am definitely more cautious now with how I carry myself and who I talk to. I am friends with so many shop keepers and EVERYONE in the camp that (not that I see this happening, it’s a sick joke) if things got more dangerous I’d feel safer with Omar in the camp! There’s something called “wasta” which is like getting a job because you’re uncle’s the boss. I’ve got wasta up the wazoo in the camp. I treated the juice guy one day and get cheap juice whenever I want. I just talk to people and they realize I’m a “good” American and am taking on their just daily customs and talk and everything and everyone loves me!
Oh yea – about the fucked up things – there was some resistance fighters kidnapped – serious conspiring and supplying fighters so I would not be confused with them. A guy was giving an interview on TV wearing a mask, but was talking about himself and his people and what they were doing. We’re all so used to things like this that the whole room kind of had a crooked eye and head tilted like, what is this guy doing? Then he took a phone call in the middle of the interview. ONLY in Lebanon. It was laughable. Well, more laughable if it wasn’t him talking about kidnapping people and attacking embassies. What’s scaring me is it’s family clans that are starting to splinter off and do their own thing. It’s like civil war but possibly countless sides…
Well, it’s getting to be about that time. About 10 here. That Adler guy, the Haiti guy, still wants to do this Syria thing and I want to just be like, dude, it is NOT going to happen! I just feel really bad letting him down.
Love you and hope I didn’t scare you! I’m fine!
11.7.2012 – Dodging dumpsters to bodily projectiles and losing a man
Posted: 07/09/2012 in UncategorizedJust a short update. Today I got up and had like a hangover from the week. I’ve just been so stressed and most of it is gone. I still have no idea what I’m going to get back from that security office in Bourj el Barajneh, but if anything it will buy me time and be proof enough to take to the main office if I have to go there, too.
One funny thing is because it was Friday – which is the holy day for Islam – they closed at 11 and we literally got out at 10:59:50. They STAPLED my stuff. My passport is STAPLED!!! I didn’t tell you that we were going through everything with this one guy and he sent us upstairs and Omar and I literally ran and there was a man in class-B military uniform with two stars on his shoulders and a big nice office and desk. We hesitantly handed him my papers and he frowned then went “America! Ahlan wa sahlan!” (basically welcome) and stamped it and took it. It was literally about 10-20 seconds to 11, haha.
Joe and I are going to watch Paranormal Activity. It was so funny. He was watching something on his computer, but we didn’t have power. I didn’t feel like going out, but went on the balcony and just had some juice and wrote notes for my blog so I didn’t lose my battery half way through typing. We ran into each other in the kitchen and he said he knocked on my door to watch an episode of The Wire and was really confused because he didn’t hear me leave and was confused if I was sleeping because I had already taken a nap, haha. I said I was on the balcony and he was said “That’s where you were?!?! I knocked on your door like four times and usually you at least yell that you’re
sleeping! Ha!”
15.7.2012
Last night turned out really weird. For one I felt bad because I just did not sleep Sunday night and kicked myself for not going to the hospital because that meant I really had to go today. Especially because of this whole permit mess. Part of staying up was staying up because Joe is leaving and I wanted to be there for the last hurrah.
Anyway, so it’s early and I meet Mitch, Joe, and Joe’s friend Max at a bar afraid I’m going to lose him in a sea of bars soon. Then we come back here. Then Alana was having this kind of reserved party thing already at a bar. Well they have like an hour or two to kill before that so they’re going to go to this local bar. I felt bad just saying, sorry, I have to volunteer tomorrow, so I went with them and it was only until 11:30 so I thought I could pull that off.
Real fast – I’m talking to Alex on Facebook chat and we’re having a blast. I just talked to Alana and we went out on our balcony to smoke and she came into my room 2 seconds later and her boyfriend fell asleep and they were on these pink pillows and fuzzy blanket. A picture was taken. We should hear for sure about the apartment tomorrow. There was a snag – of course – because it’s Lebanon. Luckily Suleiman, her boyfriend, is Lebanese and can talk to him AND Alana said he’d get a kick out of helping me with my Arabic.
So it’s between 11:30 and 12 and I’m headed home and they’re headed to Alana’s party thing. Like 20 minutes later Alana calls me asking where we are. Long story short she called like 4 times and we couldn’t find Joe. So now we’re all going nuts trying to find Joe because there are about 5 blocks between where he left me (basically 50 ft from our apartment) and her and they said they were going there… I don’t know all what happened, but they came back here or something and she wanted me to come. UGH.
All is well. We did lose a patient at the hospital today. No, no one died that we know of. There was a nearly deaf man who could barely see and we decided to admit him and did all the paperwork and put a hospital bracelet on him. Couple hours later “wayn mareed?” (Where’s the patient) “ma baarif, mumkin ICU…” (I don’t know, maybe ICU…) We called all over the hospital and apparently without anyone noticing… So there is probably a deaf and mostly blind man with a hospital bracelet wandering around Bourj somewhere.
Aw man, there are very very very few times I’ve ever been grossed out by blood and gore that I almost lost it. I almost lost it today. There was a man – who was successfully admitted to the hospital! – with multiple infected HOLES in his leg. Let’s just say while taking the dressing off my stomach was tested, but so were my physical
reaction dodging skills! We had to open the middle curtain because two doctors and I were dancing around to dodge things coming out of his leg projecting past the distance to the curtain. Aw man, just typing now I’m getting nauseous, but I held my tools and gauze the whole time. I did put a mask on for that one. Mostly because of the smell… I was banking on my glasses stopping any projectiles. It made me think of starting off as a firefighter and always being terrified I was going to throw up in my mask. Oh man, that would be awful. These were these giant holes in this man’s leg that you could toss a marble in from across the room. The doctor was pulling out surgical mesh and it was all infected and the most awful smell ever – the smell of dead and rotting tissue. Pulled out either puss or blood squirted out and I had the gauze clamed in a tool and had to stop it and then irrigating the wound. Holy Shit (who ever came up with that slogan…?) is was a hot mess – which can be literally interpreted because there was not AC at the time (and when I say AC I mean fan) – and my brow was sweating like hell and kept reminding myself to check my sleeve before wiping it. It was like I felt the germs and infection in the air. Back to throwing up in my mask…
I won’t go into it too much, but I saw my tutor on MONDAY and he gave me TWO verbs to conjugate for homework. He knows I want speaking, but wants to make sure I have present and past tense so we can make sentences. He was like lecturing me that I couldn’t rattle off all the conjugations past and present. I was like, dude, you evaluated me Sunday, one lesson Monday, gave me two little things, and it’s WEDNESDAY and I’ve not mastered it. I was tired coming from the hospital too and am going to see if I can talk to the NGO that I’ll be free by a certain time on Tuesdays and Thursdays or Friday (which after two months is still up in the air…only Lebanon) so I can see him on a day that I haven’t been sweating and dodging bodily fluids and losing disabled elderly people for five hours then a 45 minute commute… Anyway, I know everything, it’s just memorization at this point and I know I can have that done by Monday. I did a couple times want to stop him and say “I haven’t studied Arabic formally in three years, you gave me these two days ago…”
Not much after that. I’ve been so tired the past couple days. I will be honest that there are some fucked up things going on with Syria right now. I’m not scared (maybe a little scared…) – I don’t feel like it’s changing my daily life besides more dangerous at night – but am definitely more cautious now with how I carry myself and who I talk to. I am friends with so many shop keepers and EVERYONE in the camp that (not that I see this happening, it’s a sick joke) if things got more dangerous I’d feel safer with Omar in the camp! There’s something called “wasta” which is like getting a job because you’re uncle’s the boss. I’ve got wasta up the wazoo in the camp. I treated the juice guy one day and get cheap juice whenever I want. I just talk to people and they realize I’m a “good” American and am taking on their just daily customs and talk and everything and everyone loves me!
Oh yea – about the fucked up things – there was some resistance fighters kidnapped – serious conspiring and supplying fighters so I would not be confused with them. A guy was giving an interview on TV wearing a mask, but was talking about himself and his people and what they were doing. We’re all so used to things like this that the whole room kind of had a crooked eye and head tilted like, what is this guy doing? Then he took a phone call in the middle of the interview. ONLY in Lebanon. It was laughable. Well, more laughable if it wasn’t him talking about kidnapping people and attacking embassies. What’s scaring me is it’s family clans that are starting to splinter off and do their own thing. It’s like civil war but possibly countless sides…
Well, it’s getting to be about that time. About 10 here. That Adler guy, the Haiti guy, still wants to do this Syria thing and I want to just be like, dude, it is NOT going to happen! I just feel really bad letting him down.
Love you and hope I didn’t scare you! I’m fine!
10.7.2012 – We be rollin’ and dodging dumpsters, hoping there’s not a civil war and eating lots of food… That makes no sense
Posted: 07/09/2012 in Uncategorized10
So today was crazy as well, but at least I had Omar with me who was my absolute hero all day. Right now I have proof of residence in Hamra and also in the camp as a favor from a friend that was not told to me until after he stamped the paper and said I now have official residence in the camp, so I am a refugee (bad joke)! I am not going to use this residence. I’m not going to lie to the government and the guy really didn’t know what he was doing – think. Then I went to the security office there and they took all my paperwork and STAPLED it to my passport and gave me a temporary ID (the same thing they do at the general office) and told me to come back in 10 days. They never stapled my actual passport before, but at least my documentation, real or not, is with authorities and I have a temporary ID which is standard. So right now I am going to dinner with Omar’s family and wanted to shoot you a quick e-mail because I have no idea when I am getting home! Lots of “ifs” today, haha.
The dinner at Omar’s was great. A bit hard because not many people spoke English and my Arabic is suffering, but it was still so gracious of him and his family to invite me. His mother asked if I had plans for the night and I shrugged that I would either buy something or make something at home and it was “Khalas, you’re having dinner with us.” It’s also Ramadan so it was a breaking fast Iftar dinner even though sitting and smoking and drinking coffee meant that probably no one was fasting that day, haha. I didn’t say in the other e-mail but I was hanging out with him after and his mom came home and asked what I was doing for dinner and I just kind of shrugged and during Ramadan every night is “Iftar” because it’s a big dinner to break fast even if you aren’t fasting, which I don’t think any of us were… Anyway, so immediately invited me to dinner.
I bought some sweets at the bakery that keeps a bottle of water in the fridge for me overnight because I pass by so early in the morning and so few places are open. Now they make me American coffee so I have to get up earlier to drink coffee with them. They are so nice. It’s a husband and wife and they tell me all about themselves and I’m practicing my Arabic. Amazing to me was after coming home with a PURE Arabic day I was thinking some words to myself IN ARABIC!!! So the dinner was really nice and again I was in a pure Arabic environment though had a bit of a conversation with a 6 year old girl, haha.
So the guys and I and Mitch’s girlfriend hung out for a while. I didn’t get home from the dinner until after 1. I’ll get to details in a second. Even though I had eaten my weight at the dinner at Omar’s house we got late night hotdogs. So yea, about the embassy warning and getting home so late. There are a lot of protests with the Syrians right now. They’re pushing dumpsters into the street and lighting them on fire… So we had to dodge a couple of those. Luckily the military was just rolling up as we were driving past so we just kind of snuck by and besides dodging dumpsters that was about it. We snuck by before shit probably got real. I’m not walking alone at night because the Syrians are starting to pour into Beirut and it’s causing a lot of tensions on all sides… The camp is one of the safer places as far as Syrians because the Palestinian refugees in Syria are going into the camps in Beirut to be with other Palestinian refugees. So there is the connection that they are really seeking refuge instead of the random guys in Beirut and the rest of the country. A nice doctor asked me to visit his house in Tripoli next weekend and I was like, yea… Because Lebanon has already deployed troops there and there is a lot more “action” there because it’s so close to the border. There is full out fighting in Tripoli right now… Luckily I can completely get out of it now because I won’t have my actual passport. It’s not a big deal here because people are familiar with the temporary things, but if you’re traveling you really have to take your passport with you.
The military presence has been increasing. They are stopping people on the highways and just kind of checking in the cars. No one seems that worried and the demonstrations are at night so I feel about as safe as I did before the stupid state dept. tells me things I already know. I have it sent to me but roll my eyes every time because it’s
saying the same thing, just reminding you that you could be in danger. Three more Palestinian soldiers (they have their own party headquarters in the camp) have been added in the last week, but seeing me in my doctor get-up I say hi to them and everything and they know me. It’s so common to have soldiers around that it’s no big deal. They are everywhere and the worst they do is look through your stuff and I don’t have anything to hide so, fuck it, waste time and look in my bag and find a granola bar and a tampon. It’s funny how people freak out when someone asks to look at their stuff and I’m chill about it because I’m like, sure, search me, you’re just wasting both our times. Give me the grim grin and let me go. Khalas, it’s over.
It’s weird. I actually feel safest in the camp. I’ve made an effort to be acquainted with as many people as possible so they know who I am coming in and out of the camp then walking where I do around the apartment – hence the fruit guy taking my picture because I buy fruit and veggies there and go in and talk to them all the time. It’s like the camp is so homogeneous that everyone knows everyone and especially Bourj is so compact that it’s the “worst off” but it’s kind of a big family. Beirut can just be a cluster-fuck of people. Hamra has started to take a turn for the worse…
On a very random side-note I just went to wash my face and put on the headband I wear at the hospital to keep my hair out of my face and it definitely needs to go in the wash with my scrubs…
I’ll have to tell you about the taxi driver that ripped me off and scared me and then I scared the shit out of him. He was Christian and telling me how bad Arabs are (apparently Christians here aren’t Arab according to him) and he was pointing at the Hezbollah signs and making hugely racist remarks and because he was ripping me off I made him drive me all the way to the hospital. He saw the Arafat banner at the front and went “OH MY GOD!!!” then we went by crowds of people and he was yelling “OH MY GOD!!!” and then we passed the party headquarters which has armed guards (guys sitting bored in chairs with their AKs propped next to them – common all in Lebanon like I said before. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. It was priceless.
There are insanely bored soldiers sitting in “camouflage” all around the city and have jungle mesh over tanks and I’m like, wow, no one would guess that giant pile of green mesh in concrete streets is a tank when the mesh goes down the barrel, haha).
I don’t want to scare you about the soldiers. It’s always been like this. Every time I’ve been here there have been soldiers stationed and now there are just more because of Syria and the amount of refugees in the country. It’s scary for them because if they are suspected to be activists the Lebanese government is sending them back to Syria. I have to say in a similar situation I would light some dumpsters on fire. I really have no idea what’s going to happen with the Syrians here. It has been 17 months of fighting now and so many have crossed the borders to Jordan and Turkey and now to Iraq. Lebanon is such an unstable country and of course the history of civil wars that the Syrian influx – and hell, I’d run away from that too – it’s really starting to put an edge on what’s going on.
It’s really funny when I throw out Arabic around Omar which I try to do as much as possible he laughs that my accent is so Palestinian and sometimes shakes his head and tells me not to use a word because only Palestinians use it. It’s like a Boston person saying “wicked” in Atlanta or something. He says my vocabulary and pronunciation has gotten a lot better! I’m in contact with my tutor and might meet him tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to getting rolling with that.
7
So today was a big flop. I know inventory is a necessary evil and it was pretty much my job at the firehouse besides, well, also working as an EMT!!! So I went and it was a ridiculous 2 hours of just checking things off and feeling productive, but it was 2 hours… This is good…I guess…but then it’s like, wtf am I supposed to do for the rest of the day.
Karim, a guy that works for another NGO (the one that was going to offer me an internship too) was there and we hung out for a while afterwards. When I say hang out I mean we went to Alana’s bar, haha. We are making a plan to put together a proposal for better needles at the ER. I guess it would mean better needles for everyone… I swear, we’re going to have to take a training class or something. I have to leave the room sometimes for the number of times a person re-sheaths a needle. A piece can be sheared off and get stuck in a vein or artery and cause a blockage, same in the heart, lungs and brain. I’m starting to do real research to submit a letter to the administrator of the hospital. I don’t know how he’s going to take it, especially since I don’t think anyone really knows what I’m qualified to do. There’s a man that’s taken quite a liking to me – Ali Hadar – and everyone knows him. Apparently he just did a ton of medical aid during the civil wars and doesn’t have certifications, but he knows everything a doctor does so they let him do anything. It’s kind of the same for me. As a mute provider I’ll be doing something and someone with justifiable concern asks who I am and they say “Doctora.” It may be a bad habit that I’m starting to respond to it… I told Karim and he said I should turn and say “holla!!!” or “what, what!!!” That would certainly make me friends… NOT!
Things are just slow. All of my friends have classes and I come home soaked in sweat and tired like hell but then have nothing to do. I’m thinking of getting a job, but I’m so exhausted during the day that it would have to be at night and going to the hospital in the morning I have to go to bed so early. I don’t know what to do. Alana works at this bar during the day so I’ve been hanging out there some because especially because it’s Ramadan no one is coming in so we’re both bored as hell.
I’m also kind of pissed at doing short manual labor for the NGO just in the morning and then having nothing to do, but am taking what I can get. She only needs me like half the time and it was so hard getting across to the people at the hospital that I’m only coming two – maybe three – days a week so they can get super confused. Thesis being that if the NGO turns into an actual job like when I finished that grant for them and started another after doing all the research, I may start looking for something else to do. A job is an option if I worked during the day or not hours, but I would much prefer an office job with an NGO than just a waitress or something. Bottom line is that more money would also be nice… (See upcoming posts on that possibly changing…)
The one thing that is really bothering me is this residency permit thing. I thought for sure with two letters I would be able to get it, but now a letter for volunteering two days a week at a hospital… I’ll figure it out. Alana said she was going to help me because she went through hell getting hers. Apparently if you don’t get everything in on time you can give them your passport and they keep it for up to three months while you get everything they demand. I guess what’s the worst that could happen? I’m going there to get things taken care of and if they need more than I have I feel like there should be a second door. (We can go ahead and call bullshit on that one. I have 6 days to get this letter or I’m taking a nice trip to Jordan or Cyprus. Probably Cyprus because I can chill on the beach right away instead of floundering around Amman.) Oh, the thing that is really bothering me is that I told this to Bahija and she said to tell the doctor I spend more than two days a week there… I had obviously told the doctor that I was there two days a week and that’s why I was going to her, so… She lets me know on like a daily basis if she needs me or not so seriously I can’t commit to anything unless verbatim I say I’ll work Fridays too since that’s been up in the air.
I was kicking myself for not getting the three month visa, but that would be expiring soon anyway because it starts the day you get it in the states so I feel better about that. Ugh, it’s just so frustrating.
There’s a company in the outskirts of Beirut that is hiring a paramedic right now and even though I don’t fit the qualifications I think I am going to send them an e-mail and see if there’s anything I qualify for or in the future maybe.
Things are just stressful then boring then confusing. I know I’ve said it a thousand times, but unless the NGO (I’m not using names so I don’t outright offend someone) starts giving me more work that I can take home I literally work my ass off sweating like hell and tired as fuck but have nothing to do… At least Karim and I are going to be working on this needle thing and I’m researching to write a letter to the administrator who I just begged to get a letter from. I’m also kicking myself because I said I could only commit to six months, which is true, but permits are for a year and since I go there twice a week and sometimes skip out on days for various reasons I should have lied and said a year. I’m just there as a volunteer, so what are they going to do? They haven’t cut staff or anything over me. I just get the “can you do this?” or “do this” and I go. Khalas.
The thing is that IIII am happy with what I’m doing, but all my friends are still in university and have all that mess so there’s no one else that comes home at the end of the day and can hang out. I guess I just need to find people, but have met friend’s friend’s and they of course are also in university… No one has reached the “professional” age yet and it’s hard to find in Lebanon. Luckily hanging out with Alana is a little better. She’s a student, but went into the “real world” (not slamming any student friends – I feel your pain). So she is kind of in the same boat as me that we’ve done a lot and now figuring things out. We’re opposite because she did stuff and now needs a degree. I’ve done some stuff, but had to give it up to finish my degree…
I may push Omar more for it when he talks about needing help with his group and I say I can help so maybe he’ll take me up on my offer.
It would be amazing if Adler can pull off getting medics here to help in Lebanon because that would definitely give me something to do. He’s just so set on getting into Syria and I keep telling him that it is absolutely not going to happen. The border opens and closes as will so he may not be able to even physically get in the country and
then if he’s carrying medical supplies it’s an absolute no-go. Also, the Syrians apparently are mining parts of the border where there isn’t a formal crossing, so… I joked with my friends that he wanted to get 10 people from all the major religious dominations in Lebanon and have a medical class. Everyone was like “Great Kira, you’re going to start another civil war.” Joe and I talked about starting fraternities at AUB and we had the same reaction.
Anyway, vent over. I’m going to go home and chill I guess. It’s my first beer of the day for “happy hour” where Alana works and is a whole $2.
I may be straight up with Omar and tell him that I have nothing to do because I know a lot of his friends are out of college and interning or working here. That’s the other thing. He goes to school and runs this group and doesn’t bitch at all. I mean I freaked over exams and stuff, but he holds it together so well…
Sorry, today was just a really dull day and I feel like it appears that I’m a lazy ass, but no one knows what the working world is like except Alana… Not that I’m a super professional or anything, but at the fire department or when I was going to school and volunteering at the FD too I still didn’t bitch like a baby about it. Mitch is
teaching a SAT course so that gives him excuses. He is getting paid and asked if I would be interested, but I was like “Last time I took the SATs was 9 years ago, so…” If push comes to shove I might look over his stuff and see what I could do BUT I ALREADY HAVE FUCKING JOBS!!! I just need someone to pay or get a stipend or something. I’m counting this a grad school because all the jobs I’m interested in demand experience so two years at the best Middle Eastern or Public Health grad school could mean nada in the international aid realm. That’s another thing, I’m trying to see what else I should do. Some places want a nutritionist, nurse, physicians assistant, and I don’t know if I want to or CAN commit to something like that…
Ok, I’m just going to rant and bitch more so I’m ending it here. Maybe I’ll write a cheerier e-mail. I’m catching up on my blogging so some questions in here will be answered.
Love you.
Kira
PS – I know I’m emphasizing this, but I am happy being here. I really
like working at the hospital and doing inventory sucks, but it’s part
of the job and grants and stuff are again a necessary evil. I am
happy I came and am happy here, I just feel like I’m perceived as a
lazy homebody because I come home and crash every day and that is
getting under my skin. My decision to stay here is as solid as ever.
Talking to Karim his NGO does more of the supply ordering so
I mentioned my frustration that my NGO really hasn’t reacted when I
mentioned the needles, but he was really interested and wanted to help
so that put a little sparkle in my day.
When shit started to get real in Lebanon these were the headlines and the Avis add was about a centimeter after them:
Avis add right after all the bad headlines.
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