Mitch and I had the joyful reunion at the airport and I almost lost all of my things. There’s a little wall – like at all airports – from where the people coming are separated from the people waiting. I was walking and thinking ok, white face, white face, white face. We saw each other and screamed of course and I dropped my cart to lean over the little wall to hug him and it went rolling away and I had to run after it. Once I was able to get to the other side of the wall we made sure my cart had stopped and then hugged.
The drive to our apartment was really funny for me on the inside. Well, at the time it was his apartment and now it’s my apartment, too! It feels like every other time I have come to Beirut I was looking out the window wide eyed like a kid in a candy store and don’t get me wrong I was really excited to be here, but it was like I was coming home. It’s wasn’t a gasping and remembering store fronts and giggling at being back in this exotic place I’ve learned to love it was like coming home. It was like passing the department store on your way home after a long trip. Beirut really is home to me and I am typing this as there is yelling outside (and I think it’s about a soccer game – which I’ll have to start referring to as football again – a scooter whizzed by, and someone honked their horn multiple times which caused a brief yelling spree and now it’s back to the hum of a “regular” city. I’m the smug single in the corner making fun of love at first sight and cutsie couples, but I love this city. Something draws me to it. The calm and accepted and usual life behind the chaos just gets under my skin and makes a blanket of belonging and happiness for me. I love dodging cars on the street, tilting my head back and clicking my tongue at the endless taxi drivers.
Some things you never know and it’s something I feel tentative to tell other people about Beirut because it can really be true in any city. There are some jerks outside messing around and seem benign enough, but just got in a screaming match with other jerks passing by so I texted Mitch for him to be careful and people always think “Oh my gosh, you’re in a scary Middle Eastern country and there are people fighting outside” well, someone was shot on my doorstep in Baltimore so you can take your region-phobia and stick it.
Mitch and I went out to get money from the ATM to pay for my down-payment and late at night after we’d been hanging out with two of his friends. Again, like any place it was late at night and we are on off-streets so it can be sketchy. There were a few guys sitting on the side of the street and looked like shady characters and Mitch whispered about Syrians moving around in the city and things feeling a little dicier. At first I got the shock of these creepy characters roaming the city, but it’s just a city. Beirut is just a city. Though as I drew money out of the ATM Mitch did stand behind me like a bouncer which made me laugh out loud, but at that time of night I would have welcomed it at any ATM in any city.
This is a bit of an odd transition. This is how I initially started this entry, but I thought the other stuff should come first. So I got to Beirut and guess I should talk about that. I want to talk about the ridiculous hassle it took me to get here but of course I’m always humbled when I get here. Prices have gone up and I’m not sure if it’s because some people here are making the place more expensive or because more of the people here aren’t buying enough. My political economy professor Dr. Hody would curse me for not knowing why all of this is happening. That was a Freudian slip right there. Why all of this is happening. It turns out that even when things are supposed to make sense or be regular that rumors rule. There was a firefight that friends told me about and they said that everyone reported it differently and that there is still question of what happened exactly. Today two other friends told me that there are so many different agencies and groups that are constantly watching people and who knows who is looking after who and who is looking after you. (Adding to this now I am at Gloria Jean’s Coffee and someone wrote on the wall “Someone is watching you.” These are of those things that are unspoken, the being followed part – not the shooting part. We all know that Lebanon is filled with nefarious characters and sometimes it’s really regardless of who they work for and you know that you may have a “file” somewhere, but what are you supposed to do? Walk quickly and look over your shoulder? Be careful who you divulge too much information to? Something I hate is not being able to take pictures. In the camps especially there are so many shots that could really show what it’s like and get attention, but though a little white girl with a bright green Fuji point-and-shoot would be completely written off in almost any other place there I would stick out like a sore thumb and people would wonder what the hell I was doing. That gets into “poverty porn” and “slum-dog tourism” where people take these shocking photos for mere shock value to brag about and make their friends gasp, but miss the whole point of whether this is doing anything for a cause. There has to be meaning behind the pictures.
I guess that’s all I can say for now.
Cheers,
Kira
PS – I’m filling this entry in a few days later, but I am sitting cross legged on my bed and just smacked my body multiple times because a mosquito was there. I probably have a good 20 bites on my arms and legs mostly and one managed somehow to bite my stomach. Really? I look constantly immensely hungry because I’m grinding my hand into my stomach.
lovefromwoes 