I live in a Druze community

The Sheik's Store
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Dilek bought a book called, On Being a Druze. It's an anthropological study of the "strange" Islamic Shia, Ismaeli sect that is the predominant religious community in Aley. Practically all of my students are Druze, and almost all of the teachers. Most of the people don't seem to know too much about their religion. Druze can only go to their house of worship, the khaluee, if they are religious. Which means they have to make a big decision to live a certain way--I don't know what it all entails, except for the dress. The men wear baggy, black MC Hammer pants, with some sort of white cap. It's higher and fancier, the higher up they are in the hierarchy. Women wear long black skirts and long-sleeved black blouses, with a white head scarf that only lets their eyes show. They are called sheikhs and sheikhas.

So the book is written by a Christian guy and makes the Druze out to be a strange, to-be-studied people group. But it says something in there about how the sheikh traditionally regulates conflict in the community.

Up the street from where I live, a sheikh and sheikha own a corner store. (You can see it in the picture) I buy about a kilo of tomatoes from him everday along with khibiz (bread), laban (yogurt), canned sardines, and other stuff. Also along the street are the SHEBAB. The Arab world is full of the SHEBAB. These are groups of boys, sometimes teenagers, sometimes a bit older, who just hang out. I'm used to the shebab. They always say something or make some noises when I walk by. I had been told to just ignore them. If I respond to them or even look at them, it would get worse. And then I'd get this bad reputation in this small town for being a loose American woman.

It was fine at first. But then they started picking up more English. When they asked my blonde American friend, "How much?" as she was walking back by herself one night, we decided we had enough. And then she remembered. . ."Hey, the sheikh regulates conflict in the community."

So we went into the store, and I related my big problem to the sheikh in my broken Arabic, but he definately understood. I know how to say "Shebab," "big problem," "they say things not good." He knew what I was talking about.

So a couple days later, we told a Druze friend about what we did. He was skeptical. First of all, conflicts have to do with divorces, problems between families, not the shebab harassing women. And then he told us the Arabic saying, "Don't count your beans before they're on the scale." I think we say something like that in English about chickens.

But really there have been no problems. Three of them walked right past me the other day and said . . . nothing. SCORE! That's a big deal. Way to go for anthropological studies.

Walid Jumblatt came to my neighborhood today to open the new Druze courthouse across the street from my school. To see pictures of the festivities and my school go to www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum21.html.

Lasik in Lebanon

Lasik
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

This is Dilek and me before my surgery.

When I told my students about my surgery, their faces went blank. "You had the surgery here. . .in Lebanon?. . .Why? You go to the hospital here if you want to die."

"Miss, you can't trust the doctors here. Right now your eye is fine, but just wait, in a month or two it will explode. We can see it getting bigger. . . It's like in the souk--they put the good tomatoes on top to cover the rotten ones."

This was on Tuesday, after I had my first eye done. They told me not to go back the next day for the left eye. "Just have one good eye and one bad eye. Don't risk it, Miss."

Aren't 8th graders cute?

Field Trip #4: Zurich, Lucerne, Frankfurt

Kathy and I in Zurich
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

So the biggest surprise about my trip to Zurich was how much I missed Lebanon. I missed hearing Arabic and saying the silly little phrases I've learned and having people smile and chuckle when I say something cute or funny. Coming back to Beirut, I felt like I was home.

The big shocker was the weather. It was seriously cold, and made me grateful to be in Lebanon and not in Boston. I had to buy boots before I left because I've only been wearing open-toed shoes.

I was soooo happy to see everything decorated for Christmas. It kind of made me homesick, but grateful to be getting my fill. Seeing Kathy was great, and meeting her cool European, mulit-lingual, mostly investment banker friends. We had a fondue one night. Melted cheese in a bowl. I also had roshti, which is like a tater tot pancake. The food here is pretty heavy. I tried not to overdo it on the chocolate; I only brought back a shopping bag full.

You can check out the pictures at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum20.html.

"The Dying Lion of Lucerne" is a big lion carved into the side of a rock. According to the tourist brochure, Mark Twain called it "the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world." I wasn't so moved, but I was moved to have read Mark Twain's words. I love that guy. (He and James Baldwin are my favorite American essayists. . .I know you wanted to know that.)

I also went to the Picasso museum in Lucerne. There were a bunch of great photos of him in his last years. He was amazingly prolific, and he really comes off as a family man. Though we all know he was a philandering scuzzball and so much of his stuff is straight-up pornographic (I don't care what those art experts have to say.)

Here's a good Picasso quote (or at least my paraphrase of it): "I knew if I went into the army, I'd become a five-star general. Or if I went into politics, I'd become the President. But instead I went into painting, and I became Picasso." He's hard not to love.

Field Trip #2: Afqa

Caving in Afqa
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

We took the kids to Afqa to do caving, archery, rock climbing, and a zipline. There was also some mountain biking involved. I ended up walking my bike most of the time. But it wasn't too embarrassing because there were two other girls having issues. So it just looked like I was being a good chaperone. Ha, ha.

I guess only some of y'all have been priveleged enough to witness my Pee Wee Herman-esque biking skills. Remember when he flips in the air, lands in front of all the cool kids, wipes himself off, and says, "I meant to do that." That's one of my all-time favorite lines from a movie.

Okay, unnecessarily random tangent. I think I'm blogging too much.

Politics as usual

So I guess I´ve found myself in another country with a political situation. But it´s really nowhere near as tense or crazy as Caracas. (Did you read my Chavez blog? Yes, the people did confirm his presidency in the referendum.)

1559 is the U.N. resolution saying that all foreign presences need to get out of Lebanon. That would be Syria. Since the end of the 17 year civil war in 1990, Syria has kept thousands of troops in Lebanon. The current President, Emile Lahoud, is generally considered a puppet of Syria´s government. At some point this summer, it was decided that Lahoud´s presidency should be extended beyond the six year term limit, which goes against the Constitution. This made some people upset; they claim that Syria is running the country--imposing their guy as President and wantonly amending the Constitution.

Some of these upset people include the Druze. (See the previous article.) An important minister in Parliament from the Chouf (a state in the mountains), Marwan Hmadi, protested and walked out of Parliament. His car was bombed. It was a big deal. That kind of stuff hasn´t happened in downtown Beirut for a couple years. The guy didn´t die, but his driver was killed.

That day the souk in Aley closed. That was strange; nothing here was open. The event was followed by a week of no electricity from the government. The government said there was no electricity, but everyone knew that was BS. It's their method of trying to distract the people. There was a lot of tension brewing in the Druze community; some people were upset and wanted revenge. So the government tries to defuse it, by taking away the power and making life more inconvenient. These people lived through a long war (Aley was a particularly hot spot). You can see that things like this don't really phase them.

Lebanese food

I LOVE the food here. It´s super yum. Right up the
street from me is a chawarma guy. I had to lay off
though because it was just getting to be too much, and
the stuff really is greasy. But I have not been able
to lay off the Arab sweets. There are at least ten
patisseries within a 4 minute walk from my door. And
it´s all this stuff that I never knew about before--it
goes way beyond baklawa and kunafa. Namora is my
favorite. I´m eating this stuff way too much.

The typical Lebanese mezza is great. Olives, white
cheese, hommos, baba ganoush. Lots of salads and
vegetables and beans. All right up my alley.

A parent had us over for dinner. It was an amazing
extravaganza of six courses. It started with the nuts.
Then the cold stuff--salads and dips. Then came the
meat. It was like every type of meat. She just kept
bringing the stuff out on skewers. And then
desserts--not just the Arabic sweets, but a creme
caramel she had made, and cut up fruit. She sent us
home with apples and figs from her garden. That set
me off on a two week stint of eating teen
(figs) all the time. They don´t always have that in
the souk, either, so I was compromising with the dried
stuff, which is soooooo good. But again, I had to
stop. It´s too easy to pig out on that stuff.

The pizza in this country is pretty much all
disgusting. And people here seem to eat a lot of
pizza. They make little bagel size ones and make them
for parties and eat them for lunch. They´re worse
than the frozen stuff you´d get in the U.S., or at least
comparable. They also eat a lot of French fries.
Sometimes they make sandwiches out of pita bread and
just have French fries with mayonnaise and ketchup inside them. . .. ew!

They also sell ice cream on the street, which is more like rubber. Spooning it out of the cup and into your mouth is like pulling silly putty. I was going to break it with my hand before I threw it away.

There´s one Chinese restaurant in Aley, and it´s
actually pretty good. There are actually some Chinese
people who work there. The only East Asians in
probably the whole mountain. There are many South
Asians, mostly from Bangladesh, who are the ¨help¨in
many people´s homes, including my students. One of
the girls dressed in a sari for Halloween that her
maid let her borrow.

They eat this stuff called manoushe. You can get it
with zaatar (a mix of spices which is mostly thyme)
and/or jibna (cheese). So the first time I had it, I was like, I´ve had this before. And then I
realized that back in the U.S. of A. we call this a
quesadilla, except there´s all this grass stuff on it,
that gives it a kind of bitter taste.

My friend got to spend a Sunday with a Lebanese
family. And they had a lot of raw meat, like cow
brains and such. She said she couldn´t really eat it.
She used her khibiz (pita bread) to cover half her
plate. But of course the people caught on and asked
her what was wrong. We´re sure she offended them.

St. Elisha Monastery

Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

The monastery of St. Elisha is a beautiful church carved into the side of a mountain. Back in the day, as the Christians were fleeing from some people who would persecute them (probably the Ottomans) , they would hide out in the mountains.

Here's a fun excerpt from the little explanatory sign in the chapel
¨at the bottom left, St. Elisha curses the children who made fun of his baldness and delivers them over to ferocious bears."

Hmmmm. I'm not going to ponder that one too much.

Driving in Lebanon

Bcharré Car
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Lebanese people are really into cars. Somehow there are millions of Mercedes here. At the same time, about 70% of the cars on the road are older than 20 years. Someone is actually driving this around Bcharrè.

People drive really crazy here. I´ve been in many countries, and all over Latin America, and this has to be some of the worst. They say the traffic is the worst in Taipei and Cairo. Here, traffic isn´t the issue. It´s the constant near collisions. India is somewhat like that. But here there are lots of mountains, which makes the whole thing even more harrowing. But I developed a strategy a long time ago for dealing with such things--don´t look.