Not Without My Daughter

After living in Lebanon for three months, I came home for Christmas break. At the meal at my aunt's house, I kept getting warnings about not marrying an Arab.

"Have you seen that movie, Not Without My Daughter?"

Actually, I didn't know if I had seen it. But I know the gist.

"Don't worry. I'm not marrying an Arab. Those people don't know how to treat women. Even if a guy says he's cool with a women being independent and being able to do her own thing, he's been spoiled by his mama his whole life, and will expect me to cook and clean after him, like a maid."

So I've pretty much been thinking that for the past year and a half.

And now look at me. I want to marry an Arab.

And you should really see the reactions. The strong negative reaction is almost equal amongst my Lebanese and American female friends.

Only the people who know Mohammad and know me are cool with it. But if anyone hasn't met him yet, I get completely accosted by. . .Do you know what you're going into.

And yeah, it's not pretty. Women have no rights in these countries. It doesn't matter if you're under the jurisdiction of Christian, Muslim, or Druze courts, basically a woman can't ask for divorce, has not claim to the custody of her children if they're between the ages of 7 and 14, and cannot guarantee her female daughters their inheritance. Of course, the details are different for the 18 official religious sects in Lebanon. But really, it's all bad.

It makes me wonder what Western woman would willingly give up her basic human rights to marry an Arab and live in his turf?

Right now, I don't have to worry about it so much because we'll get married in the U.S. That has more to do with technical visa/residence issues more than anything.

But there's a whole bog of Personal Status Law that I need to wade through.

Who is he?

His name is Muhamad, and he's Lebanese. I told some of y'all about him when I was home during the war. He's definately one of the reasons I got back here so quickly.

As for the other details, I have to hold off on them for now.

But we will shortly be starting the fiance visa process. Direct all your prayers and "good vibes" in that direction. Especially with the situation, who knows what will happen or how long things could potentially take.

The situation

The situation is tense. But it will not erupt into civil war.

My heart sank when I found out. I was with one of the new American teachers, a guy who's only been here for two months. I said this assasination was a bad one. I've already told him to be ready, be able to pack up quickly, in case things start up again.

But after these past couple days, and Nasrallah doing things like telling people to go home and not be on the streets, and calling Amin Gemayal, I'm actually pretty hopeful.

Last Sunday (two days before the assassination of Pierre Gemayal), I was in the Dahiye, visiting my boyfriend's family. For about half an hour, people were firing their weapons, many of which sounded like automatic machine guns, from their balconies. Apparently, Hasssan Nasrallah had finished his speech. It was kind of freaky. Fireworks are usually the norm in that situation, and caravans of cars with flags and loud music blaring out of them. But the gunfire was crazy. I realized that these people are armed, and they're ready to go.

My friend was up in Aley picking olives. When she heard it, she thought, "It's started."

People are nervous. But after these tense days, I think people are feeling like it's not going to erupt in a civil war. The government, however, is likely to come down. The opposition, Hizbollah, wants to stop the international tribunal that would try the murderers of Rafik Hariri, which will implicate the inner sanctum of Syria. People expect more assassinations.

But I don't think Israel is going to start dropping bombs. And I don't think the people are going to start massacring each other.

But there will probably be more demonstrations and national strikes. Which is all starting to suck. Businesses suffer too much. School gets all crazy, and we have to make up the days.

For the Lebanese, it's just too hard to live here with all this uncertainty. Even me, will the school year finish?? Will I be looking for another job soon? Will we get a fiance visa before everything shuts down?

Yes, fiance visa. But that's another post.

(By the way, my computer is still messed up. iPhoto is jacked up. And I still haven't had the heart to go back to being controlled by my computer. I'm thinking maybe this week I'll fix it, and then finally I'll post some photos on this blog. I have so many.)

I didn't go

I didn't go to the South yesterday because the weather was really bad. He said that the olive oil harvest wasn't good this year. That they took the olives before the big rains, so they weren't fat and oily. I didn't really ask about the chemicals and all that. I don't know why.

A lot of trips have been cancelled in the last couple weeks because of weather. But I also think people are nervous. There was another bombing last night. And there are rumors about Nasrallah calling for a national strike for this government to step down.

There was a very heated faculty meeting on Friday about what to do in case of a potential emergency or lock down situation. The kids and teachers can't use their phones or leave. Some teachers who live in the southern suburbs were saying that they might have to call or leave. And others (like some of the foreign hires) were saying it's not fair if teachers can call and leave and not students.

Tensions were high all around.