Christmas in Aley (a Druze community)

Christmas in Aley
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

So for a Druze community, the Christmas decorations are out in full force. Little white and colored lights everywhere. Santa Clauses on front lawns. The shops in the souk have Christmas trees and garland. Red and green galore.

There were no decorations or lights during Ramadan.

The Druze say they’re not Muslim. Though officially and historically, the religion developed in the 1000's in Fatimad Egypt as an offshoot of an Ismaili Shiite sect. But to me, it seems that many are wanna-be Christian. My Druze students are for the most part very anti-Muslim and have a strong affinity for Christians. One day, a kid yelled out, "Who thinks Christian is better than Muslim?" And the whole 7th grade class raised their hands. This kid also said Christian is better than Druze.

Some Druze go to church. It might be a function of not being able to go to their own house of worship or to know a lot of the substance of their religion, unless they decide to become “religious." (The Druze are a bifurcated society where about 10% choose to become religious. It entails having to dress a certain way and attend certain religious ceremonies.)

Since the Druze religion is philosophically esoteric, Bahai-like, believing in aspects of all religions, many don’t see a problem with going to church or to mosque. Because theirs is the final revelation, all the previous revelations are shadows of the true Druze religion. So officially Druze can participate in other religious services.

However, much of the affinity towards Christianity has to do with social status and class. Christians are at the top; Muslims are on the bottom. The Druze are probably somewhere in between, even though many would claim they're on the bottom. Christian culture is associated with open, modern, Western ways, while Muslims are often associated with Palestinian refugees, Hezbollah, and the all-hated "dirty" Syrians.

Of course, not all the Druze are anti-Muslim. I have plenty of friends who have Muslim friends and Qurans and even go to mosque. But I am often surprised by how positively I am received by this community because I am a Christian. I don't think it would be same were I Muslim.

I live in a Druze community—2nd Draft

One of my Druze friends who’s reading my blog thinks that some of the posts are childish (hmmm. . . never been called that before) and many are just straight up offensive.

The sheikh is someone worthy of respect and authority, who regulates conflicts having to do with families and matters of state, not dealing with silly things like the shebab. I’m belittling the community and the religion.

And why am I dissing the Christian guy who wrote it? He's not a bad or ignorant person. In fact, why am I talking like I'm in the academy? That posturing where you always have to diss other people's work, because that's what academics do. Why do I think the sarcasm about studying strange people groups is so funny. I'm just trying to pretend that I belong in the academic crowd, but of course, it's just criticism without substance.

And Lebanon has some of the best hospitals and doctors. You don’t go to the hospital in Lebanon if you want to die. I did do my eye surgery here. And even tested the doctor. When he told me he studied in Houston, I asked him where the best Lebanese food is. “Sami’s.” Check, that’s near where my sister lives, at Hillcroft and Westheimer. Obviously he hadn’t made it out west enough towards Katy to try Phoenicia’s. (That’s so funny. Now I kind of understand the Phoenicia thing. A lot of Christians here refuse to call themselves Arab. Though they speak Arabic, they don’t want to be ethnically linked to Muslims. So they call themselves Phoenician.)

In my attempt to be witty and to make it interesting for you, my readers, I’m mocking and ridiculing Lebanon—a place which I’ve fallen in love with.

I don’t like my pictures of Aley, either. I show so many sheikhs and sheikhas. I don’t show how everyone else is dressed, which is mostly like people in the U.S. and Latin America.

Transport: Serveece and Vans

Traffic
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Beirut has a system of shared cabs called service. You stand on the street; the guys slow down; and you tell him the place where you want to go. Half the time, he makes a tsk noise, tilts his head back, and drives off. It seems kind of rude if you're an American, until you learn that this is how Lebanese people say no. If they're heading there, they tilt their head sort of down and towards the door. Sometimes they'll say "Serveecein" which means you pay 2,000 Lebanese Lira, instead of 1,000, which is what service also means. LL 1,000 = U.S. $.67.

So it's a cool idea, and obviously way cheap. But there are a couple problems. It usually takes forever. Not only is traffic in Beirut horrendous, but these guys are always looking for customers, so they slow down whenever they see anyone, and since there can be up to four people in the car, you are often taking detours along the way.

And then half of these guys are major jerks. Like once you're sitting in the car, they'll start renogiating the terms. You looked at him straight in the face and said "Service?" and he nodded down, which means L.L. 1,000, but then he'll start saying that where I want to go is farther or something. Or sometimes they just tell you a different price when you get there. One time a guy drove me literally one minute down a couple side streets, just because I didn't know where the place was, and he charged me 5,000. What the . . .??? I was like No Way, Jose. He was getting aggressive, so I just took out the 1000, dropped it on the seat next to me, and opened the door. But at this point he was grabbing my leg and yelling at me in Arabic. One woman I know was followed out of the car by the chouffer, who then spit on her. So I decided to just give him the 5,000.

But then, of course, they can be nice too. Yesterday a guy took me to a nearby street so that I could take a servicein to Solidaire. He wouldn't take the 1,000 when I gave it to him.

Now the vans are the other way of getting around. I have to take them a lot since I live in Aley. Roller derby is an understatement for the way they drive. I risk my life everytime I get into one, especially since it's on the super windy Damascas highway, going up the mountain. People get concerned for me because they're filled with Syrian workers. (The Syrians are to Lebanese what Mexicans are to U.S. Americans, but the culture here isn't so P.C.) But I've never had a problem, and usually they play good Lebanese pop music. It's just that the driving is way, way crazy. But these are things you get used to when you're not in the U.S.

Cell phones in Lebanon

Political cell phone covers
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Extortion. That's how the Swiss guy in Frankfurt described the cell phone system in Lebanon once I broke it down for him. In this country, there are two cell phone companies which are pretty much the same. People buy cards consisting of a certain number of units for a certain amount of time. A 30 day card that gives you about 150 speaking minutes costs about $50. That is a HUGE amount of money for the people here, considering average salaries might be $400 a month. So if you don't recharge your card by the 30th day, you lose your units. When you use up your units or after the 30 days, they give you 5 days where you can just receive calls, but if you don't recharge before those days are up, you lose your line. Which means you have to spend around $70 for a new phone number.

It's a horribly ridiculous system. There is no competition. Apparently it's all run by the mob. The people of Lebanon went on strike last summer, abstaining from using the cell phone on Mondays. But that did nothing.

Even landline usage is super expensive. And there's no voicemail because that would take someone's units. People SMS a lot. And there's developed a mode of communication called the missed call. People decide what the missed call is going to mean beforehand, like I'll give you a missed call when I get there. This is kind of stressful. You have to really think about if you're going to pick up the phone when someone calls because you don't want to take up their units.

And check out the cool cell phone covers. From left to right, there's Walid Jumblatt, the head of a Druze political party, son of Kamal Jumblatt, who was killed during the Civil War. Hafez Al Assad, the late president of Syria. Mousa Al Sadr, a Lebanese Shiite leader who disappeared visiting Lybia in the 70's. And last but not least, Rafik Al Hariri, the Lebanese Prime Minister who recently stepped down. Hariri's company, Solidaire, has been responsible for rebuilding Beirut since the end of the Civil War.

Since most of the Druze and Christian Lebanese people I know can't stand Syria, I don't know who would go around with Hafez Al Assad on her phone. If I went around with Al Sadr on my phone, I'd be considered some sort of radical Shia sympathizer. It would be like going around with Che Guevara stuff, which is very popular here also. But if I go with Walid Jumblatt, that would gain me a lot of brownie points, since I live in a Druze community.

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.