As soon as I got off the plane at the airport, I somehow felt I was in a different place – a different world. Even though the plane ride was only about 2 hours from Istanbul, things are much different down here. The modernity of the place is only slightly different, at least from what I have observed. Here – much like Istanbul – women are free to dress as they wish and I have seen very few women veiled or fully covered. Perhaps this is because I am living on a college campus and have only hung out in the areas around the university and young people tend to take advantage of such freedoms. Another striking difference that I have noticed is that life moves much slower down here. Now, yet again, this could be because I am living on my own with classmates on a summer program and not with a family that continues its daily lives – jobs, trips to the market, preparing and cleaning up meals, etc. etc. – even when I am still there. However, I must say that I am certainly not used to a meal – dinner or lunch – taking 2 to 3 hours. I am definitely the type of person who thrives on a fully organized schedule with lots of places to go and see, always with a goal in mind. Unfortunately, I don’t think I was prepared for the freedoms that we would have here, much like I wasn’t prepared for the freedom I would have in college. Without structure to my day, I tend to get a bit anxious but perhaps this trip will teach me the art and appreciation of relaxation – something I desperately need in my personal life.
The city of Beirut itself is beautiful. Our dorm room is on the 8th floor of the New Women’s Dorm and has a beautiful view of both the city as well as the Mediterranean Sea. There are certainly still signs of rebuilding from the wars; some huge buildings lay vacant without any sign of life and some streets still have a good amount of rubble on them. We have not seen much of the city yet, but the parts I have seen have been interesting places to walk through and investigate. Strangely, as I have experienced almost every time I have gone abroad, Beirut does not seem to be that crowded – nowhere near the amount of people walking/driving the streets as in Istanbul, Manila or Tokyo. Beirut only has a population of 2-million people but still, the city isn’t that spread out; I would have assumed there would be more life here. I also must consider the fact that it is the summer time and even the University is not at full capacity – so perhaps that is the reason.
My two most favorite things about Beirut thus far has got to be the food and the lectures we are attending at the University. I have yet to try a dish that I did not like – aside, of course, from dishes that included tomatoes and olives – and everything here seems to be relatively healthy. I have especially liked the kabab and the seafood. A couple of nights ago at dinner I ate some delicious mussels still in the shell with a fantastic white wine sauce. And for lunch some days ago I ate the most delicious lamb chops I have ever experienced. I am especially liking the fact that much of the food comes with some sort of sauce or gravy that adds the real flavor to a meal that would usually be quite bland. For example, the first day we were here I had some plain rice but the sauce that went with it was what made the dish. The food is very, very good here and I am really excited to eat and experience more.
The lectures we have been receiving at AUB, only 3 in total as of Friday (yesterday) have also been very interesting. Even though I have already learned much about Lebanon – thanks to a Political Science degree with a focus in the Middle East – I am still learning new things every day; tidbits that only enhance the history and story of the place.
As my Iranian PS-420 (Middle Eastern History, Government and Politics) professor would have said: “It’s the nuances that make the history, not just the information.”
The second day of lecture, I finally had the revelation for what I am going to do for my media project. Our lecturer for that day was political analyst and author Mohammad Sanmak. Sanmak is also on many committees with the main goals of promoting good Islam/Christian relationships. He is the Secretary General of the Christian-Muslim Committee for Dialogue as well as the Secretary General of the Spiritual Islamic Summit. During his lecture, Sanmak spoke about some initiatives that the Christian-Muslim Dialogue committee was taking to re-bridge the gap between the children of the generation that had gone through the war in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. He said that they had experimented with bringing Muslim students to Christian schools and visa-versa and the results were more successful then they had expected. I was hoping to tie this re-building initiative in with the fact that the Lebanese seem to need to somehow fashion their own cohesive identity as a nation-state. Because of the confessional system in the government, Lebanon is divided by such deep religious lines that the country has difficulties identifying themselves as overall Lebanese. I find this very interesting and would like to investigate the steps that have been taken to help not only re-bridge the younger generations of Christians and Muslim but also what they are doing to help cultivate a sense of nationality into these children. What Lebanon needs is a strong generation or wave of people that are so proud to be Lebanese that their sectarian divisions are secondary. Perhaps this is jumping the gun and hoping for too much but it is interesting to see how a country in modern times is going to go about doing that.
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