Back in Beirut

Published Tuesday, January 8, 2008

I arrived the Lebanese soil Thursday night, after spending the christmas vacation in Norway. It felt good when I saw the nightlights in Beirut city from the plane. It was a joyful reception at the Hariri airport, where Camilla and Elie came and picked me up. I was very happy to be back, where I now would start once again my every day life here in Lebanon. I started my work already at Friday after a long vacation with my family, and at the same time I had to go through the cultural differences once again. I had already been through this when I arrived to Norway, I remember I was really confused when I didn’t know where I’d put the toilet paper in Gardermoen (Oslo, airport), there was no trash can for the toilet paper. I thought to myself “it is going in the toilet” and I laughed out loud to myself. It took a couple of days before I got used to the Lebanese style again, and I am now in to the more routine every day life again, it was good after I’d reloaded my batteries at home.

I can feel that the temperature outside is getting colder, even though the thermometer shows 14-18˚ celcius (which for us who comes from the west coast of Norway often would have called summer) I have taken out my wool underwear, and turned on the AC to heat up. The houses are not well isolated, so it actually feels colder inside, than it is outside. And yet they say that the coldest month has not arrived, already I walk around full dressed in the streets, with scarf, gloves and a hat, I am actually more dressed than the regular Lebanese person I meet on the street. I find this funny, because I come from the so called cold North, where we for some people are immune to the cold.

A closer look to Baalbek

Published Friday, December 14, 2007

After a conversation with Nasma, a Red Cross Youth volunteer from Baalbek, a Thursday in the office, we got invited to Baalbek to meet the volunteers there. We thought this was a great idea, and we wanted to travel already the up coming weekend. Since we were not that familiar with driving out of Beirut, we chose a route we knew, this showed up to be not as easy as we thought. The road signs were in Arabic and the roads were splitting without any pre notice, this resulted that we got lost a few times. Luckily we have a Red Cross car, which make me feel very safe. After a three and a half hour ride with endless phone conversations with Nasma we arrived late, but safe. We were met by the local Red Cross Youth committee in a restaurant, where we ate a delicious Lebanese meal. We were invited to Nasmas home where we were going to spend the night. The house was so cosy, with a warm fireplace in the living room. Outside it was really cold, and the wool underwear from Norway was well used.

Sunday morning we woke up early, and we were real tourists, with the camera close to the hand and good walking shoes. Baalbek is a historical city, with temples from the old roman times. Baalbek was the religious capital, and it was decorated with beautiful temples in the honour of the gods, and all of this was really well preserved. You can see from the picture how amazing it was. After the temple visit we went to see the largest rock in the world, which was cut out from the mountain, this was meant to be used on the temple we was in earlier, but it was left as an extra resource. We closed the trip by going back to Nasmas place where we ate a traditional Lebanese farmers meal, ktir tajib.

The Lebanese independence day

Published Thursday, November 22, 2007

This should be a day were everyone was celebrating, with military parades in the street and with the flags waving in the sky. But the streets today are very quiet, or at least the streets we’ve been in. The presidential election that was supposed to be yesterday, has been post pond again. The election has been post pond until the coming Saturday, and the situation is very tensed. After a security briefing with the head of delegation, IFRC, we have gotten some security restrictions to keep a low profile, and report any movement out of neighbourhood. I can see that the streets are being filled up with military and police patrolling and observing, especially around the various parliament buildings. The Lebanese I am in contact with are busy continuing their everyday life, and they rather don’t want to speak about what’s going on. The questions arise, will they reach a consensus? Will we get to governments, or will we get an ad-hoc military regime? It is hard to give an analysis of what is going to happen. Up to now, no one knows. I really hope that a consensus will take place, and that Lebanon will get a peaceful end. Anyway I would like to congratulate Lebanon with its independence day, despite the political situation.

Almost like a day along the west coast of Norway

Published Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Now the winter has started to set in. Tonight it was almost impossible to sleep, even for those who have a good sleeping heart. It lightened and thundered all the way through the late night hours. At first I didn’t hear it, because I slept when it started. I woke up when Camilla really carefully knocked on my door, she asked if I didn’t want to plug out the electricity. I didn’t understand anything, I was still half asleep, I said yes and saw that she (kind as she is) plugged out all the contacts. The flashlight stood as it had own feet to stand on, I almost thought that someone stood on my porch taking photos. This resulted in rain all day. The streets are wet and slippery. And I can feel that the air is cleaner. I got a memoryflash that I walked in the streets of Bergen (the city where I study in Norway), wearing a raincoat and with wet skin, and everything felt like home. I almost hope it will rain some more. (crazy, but true)

Beirut marathon, 18th november

Published monday 19th of november

Beirut has an annual marathon that crosses Beirut city. This is a big happening where the Red Cross attends each year with their message. This year the focus was on AIDS, the motto was “Discrimination is more painful than AIDS” We were around 300 souls from the Red Cross Youth that walked the mini marathon of 10 km. Everyone was dressed in similar t-shirts and carried balloons marked with the AIDS ribbon. In addition there was a big banner that was carried of the volunteers. There were incredibly many that walked the marathon together, I was numbered 29 528, and then you can imagine how many that participated.

I followed the run in big excitement, I took on my best walking shoes and my good mood. The starting was at 7 in the morning at the headquarter, and we all walked from there, with lots of good spirit. All the roads where the marathon crossed, was made into pedestrian streets, and the street I live in (Hamra) was one of the roads that was closed. This was a strange feeling, because suddenly there were no cars and no hooting with the car horns (this street is usually always packed up with traffic). For each sign appeared showing how many kilometres you had walked, was met with a big cheer. I fought my way through with blisters under my feet and it was good to reach the end, where we got a medallion (that was a medallion from last years marathon, but that doesn’t matter). In all I walked around 20 km, something that felt really good. It felt good to be a part of something bigger, and it felt good to show the Red Cross.

An adventorous day in Beirut

Published Monday, November 12, 2007

I can’t believe it has already passed two months in this charming country. Now things are normalizing in to every day life, things has become more a routine, nothing feels that new anymore. If I was to explain to you how a normal day in my life is, this would be it. After a night where I have fought against giant mosquitoes I open my eyes, very tired, after I’ve been snoozing for ten minutes. I fight myself going up from my bed, and I realize I don’t have that much time as I thought anyway. I stumble into the bathroom where I do my daily routines. Ten to nine I run out of the front door, this day I’ve decided I am going to be on the right time to my Arabic class. I have gotten too used to the Lebanese time measurement, and I am almost always five minutes too late. Straight at once when I reach the street I hear the hopeful voice of “taxi taxi” and I try patiently to show them the sign that I don’t need it. Three hours of Arabic lies ahead of me, and I try as best as I can to come up with some good phrases. “Sabakh al kher” (good morning in Arabic) and try to remember all the glossary that I memorized yesterday. After three intense hours (where Camilla and I are the only students) where we have been conjugating many verbs it is time to go to the office. The first person we meet is Achmed which is the telephone operator in the headquarter he sits in the first floor. He always smiles and is happy every time we greet him in Arabic, marhaba kifak, how are you? (good day, how are you? ) I walk the two stairs up to the youth department and I meet several colleagues on my way, the same sentences are repeated. I reach the office and there’s Therese, our contact person, and greets us. Kifik, how are you today? I greet back and sit down trying to work on my laptop. The internet connection is relatively bad, and I try to be patient when I am working on the net. At two o clock everyone leaves the office, I am trying to stay a little bit longer. After a whilw the clock shows too much and it is time for me to go home, I usually walk home, it takes me around twenty minutes. In the afternoon I go to a café called Graffiti, that by walk is only two minutes away from my apartment. There I have spent a lot of time, money and gotten to know a lot of people. There I sit for a few hours, sometimes I sit there until they close. Often we have late meetings with the volunteers in the Red Cross, which make me spend the late hours in graffiti. I walk home and try to remember some of the Arabic glossary I learned earlier today. It is time to go to bed, and to fight those giant mosquitoes once again.

Published Thursday, November 1, 2007

23 years old and am a big girl now!

The picture: Friends and acquaintances from Lebanon on my birthday, taken on our porch.

First of all, thank you to everyone for all the attention I got on my birthday! It was so incredibly nice. I have had an amazing celebration over here. I have now been celebration for four days, something that can be a little bit too much. It all started on Sunday before the big day, where I was on a workshop in Harisa with the volunteers in the Red Cross Youth. During the lunch I got a cake for desert, not to eat, but to get it all over my face, something that was a different experience from what I am used to. I heard that the crème is supposedly very good for the skin, thank you!! No more moisturizer for me anymore..hehe

The big day was celebrated with a gathering of friends in our apartment. After a bravely try of baking my grandmothers chocolate cake in the gas oven with no thermometer, we got a burned bottom, but otherwise a very good cake!! (thank you for helping me Camilla!!)

My good husband was incredibly good to me all the day, she woke me up for breakfast and had hidden small surprises for me in the apartment, and she was a brilliant hostess during the night. Shukran ktir habibti!! After the party we went out with good friends.

The last two days we’ve been eating dinner and cake. Today Camilla and I surprised the others in the office where we invited all our colleagues and volunteers for cake, this was a big success. It is always fun to do something that is not expected and that will please the others.