White Baboon

Sometimes I wonder how I end up where I do.

This was my thought as I walked atop the shoulders of an icy, starry night on a road between Syria and Lebanon, humming Islands in the Stream (it was playing at the duty free shop) and searching my coat pockets for toilet paper.

Our morning departing Beirut had been a hellish nightmare of false starts, perfume peddlers, taxi scams, bus ticket tricks and below-the-highway bust-ups. We’d finally managed to find a five dollar mini-bus, which along with eight other smoking, shifty-eyed males, took us up over the mountain pass and even stopped for a currency exchange. Six weeks ago, on our way in, we’d exchanged cash in panic through a barbed wire fence at the Lebanese entrance while we prayed that our bus didn’t leave without us. It sucked. But this time, despite the confusing conversion of Lebanese Pounds, Syrian Pounds and American Dollars (which were also used in Beirut) we fared better.

But getting our cash was only the first step. At the Syrian entry point, where not one officer spoke English, we discovered via a kind bilingual bystander that it would take five or six hours to issue a visa since they’d have to contact Damascus and wait for approval.

No problem. We’d been warned and were well-prepared with snacks and our books: Eastward to Tartary and Beirut to Jerusalem. Plus, there was a Dunkin Donuts nearby. Swell. All day long we watched hundreds of border-crossers come and go and the moustachioed pea-green-uniformed officers change shifts. But eight hours later, we were still hugging the radiator in our little bucket seats, going a little stircrazy. That’s when paranoia began to set in. We had no idea what was going on back there. Had our request been sent? Were they checking on it? Were visas issued after business hours? Shit, what had I written in my blog about Asad? Bloggers had been recently arrested in Egypt. What was the problem? Damn it America! Look at those Japanese tourists–in and out in five minutes!

Finally, just before 10:00 they motioned us over.

The visas would be issued.

Whew. But now we had to find a ride to Damascus. It was just a forty minute drive, but dark and cold by now, hitchhiking did not sound good. About that time, we heard American voices. Texas accents.

Fifteen minutes later we were sitting comfortably in the front seat of our own knight on a white horse. Except this hero had a 1974, velour interior dirt-dusted Caprice Classic–so big and white it seemed like it would fly. It’s driver, Abu Anas, a friend of the family spoke little English, but lucky for us, Abeer the pharmaceutical rep, Kinan the real estate guru and Zak the attorney spoke good Arabic. Somehow, it was arranged that we would stay with Abu tonight at his home and tomorrow morning he would drive us to Amman, Jordan for a small fee.

So we dropped off the Texans, then headed far out of the center to the cinder block shantytown of his suburban home. It was rockpiles and late-night fruit stands, dark alleys, corrugated tin and cement compounds. But his smile was as wide as the Caprice Classic as he called his wife and told her the good news. Though nearly midnight, he was bringing home guests. American guests. So would she plug in the space heater and put on the tea?

That night we slept in our clothes on a firm bed under three blankets. Harsh security lights courtyard, the outdoor space between the living spaces of his “house”, flooded our room, setting aglow the literally hundreds of garish ceramics displayed in our bedroom, a strange status of wealth in these Syrian communities. The next morning, after a quick teethbrush at the outside faucet, we sat around the kitchen diesel stove while Koran verses san across the television. Did we want tea? Well of course we did. As Abu’s headscarfed wife flowered with facial expressions and three of their nine little boys watched us with delight, we knew we were at a red-level alert for another kidnapping. This would be a close one.

But this time was different. This family was at ease with each other and that made us at ease with them.The energy was buoyant and we relaxed into the comfort of confusion we had come to know so well. I practiced my Arabic numbers. They practiced their English greetings. It was shy smiles and photos all around. Soon, Abu Anas made a move to go and we followed the nonverbals. Onto the white horse we climbed, one leg at a time and he drove us to. . . .not Jordan, but the bus station, where he arranged our seat with a bus-driver buddy of his. A miscommunication. Not too shocking. But it didn’t matter. A free bed, a culture-rich evening and a personal delivery to the bus’ two front positions, the best seats in the house. Abu refused to accept any money.

The Jordanian border, with King Abdullah and Queen Rania smiling at us with delight as if we’d just arrived at their private dinner party, was full of shiny marble, modern mosaics and velvet ropes which swung with order.

Amman here we come.

It was time to go. We spent our last day in Lebanon in typical potential peril as we gathered with thousands of others to commemorate the third anniversary of Prime Minister Hariri’s assasination, which, in 2005, had led to a national uprising and the removal of Syrian troops. We sloshed through puddles, fear, skirmishes and dozens of soldiers to get there, but it was worth it. For the first time in Beirut, we were truly “init”.

Us with Inma Director Rob and his wife Harriet–thanks for everything.

Boudreaux skiing above the Lebanese clouds. . .

Finally, the apartment I’ve been talking about for weeks. . .

We rode down to Tyre a few weeks ago along the Mediterranean to South Lebanon, the hotbed of Israeli conflict. Rob, Inma’s Director, was driving. The landrover was full of an unofficial religious delegation. One of these, an American–let’s call him Ray–rode in the passenger seat. He was speaking to Samir Inma’s founder, who sat in the back.

The topic was the upcoming Prayer Breakfast, a Congressional event held every February, where thousands of VIPs, including Bono and the current president, gather to speak with God in a non-denominational setting and without the presence of the press. While in D.C., Samir would be giving a lecture, his reputation as a diplomatic bridge-builder and international businessman preceding him. He and other special guests affiliated with Inma Foundation would be stay together at a special residence. This would all happen in a couple weeks.

As the six of us listened, Ray gave Samir a complete play-by-play of the Prayer Breakfast’s schedule of events, including where he thought they might lunch, at what time they would coffee break and who he was hoping to speak with.

At this point, Michael and I met eyes. There was nothing wrong with this scene. Nothing offensive. Nothing rude. But all we could think about was this: Those Americans, they sure do like to plan. Then they like to talk about the plan.

Sometimes I think Jesus gets a bad rap.

He reminds me of those musicians who began playing because they loved the sound of music but then everyone started calling them a “God” . . .and they were eventually led astray by either their agents or the rest of the guys in the band . . . and succumbed to the peer pressure of insipid lyrics, increased radio-play and high-priced tickets.

But it’s not fair to call Jesus a sell-out when he’s not actually here to make his own decisions.

Lucky for him, there exist busloads of devout followers who have taken it upon themselves to start their own churches and expose the teachings of Jesus without the baggage (or divisive agents and personalities) which seems to weigh down Christianity.

But the fact that I instinctively cringe when I see WWJD bracelets, or that I measure my words much more carefully when I’m with someone who has a cross around their neck, says that Christianity is still failing to spread the message about love and forgiveness. Because when faced with confident tokens of faith, I either categorize people as ultra-conservative or sit in fear of judgment from them. Somehow, Christianity has been taken to an extreme, encrusted with Teflon, repelling instead of replenishing.

I believe Jesus is actually ABOUT love and acceptance and forgiveness. And I’ll tell you why. About six years ago, Barb Kiebel, a dear friend and strong woman who used to serve me spiked lemonade and Marlboro Lights on her back porch when I was first starting my business, lent me a book called Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. She was involved in her church—an open community where lectures on Islam were not considered threatening, even in 2002.

Upon reading the book, I was somewhat surprised to discover that Jesus, this guy from Nazareth, and religion, the Catholicism I’d grown to be suspicious of, were often two very different things.

However, let’s be clear about where I’m standing. It’s on the bottom rung. I’m talking about Jesus, the man. Not Jesus the divine son at the right hand of the father who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Not the giver of life. Not the one whose kingdom will not end. Not Him.

Just an inspiring guy who has happened to have the biggest following of all time.

Since we’ve come to Beirut and began working for Inma Foundation, I feel I’m meeting Jesus yet again. Among other beliefs, at the very minimum, the staff of this organization follow his teachings. And it’s evident within their community. These people are balanced human beings who give of their time and resources without seeking something in return. They empower without controlling. They exude goodness without making me sick. They don’t really gossip. They make me want to be a better person.

This has been a recurring theme as we explore the earth. We’ve been part of “an economy where sharing is the primary currency,”(thanks Jen Lemen) as we couchsurf, hitchhike and rely on the kindness of strangers. We have become more aware of the impact of our own energy on others. About the sky-high value of old-fashioned, but evergreen kindness.

Funny, eh? How after so much meditative, deep-sea-diving into my soul, that life’s little sevens or twos or nines (or whatever you happen to need in your game of Go Fish) are not found in some spiritual temple amid the silence, but in a bomb-common place like Beirut, amid the chaos of Christianity and Islam.

8:00 Consider getting up, but switch positions and ignore the springs digging into my hipbone. Notice wall-heater is still functioning, which means electricity is on. Which means it could very well go off at 9:00. Good thing I juiced the oranges last night.

8:35: Get dressed and try to put water on for tea. Realize the faucet is only a trickle, which means in a bout five minutes, there will be no water at all. Have a tough time lighting the burner, so kitchen smells of sulfur. Use water from the cooler for eggs and tea.

8:40: Hear Michael messing with the toilet, realizing there is no water. He comes into the kitchen with quite a look. I nod in acknowledgment. Last time this happened, the Palestinian plumbing student at Inma center, who had fixed the water twice before, said that he could help us today, but didn’t want to. He wanted to teach us a lesson about wasting water. This was translated to us from Arabic by American volunteers who were rather aghast at his audacity. But despite the fact that we were at that time showering every few days, we didn’t say much. Since he didn’t fix our water, we were instructed to move across the hall. To the apartment three times as big.

So now, we REALLY didn’t want to come to this guy about the water. I decided to think about it later.

8:50: Retrieve Middle East book from living room to see when we can catch a bus to Jordan, our next destination. Michael is heating water to shave. We eat hard boiled eggs with soy and hot sauce and drink fresh orange juice on the terrace. Sometimes we read Economist articles to each other. Not today.

9:25: We say hello to Adel, the mechanic and the Syrian guy, Faisal, who serves coffee in the empty parking lot, then get a service taxi to Bourj el Barajne, the Palestinian Refugee Camp. A service taxi is basically a carpool. Most trips are $1/person. When we tell him our destination from the roadside, he grunts an affirmative and we get in. I think service taxis are the best way to see Beirut.You never know how long the ride could be, which route the driver will take, who might squeeze into the backseat with you. One morning, as I sat alone in the back of an unusually filthy car, my driver stopped, flashed five fingers and big smile my way, then got out and jacked the car up and down multiple times over a twenty-five minute period. During the rest of my ride, the guttural sounds coming from the car were matched only by the driver’s spit-spewing hack. On another day, during a 45-minute ride, the driver and three passengers smoked cigarettes, stopped for coffee-to-go and chatted as if they were all old friends, while I huddled reading in the corner, wondering if I’d accidentally crashed their road trip. But everyone is always nice. Helpful. Friendly. And you never have to worry about the driver taking the long way around. Because you KNOW he’s taking the long way around.

9:45: We see the KFC, our landmark and ask to get out amidst piles of dirt and two by fours, then cross the road, walk through the car wash and up four flights to the Inma Office. Hoda is making sandwiches (pitas rolled up with cheese) in the kitchen. Everyone is huddled in one room, sharing a joke. Apparently, Fadi’s father died last night. Which of course, is not funny at all. But Fadi had been asked to pick up the coffin and he was feeling a bit spooked about the task, which was embarrassing. And somehow, this became hilarious.

10:07: Suher, a Palestinian employee and Jamie, an American employee who came with her church last fall and will stay for a few years while her husband gets his masters at American University of Beirut, are going into the camp to sign up new kids for the pre-school. We tag along. We’ve seen the strange mix of colorful murals, unprotected cables and abandoned plastic dolls of this ghetto before, but our skin still pops as we walk.

I know the way, but we cannot walk too far ahead. Foreigners are not allowed unaccompanied through the camp. We reach the pre-school’s office. Ramadan greeting cards, rose-colored walls, Arabic scripture plaques and silk flowers attempt to decorate the cold, dark and drafty room. We sit in plastic deck chairs—the folding chair of the developing country. High-pitched child screams echo nearby. Jamie and Suher complete child profiles with meek mothers.

Eventually, we take a tour through the pre-school, which is more like a high-ceilinged courtyard with tiny rooms for teaching. We are given sweet steaming tea in brown mugs as we snap pictures of toddlers in blue-checked uniforms upon the blurry mirror of the steel slide.

Primary-colored murals are everywhere. Along the top surface of the wall separating the kitchen from the hallway are ever-shining shards of sharp glass, permanently glued in place. This is to keep away the thieves, since the kitchen has no door.

12:30: I have been asked by Louise, a British woman living in Beirut and working for Inma, to help out with the adult English class in the Vocational Training Center in the camp. They’re working on informal and formal greetings and their levels vary from beginner to intermediate, but they’re all headscarfed women and all inclined to giggle. They are giddily happy about learning English. This is pretty nice.

When I return to the center, Suzanne tells me Michael went to the Fadi’s father’s funeral.

2:00: I take a service taxi back to the Hamra area, look for the bookstore where I found $8 paperbacks a few weeks ago and then settle in at our restaurant with free internet and delicious tuna wraps. I order by leaning over the balcony from the second floor.

6:30: Michael arrives at the restaurant after a day of mourning.

One of the things we’re accustomed to, in our nomadic life, is the presence of second-world elevators. The kind where you actually watch the rectangle floors go by, like some kind of early 90’s thriller where the journalist resorts to microfiche in the downtown library.

Some elevators are also void of short-term memory. So, for example, if you get in with a fellow stranger and you push Floor 8 and then they push Floor 2, the elevator will go to Floor 8 and then settle into sleep as if it’s job is finished.

We know about the quirks.

A few weeks ago, in the beginning of Beirut, we were in an elevator destined for the fourth floor Inma Center office. As we rode, I thought out loud, (as my inner monologue is so completely worn out from keeping quiet in front of all these strangers!)

“I wonder what happens when the electricity goes off while you’re in the elevator?”

And at that very moment (and I mean that VERY moment) like a good drama student should, the elevator slowly came to a stop between floors.

So we pushed another button. And it began moving (whew), landing between another couple floors (ack). And we did that again. And then we did that again. Ffffuuuuu. . . .and, eyes squeezed shut, we rode to the bottom, where I banged open the door and embraced the stairs.

Michael rode back up. Show off.

See Michael here, on the front terrace of our Beirut apartment, reading Sophie’s World? He is quite content, sitting in the sun.

But just seven hours later, we’re settled into bed, ready for sleep, when the sounds begin. We hear the first one, glance at each other and say: Could have been a truck backfire.

And all is quiet for awhile. Then another one sounds, something a bit different. But we ignore it. Finally, I am teetering toward sleep when a long hollow ga-goooooon reverberates across the city. My eyes open.

I say: Oh my God.

And I suddenly understand that my whole life, until now, I have been hearing car backfires that SORT OF sounded like guns. But that what I just heard was clearly something quite a bit closer to a gun. I notice that my heart is beating fast, but I am calm. Michael is up, slipping on some pants.

He says: I’m going to the front terrace to check it out.

I say: What should I do?

He says: I guess just be ready to get dressed if we have to.

But Michael returns within a minute or two, reporting a peaceful neighborhood scene. There’s nothing unusual at our intersection–Corniche Mazra and Saeeb Salem– despite the fact that we live smack on the border between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, a cradle of potential conflict.

The next morning we talk to our friend Adel and he explains that celebratory firecrackers and shots were fired last night following a political speech. We learn later that February 14th (four days from now) will be the three year anniversary of Hariri’s assassination. We learn from our friend Maureen that a few days ago, following a Hezbollah panel, Hariri’s son made a speech essentially telling the “opposition” that he was ready for a fight.

Okay.

So, the next night, around the same time, just as we are attempting sleep, we hear a constant deafening noise. At first, I think it must be a strong wind. Then it sounds more like a tornado. I briefly consider a garbage truck, but then immediately dismiss that idea. Finally, I wonder if it is a very fast succession of gunshots. But when Michael opens the bedroom’s sliding glass door which faces the residential street below, the sound getting ever-louder, he does not panic.

He says: So THAT is what a tank sounds like.

And we try to sleep.

(Iman & Suher, two employees at the center.)

You wanna know what’s really going on in Lebanon? So do I. It’s complicated. And as Michael and I discuss Hezbollah over hot and sour soup at Chopstix, or he goes over whos Sunni and who’s Shiite for me ONE more time as we eat turkey sandwiches, I start to think that “complicated” is not the right word and that the phrase “#@$*ing mess” is a a little more appropo. So I’ll just cover the refugees, Inma Foundation’s beneficiaries, for now. The Palestinians were run out their homeland by Israel after World War II. Some fled to Syria, others to Jordan or Saudi Arabia and several thousand landed here. Around 400,000 Palestinians live in 12 “camps” throughout Lebanon. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are not recognized as citizens, cannot acquire legal employment, cannot vote and are sometimes restricted from beautifying their homes (i.e. settling). Lebanese speculation suggests the following reasons: 1) Official acceptance—admitting that they’re here to stay–would remove one of Lebanon’s important bartering chips with Israel. 2) Since Palestinians are mostly Sunni, their proportional participation in parliament would lopside the current division of power between Shiites, Sunnis and Christians.But let’s be clear. I DON’T REALLY KNOW. Did you hear me? I don’t know. Because it’s impossible to get an opinion without bias here.So now, after sixty years, the Borj el Barajne refugee “camp” is not a collection of tents, but a rough, third-world neighborhood. Unprotected cables swing in every direction, children sell lottery tickets, birkas carry babies, garbage piles on the curb, smarmy service taxis carry six, a camel paces impatiently in front of an auto service station, a family of three with an area rug ride on a motorbike. In this square mile area, people sway, a little like rival gang members, in opposing political directions. Some favor Hamas, others Fatah and then there are Jihadists. That’s why the occasional fatal squabble occurs. Yet lucky for us, since we got lost here yesterday, it’s not dangerous. Taxis will still cheat you out of a buck or two when you’re new, but due to Muslim-inspired fear and the consequence of public shame, crime is low. In a disheveled, cracked nutshell, this is where I’m going a few times a week. To get to know these Palestinians. To search for website photos. To play with the kids. To learn my rudimentary Arabic. To understand.P.S. Head to Inma Foundation’s new website to learn, donate, browse photos and see how Michael’s style and technical talent and my content have created online presence for this NGO.

Beirut, upon first glance, is a Disneyland of dreaminess. There’s Chili’s, Hard Rock Cafe Starbucks, Subway, and this bizarre obsession with retro-style American diners, such as the one you see behind my unhappy husband.Because we want it so badly to be true, we are instant victims–convinced of this burger-oasis between the chicken, hummus and fatoush all around it. At first, as soda-pop-jerk-dressed waiters walk the floor, Cadillac headlights glow across our red-leather booth, and we spot bacon-cheeseburgers and coke-floats on the menu, we are forced to close our mouth and dab a napkin at our drool. But it’s only one bite in, and one exchange with the server when we know we’d been duped.There’s something special about American cattle and exaggerated customer service. And it just doesn’t travel very well.