"All cats are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, Socrates is a cat."

Apparently a bomb went off in Tripoli as were bussed in from Beirut. But we were too busy eating fine delicate chocolates and worrying about the potentials of gerardia. All in good fun right.

There's something disconcerting about the berifled guard posts at every intersection, but in true Lebanese fashion, those holding M16s tend to be the most receptive to practicing foreign language. I say sabal l khair and his face lights up. Marhaba, kiifak? Mnii, shokran! Kiifak. 3aziim!
You should hear my 3aziims, it's a gutteral growl, the best in the building. Echoing off shiny new skyscrapers or whistling through blackened bullet holes, my 3aziim catches the waves of ambiguous feelings and reminds one and all of the greatness of circumstance and surroundings.

We swam in the bay of Tripoli then rode vertically up to above the height of Denver (something like 1,800 meters) to the Kalil Gibran museum, carved into rocky cliffsides among the dottings of Christian monasteries and a small smattering of village life. Further up is the great cedar forest, a ten-minute circumambulation, and above that, the highest peaks in Lebanon reaching somewhere near or above 4,000 meters. When approached with Middle Eastern stereotypes of desert and sunscorched grasslands, the sight inspires awe and confusion. We stayed in a wonderful mountain chateau and arise early the next morning for a half day of hiking among the shepherds and the goat herds, dipping from side to side into July-cooked snow drifts still sitting high among the rocks and dead bats. It was followed by a massive Lebanese lunch in which I was reminded once more how impossible it really must be to maintain a vegetarian (much less vegan) diet in a region like this where everything either garnishes chicken and lamb, or is coated in a pound of cheese. Rich, though.

It's funny to think of the sociology of displacement. All recent college students know the feeling of leaving a group of friends behind and entering a new matrix with new faces, old rules, and either new or not roles to be filled. Suddenly every social activity takes place in the context of all these different names and there is, quite suddenly, the physical experience, of absorption. All old friends, even new old friends (for freshmen, etc) become either stories or untold memories and routines grow like mold around a new situation.
So how do I describe the current Order of Things? Begin with myself and work concentrically outwards? On the first day, every student was introduced with a single sentence that supposedly summed them up. Bilal was from Davidson College (he was wearing a Davidson shirt), Derek was from Nebraska, Kevin from Pennsylvania, William was from Edinburgh, Soumaya England and her grandfather's fame was also mentioned, a few students were described only as returns with a reference to their character in past years, and then there was Zach. He was having a problem with mosquito bites - the summary of his character. And then my name was called, I raised my hand and, instead of my city, my state, my country, or my college. I was described (almost disdainfully we've all agreed) as the one who "came in on the buses."
Later, the hitchhiking story got around and people wanted to know about it. And so I became the dirty adventurer with the secret locked deep within his heart that the adventure could not have been smoother or easier and the respect and admiration that I was given in phrases such "wow, I really respect that" or "Damn, I admire your courage" seemed almost silly in contrast to actual ease of reality. Later, I became the kid with the Thai Fisherman pants, the kid who (startlingly) could play the harmonica, the kid who sings an obnoxious amount on bus rides, to the kid who may or may not have giardia/e-coli. Also me and Zach became the kids who ventured into the Palestinian refugee camp to but a kitchy pocketwatch, an imitation cooking pan (the paint seeped into our food on the first usage), bowls, a kettle, plates and spoons, and a pair of extremely used running shoes.
There is a massive culture of fear that if all warnings proved to be real dangers, between the two of us, we would be missing about 17 heads. If you include Bilal, who went with us, maybe 23 heads would have been severed.
Bilal is wonderful - from North Carolina, he speaks in whispers except at a normal talking volume. The son of two Lebanese, he had one Arab friend in high school, and they stuck together amidst a kaleidoscope of racial make-up and superimposed tensions.
Derek from Kansas City, but who goes to school Omaha is a Zen Buddhist who embraces all religions, is soft-spoken but exclamatory, who I dove 40 feet from the pigeon rocks with - and we crooned harmonics on the bus. He who wears Saudi sandals and holds all the jokes stereotypes and biases from having lived with them for too long. He is light haired, large hearted, and I feel as though he would thrive at Naropa.
Soumaya is the most connected Brit I've ever met. If you mention her grandfather anywhere in Beirut, doors will open for you. Her last name being Keynes, we jokingly wondered if she was related to John Maynard Keynes, the father of modern economics. Turns out he's her great uncle. Zach asked her if she studies economics. She does...at Cambridge. I wonder what's appropriate to write on a blog about real people. That's an interesting ethical question...I leave it to the readers to debate. Write comments on this post and we can get a dialogue going!
Anyway, her brother is a (now) famous actor in the UK because he stars in the Narnia films and she is cracking in a rollicking neurosis. Maybe she's my favorite here because the pressures of school and family have chewed her up and thrashed her around, but she's quite brilliant, meek and crazy. We've taken walks and I've got to know her a bit. Last night we made rice and ate nuts. She is a gold mine for absurd British slang that Zach and I have been absorbing like sunshine.
Then there's Zach who's 25 and spent a year in Afghanistan followed by 4 years of backdoor draft making his 4 year contract with the Army into an 8 year re-evaluation of the meaning human life, American bureaucracy, and a newer, more realistic approach to morality. The stories he's told me (among others) have made me so pale, so sick, so feverish, that it's difficult to talk when he's finished "once you get him going" that is. When an American soldier is killed abroad, the family is given about $450,000 in compensation. If an Afghani citizen is killed accidentally or otherwise for no reason at all, the family has to prove it and if they can, they get $2000. This is in a culture where very often if a man is killed, his wife and 10 children who had no money to begin with are just, essentially, shit out of luck. A culture where under no circumstance can the wife work, and if the kids are too young, then...
The hours of story-telling, the exposure to protocol, dishonesty, manipulation. It's probably illegal for me to repeat anything he told me here, though it should have been illegal for him to have experienced it in the first place. What I now know about the internal workings of our Army and the way that our operations are going abroad are of the type that pushed my moral self very close to the edge of renouncing American citizenship and ties to an organization that is responsible for what we are. What he told me was horrifying and as I watch his eyes start to tear up while he laughs at the depth of the absurdity of some of the crimes against humanity that are committed on a daily basis in the name of our "freedom" and with the funding of our tax dollars...And then I compare it to the slave labor that is building Dubai for $7 a day, or else all the 2 billion people living off $1 a day and it's so painful and overwhelming that...

Anyway, Zach also arrived with only a carry-on worth of baggage. Two shirts, one pair of pants. His Arabic is intermediate, and he is the sort that gets a map of town on the first day and by the third has seen all the nicest and nastiest neighborhoods in turn. His bag was stolen while he was swimming and he lost all of his cards, clothes, and his Passport. If he can get it all sorted in a month, we've talked about possibly moving onward through Syria, Jordan, and Egypt together.

The group is near 50 kids ranging from 17 to 40 years old. Most have some sort of Lebanese connection, through bloodlines or family in some way, but most were raised in America. I think you can count on one or two hands all the students who don't carry an American passport. I'm glad as many showed up after the violence in May as have, because I was worried there would be 5 or 6 when the time finally came. There are some passions seething (especially between those with Israel ties and those with Saudi or other Arab ties - something I'm glad I can stay completely neutral about) but mostly it's like a summer camp within a gated campus in the absolute heart of downtown that allows us to go for weeks without speaking to a single Lebanese person if we so desire it, but also allows easy access to all the cafes, bars, clubs, stores, museums, and beaches in the city if we so desire that. I haven't explored the establishments much, but there's still a bit of time. Plus I have traveller's sickness that I'm taking antibiotics for, so I'll hit my feet as soon as I can get off my back.

all the best
tcm