...and some more fun word-smashes from the city

My friend and I soon discovered that Beirut does not lend itself to such name-plays. The best we could do was "Babe-rut." Definitely not as good as these that I've seen in the last couple of weeks:

-Miniaturk

-HE IStanbul

-Istancool

Lebanon!

This past weekend, in honor of Ataturk remembrance day (or at least the four day weekend it provided), my friend and I traveled to Beirut, Lebanon. It took a little convincing, but, as Iassured my family, it isthe Number One Safest Place in the World, according to some pretty reliable sources.

In any case, it was completely worth it, and we felt surprisingly safe, despite of the hordes of gun-toting policemen/military (/civilians? We couldn't read the uniforms...). The one part our guide book warned us to avoid was the Hezbollah tent city, south of the Place de Martyrs. We weren't entirely sure what "tents" or "city" they meant, but we spent the whole trip going out of our way to avoid it (it was a couple blocks from our hostel) only to find it had been dismantled three years ago.

Some of the highlights:

The Food

Of course, one of my favorite parts of traveling...between the Lebanese labneh, zaatar, baba ganoush, and our guilty indulgences in French baked-goods, we were in heaven. Definitely different from Turkish cuisine, though the markets contain all the same produce.

The City

Absolutely gorgeous. Very clean, very aesthetically pleasing. Really beautiful architecture, lots of trees (like home!), churches and mosques everywhere. It was very striking seeing the difference between the new areas (downtown) and other neighborhoods that were still damage

d from the wars. It seemed like for every destroyed building two more were being built.

AUB

The American University in

Berlin was great. They have a vibrant student life and an awesome campus. We saw their archeology museum and attended a music festival that featured all the student c

lubs, from the interfaith dialogue club to the civil engineering society.

The Water!

I love the sea and Beirut is right there. That is all.

Lunch with the locals

My neighbor at home is Lebanese, and she kindly put us in touch with some of her friends in Lebanon. My friend and I had coffee with one of these women and her daughter on our third day. It was fascinating to talk to her. She is a Maronite Christian, and told us all about the sectarian differences among some eighteen religions or so. Apparently she rarely makes it to the west side of the city (the Muslim side, divided by the Green Line in the civil war), and considers it much more conservative. We found the opposite to be true, at least around AUB, but we also had a lot of fun in Gemmayzeh, closer to the East side.

We badgered our friend with questions, and she told us how Lebanon functions without a government: everyone goes to work just long enough to perform bare essential functions that keep the city running, but no policy-making. She told us every day they promise "In a few hours, we will have formed a government!" but it hasn't happened in five months. She told us they had settled everything except for the position of minister of the interior. She predicted that if that position, or the presidency was allowed to pass from Maronite control, many Christians would leave the country.

We were also struck by the attitude she described towards war. It seems the residents are so used to it they consider it more of nuisance, and are anxious to get back to their lives. My friend noted that everyone seemed to be trying very hard to continue living life as though nothing was wrong. I suppose they must carry on this way, and in many ways I think it is a good defense: show no fear. She also told us how they'd awoken one morning in 2006 to the sounds of gunfire and bombs in the city (they live in a suburb of Beirut). She had told her kids it was just the lightning and thunder, and even when her daughter asked what we were discussing (she speaks Lebanese and French but only some English), her mother merely said we were discussing Shakira (she's coming to perform in Beirut soon). Her daughter seemed to have a vague idea that there was fighting, but was clearly removed from it. As safe as we felt, our friend noted that everyone in Beirut was living with this constant fear that fighting could break out at any time.

After a hefty discussion of politics, our friend left us with the sound advice to "Never skip a meal while you are in Lebanon. Eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and something in between." We made sure we did.

Day trips

We spent a day visiting Saida (Sidon) which is south of Beirut and has a really cool soap museum, and some other sights.

We also went north to the Jeita grotto, which was incredible. It's this huge cave with amazing rock formations and stalactites and stalagmites. It goes into the mountain for a half-mile or something, and has made it to the final round for the new 7 wonders of the world! You can vote for it online. After Jeita we proceeded to Byblos, a very historic beach town with ruins from the crusaders as well as ancient times. One of those instances in which we should've gotten over our stinginess and paid for a guide. We also tried white coffee (hot water with orange blossom) which was slightly less than palatable.

Besides the white coffee, our only disappointment was our hostel--Talal's Hotel. If you go to Beirut, avoid it at all costs. I suppose it was worth saving the money so we could spend on food, but if I went back I'd splurge for somewhere nicer, safer, and more welcoming.

All in all, a lovely trip. I wish peace to the country for obvious reasons, but also for the selfish reason that I hope to return some day for a longer visit.

It's never too late to start a blog...

At least this is what I tell myself to feel better about the fact that it has been over three months since I've arrived and am just now starting this blog. Fortunately, I can also blame the government in this case, which conveniently decided to block all blogs in Turkey soon after my arrival. Just last week I happened to come across a blog and, upon further investigation, discovered they have been unblocked. My rejoicing may be premature, however, as the government also announced yesterday that starting in August (ie after the elections in June) it will require internet users to choose a "filtering" option, effectively censoring the internet. In any case, I will write while I can.

So: I would like to extend a most hearty welcome to my blog as I finish off my last month-and-a-half in Turkey. The postings are in somewhat random order as I put them all up at once, but I will try to ascribe separate dates for clarification. Enjoy!

You know you're a resident of Turkey when...

-You have successfully leapt through the bureaucratic hoops to attain a two-by-three inch little booklet certifying your residency

-You attained said booklet in a building loudly proclaiming, "Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyene" ("Happy is he who calls himself a Turk") despite that few people leaving the building after the miserable process are neither a) Turkish nor b) too happy

-You've been mistaken as a local and people ask you for directions in Turkish

-Someone tells you your Turkish is between beginning and pre-intermediate

-You've become nervous when you enter a room without a picture of Atatürk watching over you

-You get angry whenever you see tourists, especially American, invading "your" country

And the Next Day

The next Day, Holy Saturday, I was delighted to be invited to fill baskets for the poor with the Greek young adults of Istanbul. Each family got a back stocked with meat, red Easter eggs, tsourehia (Easter bread), cheese and wine. Additionally, Red Crescent, the Turkish equivalent of Red Cross had donated tons of dry goods (bulgar, Turkish ravioli etc) that were also donated. His All-Holiness the Patriarch Bartholomew himself came in while we were filling bags and handed me a bucket of Easter candy for the group. It was very kind but I couldn't be but a little amused by the contrast of this man in all his royal garb and the plastic bucket of Peeps and chocolate eggs.

Afterwards, I got to talk to some of the youth. They are a very small group, maybe 20 people there that day. Most of them had gone to school at the private parochial schools, where they studied Greek as well as Turkish (and then had to take the university entrance exam in English). There are an estimated 2000-4000 ethnic Greeks who remain in Turkey today. Istanbul alone has a population of something like 12 million. 4000 out of 12 million is something like .03%, and that doesn't include the rest of Turkey. I was talking to one girl, who is my age, and I asked her whether she thought many Greeks would migrate to Istanbul if Turkey was admitted into the European Union. She said it was possible, since the economic outlook is currently so much better than that of Turkey. She added that it seemed that would be the only way they would remain a presence in Istanbul; otherwise they would die out.

It was a sobering realization. When at the Patriarchate on any given Sunday, surrounded by hundreds of tourists and the royal entourage in a beautiful, well-maintained church, it doesn't occur to one that this is but a tiny light separated from the rest of the Orthodox world, but still expected to lead it.

Pascha at the Patriarchate

April 22nd

Ok, so not quite Pascha at the Patriarch, but as you may have noticed by now I'm a sucker for alliterations, and "Holy Friday at the Patriarchate" just doesn't have the same ring.

This year, Orthodox Easter and Western Easter fell on the same date, so on April 22nd I headed to the Patriarchate for Holy Friday evening. I've tried to go to other services throughout Holy Week, but apparently things are done differently here, and I showed up for what I thought was the Holy Unction service on Wednesday and the door was locked.

As it is, the Patriarchate is always crazy busy and crowded, with tourists (Greek, for the most part) snapping away pictures and pushing their way through the communion line. So I thought it best to arrive early, and snagged a seat. The service was very nice, the parishoners not so much. One man near me without a seat was speaking at normal volume throughout the service and grumbling about not getting a seat. The epitaphion (a carved wooden structure representative of Christ's tomb) was beautifully decorated with spirals of flowers.

An interesting point of the service was they had the youth sing the lamentations, including the CITs (chanters-in-training, for lack of a better term, who stand with the senior chanters at the stands every week). It was very nice.

Torn Between Facts and More Facts

March 22nd-ish

Greeks and Turks. The infamous fighting duo. I came to Turkey with two simultaneous hopes: 1) That the Turkish-Greek rivalry would be thriving and that I would get a taste of what it feels like to be an oppressed ethnic minority. 2) That I would miraculously bridge the gap and bring the two sides together.

It turns out both are more true and more false than I expected. Regarding number one, the rivalry is there but does not manifest itself in my daily life. When I came out to my roommates as Greek, they didn't stone me. Probably the worst that's happened is a Nargile cafe-owner thought I was spying for the Greeks. Regarding number two, there is not much need for a double outsider (Greek-American) to impose her ides of peace and love.

I look for the commonalities. I hear the music, taste the food, see the people...and they all remind me of Greece. Different, yes, but not much more different than Thessaloniki and Mitilini. People still talk to me even when they find out I'm Greek, and I've been subject to no discrimination, except that which I imagine for dramatic effect. I can freely attend church on Sundays, and when I learn about the Greeks in school it is through an objective lens. At the same time, though, the facts remain: converts to Christianity from Islam were subject to the death penalty. Non-Muslim subjects paid taxes, their Muslim counterparts did not. The Orthodox seminary of Halki remains closed to this day.

I got a more immediate taste of the conflict last week. There was an Orthodox group of college students here for spring break on a service trip. Their task was to restore a cemetery from overgrown-mass-of-weeds-and-cement to something resembling a burial ground. I joined them for part of the work, and it was more than a little humbling. The place had been abandoned; graves forgotten. Greek names lay next to each other, pushed aside and purposefully destroyed by the Turks. By the end of the week, there was a small pile of bones that lay unclaimed. We buried them with a blessing, but they remain in my mind as a visceral reminder that these tensions are real.