Never Thought I'd Say This...

Today we took a trip down to the Sûrete-General to ask a few questions about residence visas. Not surprisingly we hit a dead end and Alex and I will have to wait a few more days to get any questions answered.

While we were there we stopped off at Agence universitaire de la francophonie (AUF) just to look around. It is a small campus with a fresh looking central building and a small green. The green must have only been 75 ft by 100 ft. However small, it is the biggest I’ve seen since being here.

Being directly under the sun and nowhere near lush, I had no desire to take out a book and lounge around on the green. But I couldn’t help feeling a wave of homesickness.

Don’t get me wrong – I like the food, the people are great and I’m excited about all the opportunities. My frustration may be a result of all the inconveniences we’ve encountered our first week here.

My awareness of discomfort grew exponentially when I saw the grass. Since leaving New Jersey I haven’t missed the simplicity of being surrounded by state parks and trees – but today it really hit me. I guess I miss the easy life of Americans. For example – we have found only one self-service laundry-mat in Beirut. The rest are dry cleaning services that charge about 1,000 lira per item. The conversion is, roughly, 1,500 lira equals 1 USD. That may not seem like much, but when I have twenty items to wash it comes out to $13.20.

The self-service laundry-mat is much cheaper but it’s a little bit of a walk and it would still be costly if we used it every week. Besides the laundry problem, supermarkets are not the easiest things to find. Also supermarkets are hardly places where you can get anything you need. Moreover, everything except clubs, cafes and restaurants close by 6pm.

Maybe I’m being too impatient! The difficulty in getting necessities has just caught me off-guard. I prepared myself for harassment because I’m a woman and an American, potential violence, the chance of getting sick because of the water or food, and really everything else except this.

There is one upside, I guess. I’m definitely learning a lot about patience. I’m trying to be a bit more creative. I will probably never get the hang of hand-washing clothes but I’m starting small.
In better news, I was able to find a good knife set and collection of cooking ware. So things aren’t that bad!

Even better news! I’m employed! I know I told everyone that I had no plans to work while studying, but I just couldn’t resist. On our third day in Beirut I was reading the Daily Star and came across the employment section of the classifieds. I figured a little extra cash wouldn’t hurt any. But its not just any job. I’m employed 2-3 hours a week to have an informal English conversation with a native Arabic speaker learning English. In return I will also get to practice my Arabic. It seems ideal!

Oh! I almost forgot. Alex’s birthday gift on Wednesday night was a total hit! A couple of weeks before we left I did some internet searching and came across a kitchen workshop called Souk el-Tayeb. Well, it’s actually an outdoor market that does kitchen workshops on the side. Kamal, who runs the workshop, told me initially that they had not done them since last summer’s war but that it would be a good time to restart it. I am sooo grateful because it wound up being the best experience of our trip so far.

The house we were doing the workshop was in Batroun, just a couple hundred feet from the beach. It was a beautiful French colonial style house with a wonderful garden. The workshop consisted of cooking with the chef (Kamal) and then a wonderful dinner. We prepared Fish Kebbe (Barghul and Fish stuffing over spiced onions and veggies), traditional Tabbouli, baked broccoli, and homemade Babba Gnanoush. Then they had a cake for Alex’s birthday.

Alex had so much fun and it was definitely worth the bus and workshop fee. During our little cooking session, Kamal told Alex he was doing a great job cutting and such. Maybe now I can get him in the kitchen more often!