A blog by someone new to blogging, set in Beirut, by someone new to Beirut.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Happy New Year!!


Today is the Islamic New Year and is celebrated, very sensibly, by a Bank Holiday in Lebanon. As it was not a Bank Holiday in the UK, the weather was lovely, and the roads in Beirut itself were quiet. I am sure that the roads on the way to the ski resorts were very crowded, but Dom and I decided to take it easy, and explore the area of Bourj Hammoud, the Armenian area of Beirut.

Bourj Hammoud is home to around 200,000 Armenians. They arrived in Beirut in the early 20th century, after they were displaced by the genocide committed against them by the Ottoman Empire. The area is known for having lots of jewellery, clothes and food shops with a stongly Armenian theme, as you would imagine! I can also say that I have had some of the best Baklava ever today - from the Patisserie Sarkis in Bourj Hammoud. It is delicious!!

To close, I have uploaded a picture of the Al Amine Mosque. This is due to open soon, and was built/financed by Rafic Hariri the former Prime Minister assassinated almost a year ago. It is huge!!

Friday, January 27, 2006

A New Job...

Yesterday I bit the bullet and advertised my blog to the world (to be more accurate, I emailed my friends about it and asked them to have a look!). Today, therefore, I thought it might be an idea to update said blog with some blog-worthy news. Although most people know this, I have joined the world of part-time work!

I had initially thought that I would take a few months off to really get to know Beirut, learn Arabic, and generally wind down from the intellectual powerhouse that was benefit fraud and error. However, events have a strange way of overtaking oneself, and I started work on Tuesday!

I think it is fair to say that I wouldn't have taken the job for the sake of having one. The work I am doing is interesting, and the work of the organisation itself is very worthwhile. I am a part time speechwriter, editor, media and PR strategist (I made that title up!) for the Lebanon office of the International Orthodox Christian Charities. Although it is a Christian charity, the work it does is purely humanitarian in nature and it serves both Muslim and Christian communities. Its work in Lebanon mainly consists of ensuring that children in the elementary public schools receive nutritious meals and undertaking capacity building work to ensure that when the charity completes its projects, the parents, teachers and children themselves are sufficiently well educated about the importance of healthy eating and a balanced diet. Jamie Oliver hits the Levant, you might say!!!

Anyway, the work is really interesting and pretty innovative. The charity works closely with the University of Balamand faculty of Health Sciences who provide a lot of the educational material, and I visited the University today to listen to a lecture being provided by an Educational Psychologist on how to set up effective Parent Teacher Associations. I say listen, I went and stood at the back and listened to a lecture in Arabic. For all I know she could have been lecturing on Pop Idol! I was assured by my colleague, however, that the lecture was very interesting and relevant. For example, children are currently able to buy food in schools, but the shops are often owned by friends of the Principal, or Directors of the school. They are really only interested in making a profit and the food is not cheap. The PTA, when established, because it has to be independent of the Directors/Principal etc, will be able to lobby for healthier snacks to be brought into the school without any conflict of interest. Make sense? Anyway, that is one of the empowerment activities that is being undertaken at present.

Another reason that I took the job was that I am the only ex-pat in the organisation. Hopefully as a result I will make lots of Lebanese friends and get to know more about the country. Finally, my job will involve going to visit schools and reporting on the work of the organisation. This means that I will get to see parts of Lebanon that I would not normally visit - and the less wealthy parts too.

All this will be achieved between 8am and 12noon Monday to Friday. Vive le part time work!!! Oh, and it is a Bank Holiday on Tuesday too!!

More information on the work of the IOCC can be found at http://www.iocc.org. There isn't much to see about the Lebanon work as yet. Maybe in my strategic/media role, I will see if I can update the country page...

Right, off to get some rest. I was up till 2am playing darts. I love darts!

Monday, January 23, 2006

A short history of the Cedars of Lebanon

Amazing how quickly you can find things on this internet thingy. Even more amazing when I only have to go to the official tourism site for Lebanon! Anyway, the relevant part appears below. For those wanting to see the whole tourism site, you can find it at http://www.lebanon.com/tourism unsurprisingly enough. I must say I thought that Solomon gave the Cedars to the area that is now Lebanon instead of asking for supplies, but there you go.


The Cedars in History

As remote as they are, the cedars are not untouched by history. The grove we see today descends from an immense primeval forest of cedars and other trees such as cypress, pine and oak that once covered most of Mount Lebanon including part of its east facing slopes. The Cedar is an historical entity mentioned often in the Bible and other ancient texts and it played an important part in the culture, trade and religious observances of the ancient Middle East. Serious exploitation of these forests began in the third millennium B.C., coastal towns such as Byblos. Over the centuries, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians made expedition to Mount Lebanon for timber or extracted tributes of wood from the coastal cities of Canaan-Phoenicia. The Phoenicians themselves made use of the cedar, especially for their merchant fleets. Solomon requested large supplies of cedar wood, along with architects and builders from King Hiram of Tyre to build his temple. Nebuchadnezzar boasted on a cuneiform, inscription: "I brought for building, mighty cedars, which I cut down with my pure hands on Mount Lebanon". Prized for its fragrance and durability, the length of the great logs made cedar wood especially desirable. Cedar was important for shipbuilding and
was used for the roofs of the temples, to construct tombs and other major buildings.The Egyptians used cedar resin for mummification, and pitch was extracted from these trees for waterproofing and caulking. In the second century A.D., the Roman Emperor Hadrian attempted to protect the forest with boundary markers, most carved into living rock, others in the form of separate engraved stones. Today over 200 such markers have been recorded, allowing scholars to make an approximate reconstruction of the ancient forest boundaries. Two of these markers, carved in abbreviated Latin, can be seen at the American University of Beirut Museum. In the centuries after Hadrian, Lebanon's trees were used extensively as fuel, especially for lime burning kilns. In the Middle Ages mountain villagers cleared forests for farmland, using the wood for fuel and construction. The Ottomans in the 19th century destroyed much of the forest cover and during World War II British troops used the wood to build railroad between Tripoli and Haifa.

Weekend in the Cedars


I had a great, if exhausting, weekend and I am still really stiff and sore!

I was invited up to the Cedars ski resort and as Dom was away with work, and I don't know many people in Beirut, I thought I would take the bull by the horns (or the ski by the edge) and go for it.

And I am very glad I did! The Cedars themselves are beautiful, and the resort is not too busy. I understand that the head of the Military is currently residing nearby, so people aren't too keen to go there because of the possible security risks. Anyway, it is fantastic! The first night was spent eating, drinking and doing karaoke. Naturally I felt obliged to sing Bonnie Tyler (Total Eclipse of the Heart) and All by Myself (by someone I can't remember). Anyway, I was complimented for my ability to "shout in tune" which I feel is the only way to sing Bonnie!

Sunday was activity packed. We snow shoed in the morning, walking round the Cedars themselves. One of them is apparently 6000 years old. It looks it too! And in the afternoon I and a few others went skiing. Now, I haven't skied since I was 16 and I have been told that it is much like riding a bike. So, in the time honoured tradition of always overestimating your ability in the sporting arena, I went for a run that was easy. Easy if you are a good skier. Well over an hour later I got to the bottom of the run and went straight onto the nursery slope!

When I got home I discovered that a) I was the most stiff and sore I have been in ages and b) I was covered in bruises. Still, it was an excellent weekend, I met some great new people, and I will be definitely doing that again (if invited, obviously).

For those who are interested you can check out the various ski options on www.skileb.com. It even has webcams and I hope for my own pride that I did not feature on them yesterday.

I will now attempt to upload a photo of the Cedars themselves and post a short history of them. I am not sure if Lebanese Broadband can quite cope with the rather high resolution of the photos from my new camera so we shall see what happens!

A relaxing night tonight as I have got a new job which I start tomorrow!! More details soon...

Friday, January 20, 2006

Welcome!

I said I would give this a go... I never said it would be good!

To those I have mentioned this blog to - here it is. To those who have found this through a link, a search, or by pure bad luck, you may not find much of interest here. Unless you are planning a holiday in Lebanon, in which case you may change your mind as I have only been here 10 days and my knowledge of the country is somewhat limited!

So, if you wish to stick around and see how this (and my knowledge of blogging) develops, sit back, grab a G&T and let's go!