Wedding Photos

The happy couple, swords, dancers and drummers. Poor Diana had been smiling all day, so I can't blame her for not grinning innanely by this point!

Visits, Tours and a Wedding!

It has been a busy few weeks out here. Lebanon's first bank loan for plastic surgery has been launched (see link here), both Dom and my parents have visited and Dom has been on a tour of the north of Lebanon - a region called Akar - and celebrated his birthday in Beirut!

I'll ask Dom to post his trip separately - it's a tale well worth the telling, if you are interested in ancient monuments and the like. I was not invited as it was a boys-only excursion. However, I fully intend to go at some point myself!

My parents came for a week and we had a great time - we visited Byblos, Sour (Tyre) in the south and Deir al-Qamar, a beautiful village in the Chouf Mountains. We tried to go to Beiteddine on Easter Monday but it was shut as it was a national holiday! I would have thought that the fact that it was a public holiday would have made tourist attractions more likely to be open, however, it was not to be and I can quite easily see me never making it to this palace. (I have almost gone a couple of times before). We also squeezed in a visit to the National Musuem with my Arabic teacher, Samar, and I impressed my parents with my rudimentary grasp of Arabic: Me: 'Yesterday we ate a lot of food', Samar: 'You say that every time I see you!'. And yes, we ate a lot of food.

Since then I have been getting back into the swing of freelancing by copy editing a luxury magazine (most things are completely out of my price range - space trip for US$200,000, anyone?), and also starting work on polishing up a local author's book on living with a disabled child which she would like to publish in English. Sadly, disability remains a somewhat taboo subject in many Lebanese families, with the mother often blamed for passing on a disability to a child, or even some saying that she is being punished by God for something she has done wrong. The mother who has written this book has done so to tell other mothers that they are not alone, and also to try to give them some help in terms of what the latest treatments are, and how to go about arranging schooling and the like. The book 'He is a child, too' has already been published in French and Arabic, and the author has received several requests for it to be made available in English, which is where I come in.

Finally, this weekend saw my first Lebanese wedding! A friend of mine, Diana, has married a lovely Kiwi boy called Selwyn and so we all went along to the wedding. The service was held in Beirut's Anglican church, and was held mainly in English, I think so Selwyn would know what he was promising to do! Then we decamped to the Geffinor hotel for sword dancing, food, bouquet throwing and general merriment. Photos follow above, as usual. Must really try and work out this posting thing.

So a busy few weeks! Naturally, I have also found time to frequent the bars and restaurants of Beirut, as well as zipping all over the city for Arabic lessons and meeting friends (got to keep up the 'lady that lunches' persona!) You really wouldn't believe that Lebanon is still on the list of countries that the FCO advises against all but essential travel to (along with the Central African Republic, Haiti and Liberia), as well as all travel to parts of (sharing company with Afghanistan, Chad, Iran, Iraq and Sudan, amongst others)! Not sure how Lebanon gets into two categories there - maybe it's just really, really scary out here at the moment!!!