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Published: April 14th 2007
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On the road to Tripoli our bus has slowed to an agonizing crawl. Along with the usual snarl-ups you’d normally find leaving the capital, it’s been an added bonus of last summer’s Israeli campaign that Lebanon seems to be stuck in a perpetual traffic jam. The country’s roads are still pockmarked from a month of pummeling by IDF bombs, while bridges are being hastily rebuilt and drivers are forced to take long, elaborate detours. It’s been a source of endless frustration for the Lebanese, few of whom could swallow Israeli claims that the bombings were meant to cripple Hizbollah’s infrastructure. Though the group was undoubtedly funneling weapons from Syria, would they have done it down the main coastal highway? Better off waltzing into Tel Aviv with a bull’s eye around their necks, or driving a convoy of clown cars all the way from Damascus.
Not everyone’s put off by the traffic, though. A group of men are weaving between the cars, selling cassettes and CDs and cheap watches that look like they’ll stop ticking long before we pull into Tripoli. We’re wedged between the coast and the mountains for the 90-minute drive, past the skeletons of bombed-out bridges,
and I’m reminded of a joke I heard at a party in Beirut:
God is sitting at a table with a bunch of angels. (For the sake of local flavor, let’s say they’re smoking
nargileh.) He’s looking over the world he’s created, casting an admiring eye toward the green hills and graceful, arcing coasts of Lebanon. The angels are concerned.
“Lord, you’ve given these people such beautiful mountains.”
“Yes, yes.”
“And you’ve given them lovely shores.”
“Yes, yes.”
“And you’ve given them such a lust for life.”
“Yes, yes.”
“But aren’t you afraid they’ll be spoiled?”
God scratches his chin thoughtfully and replies, “Just wait till you see their neighbors.”
So it goes in Lebanon. I’ve arrived in Tripoli during the bedlam of the lunch hour, the service taxis and minibuses cramming three abreast on the street, the laborers elbowing their way to the front of the
schwarma line. This is one of the country’s main Islamic hubs, and there’s a familiarity to the street scene that I find reassuring. For most of the past five months I’ve grown used to the vegetable stalls on
the side of the street, and the old men taking their Turkish coffees in the shade. People are spilling out of the backs of soot-covered buses; boys are weaving through the crowded souqs with trays of tea; packs of schoolgirls in
hijabs are walking briskly down the street, their notebooks clutched to their chests. I spend the day walking through the old stone souqs, dodging the fish entrails and getting side-swiped by stout women near the produce stalls. In the evening I head to Al-Mina, the modern part of town, having a few drinks at one of its sidewalk cafés while packs of teens cruise the strip and eye each other from passing cars.
The next day I take a trip to Bcharré, a small town of orange-tiled roofs perched above the Qadisha Valley. This is the heart of Lebanon’s Christian north, with its stone churches and road-side shrines and monasteries tucked into the mountainsides. The bus winds and climbs toward the snowy peaks of the Mt. Lebanon Range, the driver going a bit heavy on the gas as we get tossed around in the back. A pack of surly soldiers is chain-smoking behind me, slouching in their fatigues
and going through what sounds like a long processional of dirty jokes. Now and then we drop them off along the way, stopping at small bases where they scamper uphill with their duffel bags swinging, their friends waving cheerfully from atop a tank turret or a pile of sandbags.
From Bcharré it’s a ten-minute drive to Lebanon’s last forest of cedars, the tree that adorns the country’s flag and was - before the days of Lebanese pop stars - its best-known export. There’s a small grove running up a snowy hill, a few souvenir shops with bored young girls behind the registers. It’s a slow season for The Cedars, the ski resort nearby, and the tourists are arriving in trickles. The girls are trying to hawk jewelry boxes and chessboards made from the famous wood, though I discover, on the back of one, a sticker with the words “Made in China” written in matter-of-fact block print. There’s a brief, awkward moment when I try to pretend I didn’t see it, and the salesgirl decides to show that particular hunk of wood an undue amount of attention with her fingernail. On the way out, almost apologetically, she offers me
a keychain made from a small slice of cedar. She stoops over a workbench and burns my name into the wood. Seconds later, she’ll offer the same thing to another tourist for a dollar.
The clouds roll in above Bcharré, and I beat my way back to Tripoli, where the sky is wide and blue and running flush into the sea. I walk along the corniche, where beat-up cars are idling by the curb, their trunks rattling with bass, a pair of listless teens nodding their heads in the front seat. A few girls in tracksuits and
hijabs come powerwalking my way, quickly chattering and pumping their arms as they pass. The waves are draping their white skirts across the shore. I find a seaside café and decide to pop in for a sunset drink, a decision that quickly grows complicated by a language impasse with the waiter. I order a bottle of Lebanese beer, but he mistakes Almaza for
mezze - what amounts to, in short, a Lebanese picnic. He brings out a basket of bread and a few small plates of food, and before long, there’s an agitated flourish as two waiters descend on me in
mouth-watering waves.
There are a dozen plates in front of me when they’re finally through:
hummus and
fattoush and
tabbouleh and olives and little deep-fried tufts of cauliflower. I notice a few appreciative stares from around the room, as if I’d picked out each plate with the eye of a connoisseur. Some old men are digging into an extravagant spread nearby. A pair of well-heeled couples are smoking
nargileh while their kids scamper between the tables. Piles of plates are stacked around the room, smeared with
hummus and grape leaves and the uneaten remains of what was surely
mezze bedlam not long ago.
An old man wobbles over to my table and rests his hairy knuckles on the tablecloth. He gives me a suggestive look with his eyebrows; I offer him a seat. He’s taking long pulls from a glass of whiskey and trying to strike up a conversation, but his English sounds like it just got worked over in the parking lot. Now and then there’s a burst of flatulence from his side of the table, and it’s all I can do to take a keen interest in the timber beams and the nautical-themed décor.
The thought crosses my mind that this might be a local custom to show appreciation for a good round of
mezze, but I decide a smile and thank you for the waiter will suffice. On my way out the old man rises gravely and shakes my hand, and I can hear him letting out another burst at his table, a clear, clarion blast, as if the archangel Gabriel had just polished off some
fattoush and decided that the end was nigh.
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