After returning to Samir’s from our escape into the Chouf, I’d discovered Sam’s MTV colleague Kris Brady was crashing at his place as well. A genuinely nice guy, who by coincidence turned out to share my battle fatigue with 24/7 partying, he was more than welcome. Come morning, we woke to find Samir still sound asleep and wanting to sleep it off some more, so Kris and I went out to hunt for breakfast out on Mar Elias Street.
(Maltese-) Irishman in Beirut. Kris Brady.
I needed a new oud. Desperately. Mine wasn’t weathering the climate changes too well at all – not in Finland, not in Lebanon – with the tuning pegs snapping out of tune making playing the instrument pretty close to what I’d call awkward. I was due to meet a very busy Ziyad – who had his hands full as it was, not only preparing for his own tour in Egypt that was to begin the following week, but also selecting and arranging songs for his group’s stint as the house band on a Lebanese television show which meant shooting 21 episodes during August alone, each involving an extensive, entirely different repertoire. Not even mentioning all the gigs he was playing with a sore neck. And yet here he was, honking from his small black car in front of Samir’s building, ready to take me oud-shopping and still promising to meet me for a lesson later that day.
I had a bit of a guilty conscience since this was also the day Samir was flying back to Dubai, and we hadn’t really had any private face time. Now I was torn between perhaps my only chance to have Ziyad as oud counselor and Samir leaving while I was away. I did have to go, though – I had only three days left of my stay – and we both knew this, so Samir understood. After warm goodbyes with promises for the next reunion not to take twelve years, I hopped in Ziyad’s car and off we went.
Our window of opportunity was about two hours. Which, in Beirut traffic, isn’t exactly a panorama. At first the idea was to visit Ziyad’s luthier in Baalbek, but after adding up my time frame to my budget, we resolved to trying to find a reasonably priced oud inside Beirut, but one that would sound, play and hold tuning better than my current one. After driving back and forth visiting music stores discussing local politics in-between, and a surprise phone call from Home that made me very happy, we finally came across a Turkish oud in a regular music store right in the heart of Hamra that wasn’t only more than reasonable costwise, but also played like a dream. The somewhat crude finishing of the little minute details of the construction made me a bit apprehensive, so while Ziyad had a meeting to attend to, I mulled it over. Ziyad strongly recommended the oud, saying he’d be happy to play concerts with it himself, even though the price was no more than $450 with a hard case. He also said that if I didn’t buy it (which read as a would-be huge mistake between his lines), he’d take me north of Beirut to another luthier he said made excellent instruments that would be a lot more expensive, but that he thought I wouldn’t necessary find a better oud than this one even if I forked out a $1000 more, surface shine notwithstanding.
I SMS’d Maria inviting her for lunch, so we spent an hour or two at Café Younis chatting. I figured the female perspective on my possible financial venture wouldn’t hurt, so she unfortunately ended up having to witness my AraFrench bargaining skills in action back at the music store. I have a feeling she was more than a little amused by the exchange. You try asking for an extra low C-string for an oud to seal the deal when you don’t even remember your quatres from your quatre-vingts.
Yes, so I was weak. I bought the oud. I think I'll call her Poirot.
Poirot. She goes down to low-C, bitches.
My baby's mitey feine behind.Back at Ziyad’s for the lesson, he was very happy I had decided to buy the instrument. “You bought a good instrument,
yani…” After an extended crash course in the
Hijaz maqam I rushed back to Samir’s to pack and move out since the renovation was going to resume the next day.
...
A cautionary tale, kids, the moral of which being, even the almighty Lonely Planet doesn’t always get it right:
It was already around 11 pm by the time I’d gathered my things and took a cab to Ain el-Mreisse to the Pension Home Valery, which according to the Bible of travelers worldwide was described as “cheap, clean, with friendly, English-speaking staff”. One out of four isn’t too bad, I guess – the only thing I could agree with at $10 a night was that it was cheap.
The hostel was on the third floor of a very seedy building just off the Corniche in Ain el-Mreisse (interestingly, the building also housed a second hostel of the exact same name - Pension Home Valery – on the second floor, where the wise men of Lonely Planet advised not to venture. I wonder how much the fish were there). By the time I got there, I was exhausted, feeling eery reminders of my earlier stomach illness rearing its ugly head, and didn’t have the time or patience to reconsider my options. One night, what the hell, right?
Bad move.
My room smelled like dirty detergent, if that’s possible. The room was on the third floor, didn’t have a wall but instead a tent fabric that was hung so that it covered the shell holes in the wall that had been roughly patched up with cement. A very questionable mattress, not even mentioning the pillow. A fan that made a noise which made it impossible to sleep. Then again, with the smell and the humidity it was impossible to sleep without it, so catch-22.
Shell holes. Pension Home Valery.
Avoid. Please believe.
I tried my luck at taking a shower, only to find a foreigner, British perhaps, taking a leak in the sink although there was a perfectly functioning toilet right next to it. After praising the good lord of good manners I ducked back into my room and went back into the toilet-slash-shower only to find that he’d also shit the toilet. Very thorough work, too.
Who are these people? I mean, within the confines of a man’s own bedroom, hey, whatever floats your boat, but in a public hostel? Please. Luckily, I found a second bathroom, where I spent a considerable amount of time being sick, not as much from the previous as from the stomach illness having its way with me and caressing my bowels until all was empty. After a very uneasy shower not trying to dirty myself (ah, come to me, sweet irony) I unsuccessfully tried to sleep. The tent fabric wasn’t exactly the best noise gate in the world. I resolved to getting up early and returning to my original hostel in Achrafieh come first light.
A weary traveler.
Sleep, the sweet escape it always is, didn’t enjoy its stay at the hostel either. After a very restless night tossing and turning and wondering what in the world was going on upstairs, I got up very early and immediately called B&B Mehanna in Achrafieh about a free room. The lady said that yes, they had free beds but that I’d have to wait until 11 am before the room would be available. I tried again to not get dirtier in the shower and headed out.
I had some time to kill so I took a stroll around Ain el-Mreisse, stopping at the corner store for a sandwich, and after walking around for a while I went back to the Pension and eagerly checked out. Incidentally, the well-groomed foreign gentleman from the bathroom the night before was in the reception area with his friend – neatly-dressed, looking like the quintessentially etiquette-equipped tourist. Ta ta. I wonder what he was thinking I was thinking when I tried my best to glare at him disapprovingly. Aina saa kärsiä ja hävetä. As if I was any better a person for all my jesusing about, but still, I repeat – who are these people?
Never has a hostel room looked more inviting than when I back to the Mehanna. Same room as before, coincidentally. Compared to the previous night, it was like coming home; an interesting contrast to the feeling I’d had when I first got there when I came to Beirut. I always find it interesting how when you first come to new surroundings, you feel so out of place, but after a while the very sights and sounds that at first seem so foreign start to not only bring you comfort and safety, but also to give an impression of a home base. I spent a considerable amount of time in the shower and, feeling refreshed and finally clean, went to work on my new oud. I can’t even begin to say how good it felt to finally felt to play an oud of my own that not only sounded beautiful from the outset, but didn’t fight me all the way in doing so, either.
...
A moped in Beirut traffic is one hell of a way to travel. Do try.
I had a shopping date with Morgan, who’d promised to take me to some stores where I could buy gifts to take home and souvenirs for myself – on a moped. Morgan picked me up at Place Sassine and off we went, me holding on for dear life with backpack and oud in tow, Morgan laughing at the intensity of my grip. And who needs a helmet when we both had suave oversized sunglasses?
I hadn’t been on a moped since I was 12 or 13, when me and a dear friend used to pretend we were motocross racers in the forests of Oulunsalo in Finland, so I was exhilarated. Morgan seemed even more amused at how into it I got the more Beiruti his driving got. In three words, I loved it. Even got compliments on how easy a passenger I was. After stopping for the best falafel sandwich I’ve ever had in my life we criss-crossed the city in search of traditional Arabic clothes, books and an external hard drive.
Yes, a hard drive. Jean and Ziyad have been assembling an Arabic music library for years and years, which existed in only two copies, one each. And here I was, having been offered to have the third copy. There were tens of thousands of songs from old turn-of-the-century recordings to Mohamed Abdel Wahab to obscure Qasabji songs to Turkish fusion to just about everything I’d ever day-drooled about. Though I was nearing bankruptcy, I couldn’t exactly pass on an offer like this, so Morgan, Jean and I stopped by the computer store across from Jean’s place in Hamra and I left my shining new hard drive with Jean to copy overnight.
Back at Ziyad’s for the day’s lesson, I seemed to be making slow progress not only with the music, but with his baby niece as well, who ventured as far as to wave to me from afar. Without crying. Too much.
Jean had a gig later that night at T Marbouta in Hamra playing latin music with an Italian singer who’d just come to Beirut, so I made a pit stop in Achrafieh dropping off my oud, showered, took a taxi back to Hamra, and found myself on the receiving end of a lecture from the driver comparing prostitutes of different nationalities. Interesting. Maureen, who joined me for the gig, gave me a lesson on using the manual features of my camera, so we spent the evening not only enjoying the music and the atmosphere but also taking more photos. It’s amazing, the difference what a little know-how with a camera can make. Daniel-san must practice.
T Marbouta.
Maureen, painting-esque.Flash on, flash off.
Wed 16th Jul 2008The last day. Wherever had my two and a half weeks gone? I hadn’t even packed and I was getting homesick for Beirut already.
I woke up over the moon about the fact that I found myself in a clean bed in a clean room in a clean hostel. Not much more one can ask for as far as accommodation goes. The Madame at the hostel was very pleasantly surprised to see me again (I’d checked in the previous day with her brother, apparently). We ended up having a long conversation, exchanging pleasantries and comparing the conditions of Beirut hostels.
And at the end of the chat I realized I’d been speaking French.
I don’t know if a longer stay in a foreign language environment triggers and activates some language center area or other of the brain. Be that as it may, I was still quite surprised to notice that the cobwebs from my supposedly forgotten French had been all but dusted off; at the beginning of my stay in Beirut I’d failed miserably at virtually every attempted French conversation, which had resulted in me falling back on English and gesturing wildly when misunderstood. So who knows – maybe I hadn’t lost as much of my high school lessons as I’d thought.
I had some last minute errands to run, plus I had a little financial problem as I’d managed to max out my credit card. In dire straits iz. As I was all out of clean clothes, I tried but was unable to find a place to have my laundry done before my flight, so I returned to the hostel with my sack of dirty laundry in tow, resigned to flying out smelling iznotsogoud. As it turned out, the Madame had warmed to me to the extent that she promised to wash them all, exclaiming “You are like my son!” Problem #1 solved. Problem #2 was solved with a call to the credit company in Finland, who temporarily raised my credit limit, so said prodigal son breathed two sighs of relief; now I could get back to Finland without having to borrow cash from Morgan, who’d promised to help if I was in need. And smelling at least halfway decent, at that.
As I was going in and out of shops in Hamra doing some last minute shopping, I noticed that many were either already closed or closing fast, and it was only two in the afternoon. A jeweler mentioned something offhand about his brother calling from the south and that as a result he’d have to close shop. I couldn’t figure out if this was some public holiday that I didn’t know about or what, since there was no immediate logic to some stores closing and some staying open. Regardless, I was hoping I’d have enough time to find the exact things I still wanted to take home with me - like having a certain necklace re-engraved in Arabic and buying a bunch of Oum Khalthoum and Fairouz live DVD’s from a music store on Ronnie’s street. Once again, things you don’t come across at Free Record Shop in Helsinki.
Maureen called me up on her lunch break from her new job at an architect firm, and we decided to meet for coffee at Starbucks, with her promising to explain what was going on. It turned out that the Hizbollah were doing an exchange with Israel in the south of Lebanon – the bodies of Israeli soldiers returned to their homeland for burial in exchange for Hizbollah hostages released from captivity, including Samir Kantar, a fighter who was something of a hero to many Lebanese and who had been imprisoned for almost thirty years – and that Beiruti businessmen were showing their support for Hizbollah by closing their shops, celebrating the hostages’ release as if it actually were a public holiday. So you had some stores closed, some open – another sign of the ever-persisting divide behind the seemingly harmonious façade that is not only Beirut, but Lebanon.
Hamra.
I had a 3 am flight to Helsinki via Prague the next morning, but I wanted to have a get-together in the evening with everyone before I left. After texting invites to Ziyad, Jean, Maria, Morgan and Sara I finished my shopping and made another pit stop in Karm el-Zeytoun for a shower; Maureen and I planned to meet up later at my hostel where she’d pick me up.
In a taxi.
As I was practicing for the last lesson with Ziyad I heard that hauntingly familiar urban soundtrack that is so unique to places like Beirut – the crackle of gunfire on the streets. Looking out over the city from my balcony, it didn’t appear to be fighting; considering the day’s events in the south, I knew the people weren’t fighting. Another flashback to the night Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered in 1995. They were celebrating.
Trying to capture gunfire.
Back in Mar Elias at Ziyad’s, it turned out that the last lesson didn’t involve any playing on my part. One eye on the television showing the proceedings in the south, Ziyad demonstrated an improvisation in the
Ajam maqam before going into a detailed introduction to traditional Arabic song forms, which once again was virgin territory for me. Mitey useful information iz. Ziyad had an evening engagement to attend to with his fiancée, so we agreed to meet up later that night for a drink and goodbyes before my flight left.
After packing and showering (yes, again – if you come to Lebanon in the summer, get used to the idea) back at the hostel, Maureen picked me up and we headed towards West Beirut. We planned to spend the evening at the Barometre, a little bar-slash-restaurant right off Bliss Street which served Lebanese food, but we still had some places to stop at before we could sit down for drinks. We tried getting into Walima’s to pick up Ziyad’s records which he’d left for me, but the place was unfortunately closed, so we paid a visit to Jean’s to both collect my hard drive with the treasure chest of Arabic music inside, and to also invite him with us to the Barometre. Turned out Jean was so exhausted from a lengthy all-day studio session in his underpants (don’t X-Y…) that he decided to stay home. The Barometre wasn’t his favorite place to hang out, either, it turned out, so we bid our goodbyes and vowed to get together soon for more music and Bona. Nguyen Lö!
By the time Maureen and I’d found a place to park and got to the Barometre, Maria was already there with her friend Alice from the Arabic course. After introductions and throwing myself at the mercy of my beautiful hostess insofar as food went, Morgan joined us with a true surprise in tow – Cindy Saleh. I remembered Cindy as a curly-haired pretty girl a year below us at ACS, who shared a taste for the same Black Sabbath song as I did back in the day; now she was all grown-up, not only stunning as ever but also a successful author in her own right, having released her debut novel
A Separate Realm as only a 17-year-old to much critical acclaim. Suffice to say I was both surprised and more than happy to see her again. And so my farewell feast also became a reunion.
Farewells at Barometre. Maureen and Maria. 
Maureen, yours truly, Maria.
Great food, Almaza, lots of laughs and way too many pictures later, Maureen was already getting antsy about getting me to the airport in time. The problem was Ziyad, who kept sending me messages that he’d be there in twenty minutes – every twenty minutes. I decided to wait for him since I really wanted to bid him goodbye and thank him for everything, so once he eventually did show up – a bit drunk – we had another problem. He wanted to buy me arak. A full pint of arak. You have to understand, arak is a local anis spirit, not of the weakest potency, that is usually taken in shots. And I got the impression that Ziyad wasn’t in the frame of mind where he was likely to be persuaded otherwise. So I found myself with a tall glass of arak in my hand, trying to unsuccessfully live up to the good name my Finnish ancestors have made for us. Whatever was it they said about the sins of the fathers…?
Brothers from other mothers. With Morgan.
The goodbyes were expectedly emotional – going-away gifts and everything. I’d experienced so much during my stay in Beirut it was far from easy to leave, but then again, I knew more certainly than ever that I did have a second home in the world. If Antti Tuisku can pull off
Rovaniemi-New York with a straight face, I’ll go one up on him with Rovaniemi-Beirut.
Anjad.
"[A pint of] arak, yani...?"
Almazing.
Master, disciple, and the energy in-between.At the airport I came across an unexpected obstacle – my luggage was 10 kg overweight. I tried to reason with the airline clerk at the desk, to no avail; she wanted $278 extra as penance, and of course I was loaded with all of $40 in cash, and a maxed-out VISA card. Rahaa – ON. I tried to argue that I’d brought the exact same amount of luggage with me to Beirut when I came – a minor white lie on my part – and that if it hadn’t been a problem then, why was it one now? She tried talking to her senior officer, who looked at me with a mixture of disapproval and frustration, but he wasn’t the type to budge. I asked if I could try and redistribute the weight between my carry-ons and my backpack, and finally the wall gave way. I unpacked my hiking backpack in a real frenzy, tried to cram as much of my things into my carry-on bag, but I still got an adamant shake of the head for my efforts. Until, that is, the first lady at the desk spotted Morgan’s going-away present, a Lebanese flag among my spread-out belongings. She looked pleadingly to her superior with an emphatic “
Haraam…” [roughly translates to “Aww…”], which finally worked. The officer threw his hands up in desperation, and let me rush to passport control with a seriously augmented carry-on bag. I made the flight at literally the last minute, as some would say is true to my particular character.
I don’t know if I’ve ever actually had three pairs of shoes and my manly cosmetic bag – with all its liquids and chemicals – in a plane cabin before. And this in a post-9/11 world, on a flight from...
Beirut.
I think the world has hope.
Anaheim pose reprise.
