-J
...
Fri 11th Jul 2008
Ziyad gave the green light for the lesson today, so after finally getting my laundry I spent some time going over my notes and doing some exercises before Samir, Wissam and I went out to Roadster’s to eat. Problem was, I’d accidentally (occidentally?) eaten a sandwich on my laundry tour of duty, so the half-eaten lunch at Roadster’s left me not only overstuffed, but with a guilty conscience. Food waste iznogoud.
The lesson took place at Ziyad’s place this time since Samir’s apartment was unavailable due to obvious reasons. I got to meet his family, scare the living daylights out of his baby niece for some reason, and we had a really good two hours drinking coffee and continuing where we left off. Ziyad seemed to appreciate the progress I’d made, and after answering an impressive amount of my questions he went on to give examples of improvising in the Rast and Bayati maqams. Meaning more microtonal scales to tackle. Absolutely beautiful moods.
I’d promised to go with Maria to Ziyad’s gig at Walima’s so she and Ziyad could meet and speak, so I took a cab to Hamra and was in for quite a ride, as it would turn out. I could tell from the second I did my regular “Marhaba! Kifak? Servis? Hamra.” routine that the driver wasn’t having exactly the best day of his life thus far. I think his maqam had his occidentals in a tighter bind than mine did.
All well and good, until we were approaching Hamra and neared a gas station. Some guy was standing in the middle of the street stopping the traffic so his friend could back up onto the street from where he was parked, but this didn’t sit particularly well with my driver’s mood. He floored the gas, almost ran the guy over, who dodged at the last second, and a verbal Celebrity Deathmatch ensued. After an exchange of several mutually affectionate kiss’ommaks and kiss’ehrtas the man on the street called out to his friend, who decided to contribute his two cents and started pounding the driver through the passenger seat window. Which left me, riding shotgun, in the middle of a fist fight inside the car. I ducked at first, then managed to grab both the guys’ wrists, yelled “Khalas! Shwei, shwei!” glaring at both of them in turn, and after they seemed calmed down, I let go. Mistake.
After some more exchanged blows I managed to push the other guy out of the window with another “Khalas!”, and I begun trying to calm the driver down. I don’t know why, but it didn’t exactly seem to help my peacekeeping efforts that the guy on the street backed up a bit to gather some momentum, then ran towards the taxi and kicked the side of the car in as hard as he could. By this time my driver was motioning to a steroided-up goon on his side of the street, with rapid-fire instructions in Arabic, I assume to beat the crap out of the window-immigrant-turned-car-saboteur. I grabbed my driver by the hand, did another “Shwei, shwei. Inta, DRIVE, yalla!” which finally got his attention and we continued towards Hamra. The cutest thing was, as he dropped me off at the We2 intersection, he looked at me apologetically, lowered his eyes and said, “Sori…”.
I wonder if he went back for a refill.
Some very creative territorial claims at Café YounisMaria hadn’t received my message to meet me at Café Younes for some reason, so I went to Walima’s where she was already waiting, surprisingly, with a whole bunch of her friends from the AUB Arabic course I’d visited. Had a very pleasant evening talking, making new acquaintances and enjoying the vibe. Maria and everyone seemed to really enjoy Ziyad’s quartet’s music (this time, the trio from last week was augmented by Ziyad’s cousin playing the qanun as well).
Chad and Maria
More new friends.
Ziyad's quartet at Walima'sAfter totally stealing Ziyad's thunder with my supreme command of the dancefloor (yes, I was tricked into dancing by Maria and a Swedish journalist called Sarah. I tried to resist for the sake of courtesy for Ziyad, but failed. Mötley did have a point. Chicks = Trouble.) and making it abundantly clear to every naysayer and nonbeliever that Travolta had nothing on me, Maria and I ended up listening to Ziyad’s accounts of the Lebanese music scene and some insightful opinions on the music business here. I walked Maria to the AUB gate and took a taxi – sans fist fights, this time – back to Samir’s. I blogged until the Mayor returned from his excursion with some friends, Abboudi and Bass, for the mandatory afterparty at Samsterdam.
Maria, Travolta, Ziyad and fiancée Marie.Sat 12th Jul 2008
A slow day for a change. Slept late, hung out at Samir’s and jammed, switching back and forth between electric and acoustic. More people popped in, Samir’s Maltese-Irish MTV co-worker Chris Brady and his girl Zehar, namely. Has to be more or less 12 years to the day since I played the intro solo to “Fade to Black”, “Orion”, “Sanitarium”… the classic menu was served. Good times.
After a very late lunch at Kitsch in Gemmayzeh – and an uncharacteristically healthy one, which bothered Samir to no end – where we were joined by Sam’s Duracell bunny friend Hasseeba with her sister in tow, we passed by the new apartment Bass had just bought, before heading to Cloud Nine in Gemmayzeh for Abboudi and Zalfa’s engagement party. Very informal, just drinks among friends. Met some more new people and had a good time. Bass, who’s been doing construction in Baghdad, had an Iraq story or two up his sleeve, suffice it to say. I wonder how it actually feels to oversee a construction site – let alone actually be one of the workers – with mortar and shellfire going off every four minutes around you aiming to destroy everything? I wonder if he ever feels that his work might be in vain?
Me, Zalfa, Abboudy, Samir and Bass.
The happy couple.After a miserable failed attempt to get into Sky Bar – although we were prepared with table reservation, name, password, the works – we returned to Cloud Nine before the entire gang headed back to Samsterdam. Ordered out, and I ended up playing troubadour for both the happy engaged couple and the rest of the guys singing along.
Sun 13th Jul 2008
I don’t know if I’m aging too well.
SaMTV had been on air for only three days and I already started to feel the repercussions; this despite resorting to being more of a sideline spectator than a protagonist in the proceedings. So while Samir and the other guys still had some more Dubai to get out of their systems, I, in turn, needed to get out of Samsterdam for a breather, as big a blast as we’d had so far.
Morgan to the rescue.
...
[INSERT PARENTHESES, EXIT REGULAR PROGRAM, ENTER TANGENT]
Sometimes, regardless of whether your friends mind or not, evacuating the premises and thereby forsaking inebriation for recreation leaves you feeling like a nerd.
Then again, I guess I always was one.
I don’t exactly know why, but it brings back a certain episode from five years ago. Dejà vu, Morocco, 2003 – I’d met a British guy called Andrew at my hostel in Casablanca and taken the train to Rabat with him, on the outskirts of which we came across a blond curly-haired guy walking towards us. Turned out to be another Brit called Jules. So Jules and Andrew got talking.
ANDREW: “Where you from in the UK?”
JULES: “Cambridge.”
ANDREW: “Yeah? Me too.”
JULES: “What do you do?”
ANDREW: “Oh, you know. University”
JULES: “Yeah? Me too.”
ANDREW: “Where from in Cambridge?”
JULES: “I live at the dorms, on Driveonwrongsideof Street.”
ANDREW: “Yeah? Me too.”
JULES: “What number?”
ANDREW: “3”
JULES: “Yeah? Me too!”
BOTH: “Fo’in ‘euw! Fo’in small world, innit?”
So it turned out that Andrew and Jules were neighbors. And they met in Rabat, Morocco for the first time. Naturally, the next part of the conversation went along the lines of
ANDREW: “Fo’ me, we got to celebrate. Fancy a pint or four, or whaddaya reckon?”
JULES: “Oh, I know a place…”
And I wanted to backpack around the country and see places and meet people. It was kind of hard to justify this to the two Brits who didn’t quite understand my geekism, but I managed to excuse myself to venture out on my own.
*
While we’re on the subject of small worlds… Lebanon has to do with another “small world” experience of mine, when on the first day of school at A.C.S. in Beirut I thought I saw a vaguely familiar face with a familiar name in history class. Turned out to be Ramsay Geha, who’d been in my first grade class with Ms. Burnside – who my father thought was one hot newzealander – in Amman, Jordan. In the 8 years since ’87 I’d turned into a geek and he’d turned into an aspiring bodybuilder who idolized Beavis and Butthead and talked about his biceps 24-7. We made a great team.
So there you have it – how to go off on a tangent (or tangent of a tangent) about drinking in two non-related Arabic countries, small world experiences, and being a geek, Beavis and Butthead, and still be able to come back full circle, sound convincing and continue with the script without anyone noticing.
[EXIT TANGENT, RESUME REGULAR PROGRAM, CLOSE PARENTHESES]
...
I guess I just don’t like to party when I travel as much. If I want a hangover, I’d rather nurse it on Finnish time. And clubbingwise, I get my fill in if not one, then two nights in a row at the latest. An invitation for a day out in the Chouf with Morgan visiting his grandparents was a change that was more than welcome. After a brief visit to Morgan’s parents’ house right around the corner from Samir’s in Mar Elias, an affectionately loud father-son exchange and some delicious corn, we were off to Morgan’s village in the Chouf, southeastbound towards Batloun.
Driving through the Hizbollah/Amal –exterior-decorated illegally built area just outside of Beirut (the name of the area escapes me), I couldn’t help but think that some people had scored some prime time real estate during the civil war. Property squat on the shore of the Mediterranean, anyone?
The Chouf mountains are nothing short of breathtaking. After starting to feel the need for some space in Beirut, the view from the car alone was exactly what the doctor had ordered. As a part of Lebanon that is predominantly the home of the Druze minority (with a small Christian population as well), it was very revealing to get a glimpse of the Druze way of life – not only because most Middle Eastern news coverage all but overlooks anything outside the Sunni-Shia-Christian-Jew equation, but also because two of my closest friends, Morgan and Samir, are Druze. In my entire time in Lebanon 12 years ago, this was a curtain that I hadn’t had the chance to see opening. And visiting Morgan’s family as a guest was a priceless way to pull a little of the drape back, even for just a day.
The Chouf.It transpired that a relative of the old man’s had just returned to Lebanon from abroad, a distant cousin or someone who he hadn’t seen in quite some time, and that the man had sold all the other fruit from his cart on the roadside, but that he’d saved his last 10 cm by 10 cm box of strawberries for the returnee, and that he just had to get the strawberries to him. Of course, the fact that the cousin had returned to the south of the country, at least 100 km away, bore no relevance. The conversation was a very animated one, going as far as to include poetry which even I could pick up on from the ending rhymes. He simply had a box of his best strawberries left, saved especially for the occasion, and all he wanted in the world at that particular moment was to get them to his cousin somehow.
Morgan trying to dial the old man's relative.
Strawberry...
... Fields Forever.I still can’t get over it.
*
Batloun, a Druze village of no more than 3000, seemed like a fairly rural community. I don’t think I can really put it better than Morgan, so I’ll quote him here –
“All the scattered villages in the depths of the mountains we saw - the sprinkled lights were all Druze villages, tiny and sporadic, but closer and closer to the earth. During the day you'll see herders and black, brown and white spots all over - the sheep grazing. My gramps had chickens too in the back I never got to show you and small herbs gardens with a few veggies - just the essentials for salads and additions in meals - also lots of other plants for teas and drying in the sun.”
The importance of family in Lebanese life is great, much more so than at least in Finland. “The mountain”, which is where everyone seems to go, is a place of peace, quiet, safety and getting together; families living in Beirut seem to spend a lot of time in the summer visiting with relatives, parents and grandparents during their time off. Second houses are bought near childhood homes, and it’s not uncommon for hordes of grandchildren, aunts, uncles and cousins to gather at the grandparents’ home for extended periods of time.
The warmth with which Morgan and I were received at both his grandparents’ – first maternal and then paternal – was truly something. Though it was a pity we just missed his mother who’d gone back to Beirut right before we got to Batloun, I was introduced to more cousins, aunts and uncles than I could keep a head count of, so company was aplenty. Morgan had a lot to report on his life and plans in Dubai, so I sat back, watching and listening and truly enjoying myself although I didn’t understand most of what was being said. Kisses, hugs, opinions and advice were received and returned.
A family gathering at Morgan's grandparents' house.
Morgan's paternal grandparentsI’d brought my oud along, so after a delicious meal and coffee at his paternal grandparents’ house, and a distinctly Druze type of sweet tea at his maternal grandparents’ place, I was talked into playing for the family that had gathered in the living room. Morgan’s grandmother, whose father had played oud when she was a child, was particularly taken with my efforts in putting Ziyad’s teachings into practice, exclaiming a broken “I love you!” although she spoke no English whatsoever after my first improvisation. Another Moment.
Batloun by night.
Morgan and I with Batloun in the background.It had already grown dark by the time we left the house, but we still had places to visit. Morgan wanted to take me to his Spot, his private personal Place where he went to take the world in, to refocus, to contemplate. I felt very honored, like I was being let in on the Holiest of Holies to top off everything else that Morgan had shown me during the day. We first went by car and then walked to the ruins of an old house overlooking a spectacular view of the valley below. After talking about wine, women and song for quite some time we started taking artsy photos trying to capture the moment. Nothing seemed to quite really translate until we started getting creative with shutter speeds and a lighter.
Getting wild ideas with a lighter. A prayer.
Circles...
...can be...
...infinite.
How I managed this I have absolutely no idea.
Getting...
...spooky.
A downright scary shot of Morgan.
Circle of fire?Our retreat to Morgan’s sanctuary from the world provided us with another exercise in perspective, courtesy of the festivities from the village below us. I mean, how many times do you have the chance to see a display of fireworks… from above? The scale and scope of things truly has more than a little to do with one’s perspective.
…but the strawberries. STRAWBERRIES.
