Arrival

First off, the heat is bad and the humidity's worse. In Paris they were talking about a heat wave but it was cool compared to Beirut. I walked back to the hotel well after midnight last night and worked up a sweat walking downhill. Except on the rare occasions when a faint breeze stirs the air, the atmosphere is absolutely stiffling. It gets worse at night.

It's Ramadan. There are decorations everywhere, hanging in the streets and large street side displays. May and I went out at 11:30 PM to buy some knafe for desert at midnite. No problem, everything's open! In fact, the restaurants are all full, and and open areas have been converted into ad-hoc restaurants or open-air canteens for people without money. And there are several hundred thousand more of them than usual in Beirut at the moment.

2:30 AM and all's hopping

Because of the fast people are basically up all night. Stores are open, people in the streets, lots of life. In the evening, just before the breaking of the fast, I was nearly knocked out of my chair by a series of explosions. They were loud enough that, were they to happen back in Portland, the 911 system would be flooded with calls. In fact, they were 'fireworks' celebrating Ramadan. As fireworks go, they must be orders of magnitude more powerful than anything we get, at least legally.

Apparently, the Civil War and decades of major and minor wars since haven't cured the Lebanese of their love of loud noises.

Interestingly, as we were walking through the neighborhood behind their house, May remarked that because she was dressed in a tee shirt and shorts, 'some people' might refuse to serve her. By 'some people' she meant observant Muslims, which, in this context equates to Sunni Salafists, of whom there are apparently an ever-increasing number.

May's strategy is to approach everyone with openness and a warm smile, a strategy which she readily admitted doesn't always work. Nevertheless, it appeared to work quite well during our little outing.

Despite the presence of Salafis - who are Sunni - the neighborhood itself is under the control of the Shi'a Amal militia. Amal, whose name means 'hope' in arabic, has roots in the Lebanese Civil War and the Shi'a 'Movement of the Dispossessed'. It preceded Hezbollah by several years and was a major player in the Civil War. After years of clashes with the better organized Hezbollah, Amal has ceded a great deal of its power and authority in the Shi'a community, although it still retains parlimentary representation.

I had a moment of nervousness as we passed the local Amal 'headquarters' - a kind of tent stuck in a parking lot, with a bunch of 'shabab' (guys) sitting in front. May began pointing out where we were, gesturing towards the tent and the large banner of one of Amal's martyrs that hung over the street. For a moment I rather regretted the free publicity of my presence in the neighborhood. But it quickly occurred to me that May's approach was probably the best one could come up with. Certainly, my presence was going to become public knowledge very quickly, in any case. At least this way May was openly associating me with herself - someone they all know as a resident of the area and with whom they have good relations.

Did I mention the heat and humidity?