last minute snapshots of beirut

greetings, all! for my last day in beirut, i spent it with the lebanon country office team at a workshop on child protection issues. it was a great way to get to know some of our country office staff, and understand a bit of the challenges that they face as they work with partners and children in various environments across the country.

in the afternoon, i wandered from raouche to the corniche. i felt like i had to soak in the last little bits of beirut that i could! here are some photos:

view of the beach along the top of raouche - look at all the construction!

pigeon rocks - a beautiful set of natural rock formations

walking along the corniche - a pathway that runs along the water all the way into downtown

parts of the skyline are so modern and contemporary...

...however there are constant reminders of the effects of war.

i must leave you with one last photo of food... at a local restaurant called "le chef" in gemmayze, i had the most delicious lamb with rice. mmmmmmm...

enjoy!

weekend in beirut

it has been a lovely, low-key weekend in beirut.

saturday was spent at byblos, the home of the alphabet. it also sits on the seaside, and is known for fresh fish restaurants and its sea views.

delicious muttabel (like babaganoush) with pomegranate. so good!

this is for sarah s: tabbouleh! it was very tart... but nisrine told us that adding some salt and some olive oil would even things out :)

and of course, the fish. although it's rather scary looking here!

after lunch, i went to byblos castle, which was built in the 12th century. stunning views of the city and of the sea!

the ruins in the foreground, the city and the sea in the background

remnants of old columns

view of the castle

today was yet another beautiful day in beirut. this morning, i wandered over to the national museum. i have to say - it is a must-see destination. during the war in the 1990s, the museum and its contents were badly damaged - many of their large statues were protected using concrete boxes that were built around the artifacts. smaller pieces, such as pottery, figurines, and jewelery were broken and mangled. after years of restoration work, the museum reopened its doors. its collection is small but tells the history and influences of many empires on lebanon.

this stunning mosaic of the seven wise men was preserved through the war, and is the first thing you see when you walk into the main foyer.

one of my favourite pieces - a painted glass bottle

these are little wee figurines two or three inches high. they were very bizzare!

this is my new friend, colossus :) he was flanked by two little sphinxes. something i love about this museum - you can get so close to the artifacts! (a few times i wanted to reach out and touch... but i held back :)

for lunch, i was invited to dine with the family of my regional director. it is mother's day today, so we went to his mother's home, where she had been cooking up a storm. two types of fish, roasted chicken lebanese style, served with a dough and chickpea stew, rice with a spinach-like vegetable, spinach pies, roasted oregano with pita bread, vine leaves stuffed with tomatoes and rice... it was all so delicious! two types of dessert (a napolean cake and a home-baked orange cake) later... it was time to walk back to the hotel, i was so full. no pictures, for those of you that might be salivating... since it was a family meal, i thought they might find me very strange if i asked to take photos of all the food! :)

tomorrow is my last day in beirut, and the last day of my wonderful adventure (i swear, i have been doing work!). back to toronto on tuesday...

views of jounieh

i have been very thankful that my colleague, nisrine, has been letting me trail around with her as she goes about her days. yesterday, i had a chance to see nisrine's hometown, jounieh, from a unique vantage point!

jounieh is about 15 km north of beirut, and the drive from the office to her home feels like a commute from downtown toronto to richmond hill in afternoon rush hour traffic, weaving and winding through the roads until the 404 clears (if it ever does!). so much of the town is built on hills that lead down to the coast. in the middle of the town, there is a teleferique, or cable car, that runs all the way up to the top of the hill, where a statue of the lady of lebanon, its patron saint, sits.

it was late in the day by the time i got to the teleferique, so unfortunately i wasn't able to get out at the top of the cable car and wander around. but here are a couple of views of the city from the ride up!

the individual cable cars - going 650 m up!

view of the town, towards beirut

the sun setting over the water - beautiful!

afterwards, we went for dinner with some of nisrine's friends from elementary and secondary school. we went for sushi... and this was a super-neat contraption that i've never seen before!

"automatic" chopsticks!

this dessert was something else. imported gelato from italy in pineapple and coconut shells. it tasted like cheesecake. SO GOOD. :)

sleeplessness

so, i had gone 3 weeks without coffee while in africa (one bad experience in tanzania with milk in coffee, and i decided i should quit).

however, since arriving in beirut, i have realized what a coffee culture exists here. on my walks to work every morning, i pass by a little grocery store on the side of the road that sells coffee in little expresso takeaway cups - cars pull up to the side of the road (i saw a police SUV today!), order their coffees, and the servers rush back and forth, bringing their orders to their windows. a rustic drive-through, i guess you could say. and of course, i am back in the land of starbucks :)

alas, overcaffeination has been the death of me and the end of my ability to sleep. i have gone from one coffee in the morning per day (before the trip started) to a coffee at breakfast at the hotel, then a turkish coffee when i get to the office, diet pepsi for lunch (an office favourite), and then another turkish coffee after lunch. one of our staff offers to make coffee regularly - when i politely declined yesterday, he made one anyways, saying, it was our office policy that we each have a coffee after lunch!

hello, delicious goodness. goodbye, sleep.

this is a little wee expresso cup. but man, is it potent!

sights and sounds of beirut

lebanon is a fascinating place. everyone speaks a mix of french, english, and arabic. christians and muslims live side by side, as you can see in the photo of a beautiful mosque in downtown beirut, beside which is a small little church. while it hasn't always been a harmonious cohabitation, it makes for a diverse backdrop to the city and to the nation.

yesterday afternoon, nisrine and i went to meet with a group to explore some professional development opportunities for our staff here. the meeting was a fluid mix of the three languages; i spent a lot of time in deep concentration, trying to understand the french that was being spoken, as we had decided that french was the common language that the four of us would understand!

kampala - dubai - beirut

"bienvenue a liban!" - greetings from beirut, lebanon!

in a bit of a blur, i left kampala on friday afternoon, arrived in dubai in the middle of the night, and spent two whirlwind days in the city with sindhu, my good friend from b-school, and dianne and mario gagne, my former colleagues from CDNIS in hong kong. since i went to dubai last year, i have no photos to show from my weekend. the evidences of an amazing time: an expanding waistline (most likely - the food was delicious!), bags under my eyes from lack of sleep, and a sore throat from talking non-stop for two days :)

dianne and i talked a lot about hindsight, and how often it is that while we do not understand why we are in a current situation or life circumstances, that reasons often reveal themselves later on. really, there are never any wrong decisions or missed opportunities - the saying is really true, where one door closes, another one opens. (i hope that is the right saying - for a native english speaker, i am terrible with my idioms.)

during my first year at university at queen's, i had a moment where i seriously questioned whether biochemistry and con-ed were right for me, and contemplated switching into commerce. what deterred me was having to repeat first year in the commerce program, as none of my courses would transfer. while an added year seems like a silly reason not to transfer, since i was doing five years at queen's anyways in the con-ed program, in hindsight, my life would have been radically different if i had never become a teacher. the experiences at uxbridge and in hong kong have dramatically shaped who i am as a person... and the people whose paths i have crossed have changed my life forever. hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

now, i am sitting in our MENA regional office across from my dear colleague, nisrine! beirut is an interesting city (the little i have seen of it). the driving is intense, and as a pedestrian (i walked to the office this morning) you must to cross the street in a similar matter to hanoi (walk slowly, don't look up, don't exhibit doubt). it is cool here - i am finally wearing the jacket that i muled all around subsaharan africa. more observations to follow in the coming days!

a trip to the source of the nile

[note] when i wrote this, it was monday, march 8 and i was in kampala. now, it's sunday march 14, and i'm in dubai for the weekend. it's been a whirlwind!

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happy second week of march... it has been an insanely busy first week at the regional planning meetings here in kampala. it has been such a great opportunity to meet many new faces and make new friends, and learn more about the unique challenges and successes of each country.

today was our first day off (we worked through the majority of the weekend), and a small group of us went to the source of the nile in jinja, about an hour's drive (loosely speaking - traffic is something else here!) from kampala. the source of the nile is considered to be the point at which the nile and lake victoria meet. while it was a bit unfortunate that it was pouring rain the entire time, it was rather scenic. here are a couple of photos:

a rainy view of the nile river.

the cormorants in the trees - they were everywhere!

lake victoria on the left...

... the river nile on the right!

a photo of our lovely little group.

the ugandan form of green onion pancakes... minus the green onions...

i've been asking my fellow colleagues in each of the offices that i've visited what the local fare is like, and have been trying a lot of local food for lunch. today - the wonders of chapati, a flatbread made of flour and water. a quick wikipedia read tells me that it's actually a form of roti. i do not remember roti tasting this good, although the last roti i had was probably with KH and AC while skipping grade 11 french class :) it reminds me of green onion pancakes (蔥油餅), minus the green onions. by the end of this trip, i will probably be a) craving chinese food and b) looking for all these african delights in toronto!

look! officemates even bring their own tupperware containers. environmentally friendly :)

hello kampala!

after eleven hours at three airports and two flights, i arrived in entebbe, uganda on sunday and was driven into the city of kampala. it is a beautiful, lush, green city - i am staring out the window at a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and almost no clouds. it is much cooler than tanzania - there is no air conditioning at the office, and that is because with the windows open, the breeze is enough to keep the air moving.

funny practice - am not sure if it is because i do not know how to use the phones quite yet or not, but in order to make long distance telephone calls, it is required to let the reception desk know, and they will put in the call for you. so, both yesterday and today, i ran down to the ground floor and back up to the second to put in my call, then to receive it in the office. figure it's a nice chance to get outside and to do some exercise :)

view from the balcony on the second floor of the office - how beautiful!