Day Eighteen

Chilled, family day with the crew.

Sarah and Basem are in renovation mode painting Sarah's bedroom walls and cupboards.

Music in the background,

clear skies and an easy Sunday. 

Maryam and I hang out on the upper floor.

We walk in and out of house sections

up and down floors

and we eventually all meet around the palet-made-table communal terrace.

There's a slip of sun rays escaping the Armenian church 

steeple opposite us and it reaches my face. I close my eyes and enjoy.

We are all coming together.

Our differences and sensitivities start balancing in what looks like a promising

co-existence and development.

The sun is setting while the roles switch.

Basem goes out for food shopping and I join Sarah in painting her room.

I paint the mirror frame.

Yellow.

My so-known favourite colour.

I think of reasons it's been my favourite colour.

Then I think of Yiannis.

Then I start wondering what colour could represent me.

Then I take a selfie.

Day Seventeen

Maryam's rap.

Me and Sarah go out for the day,

walking together, side by side.

We return to the hostel with our freshly tattooed cedars on our legs.

I got mine yesterday and Sarah got hers today. 

Maryam was meant to come with me yesterday but she got up

on watching series and avoiding civilization.

I keep no bitterness but encourage her to get the fuck out of her zone.

Sarah shows her tattoo and Maryam is super excited! 

She starts rapping,

'Oh my god

Oh my god

You got a tattoo

On your leg

Oh my god

Oh my god

I can't believe

You got a tattoo on your leg!'

We sit around the corner of the wooden dining table and have an intimate dinner.

As intimate as it can get with Maryam texting her boyfriend in San Francisco and Sarah asking about SIM card top-up 3G services. 

I make faces and look up thinking 'Allaho ahbar! [my god is great]' 

in a sarcastic way.

'Maryam!

Return to the table!'

She puts the phone down along with her nervousness.

Sawsan walks in the scene and expresses her regret for going out for dinner cz the 

food looks delicious.

She invites us to a rap concert with a great dj and we all look into it.

Maryam starts rapping,

'Oh my god

Oh my god

It's Psych Aleppo

Oh my god

Oh my god

I know Psych Aleppo!

WE ARE GOING YEANI'

We look at her like walla, you are coming?

Her excitement is real and

she's already there.

We get ready and hoodie our way to the concert.

The sisterhood manifests as the Arabic rap gets more intense.

We break our necks on words we don't understand

while Maryam raps along to them.

We see the real rapping side of her and all she's been suppressing. Her body is captivated by the beat and it becomes majestic to watch and join her.

Dark room, four rappers on the stage, the dj in the middle and geometric illustrations flashing behind them.

The whole crowd goes so loud

the clocks run out

we snap back to reality.

Maryam's out!

PsuchAleppo

Day Sixteen

Cedars.

Lebanese cedar is a popular and precious tree growing in Lebanon.

This is also the tree featured on the Lebanese flag.

Cedars are common for other regional countries yet they are all specific of location. For instance, cedars grow in Cyprus, Troodos mountain as well as Turkey, Taurus mountain

but they each have their own unique characteristics.

I get inspired and look into it a bit more.

It looks like before this flag Lebanon had the Persian flag which was also common for Cyprus and Turkey.

I start imagining how it must have been for all to be under Persian rule

 and I figure that migration, race mix and same culture are a few of the elements that have connected this region.

Although politically a lot has changed, I find my Cypriot self and half Persian girl friend completely grounded in the land between our own.

We met in Lebanon,

on a coincidental or otherwise magnetic draw

to our current home.

The past has brought us together

through familiarity of

migration

race mix

and

same culture

and we are now standing together;

growing like 

cedars

and

exchanging seeds.

Day Fifteen

Our cleaner Iman walks up the stairs in a worried, almost terrifying pace.

She asks if I'm going to Shatila tomorrow and I say,

'Lah! Tanein..!' [No! On Monday]

Thinking, why is she asking me again. She saw me leaving Shatila yesterday as she was coming in. I had gone to the refugee camp with another two girls who were interested in starting volunteering.

She looks at me and starts speaking Arabic with words she knows I don't know.

She looks up then looks down, she puts two fingers together and touches her chest. 

I'm starting to visualise images and I picture it.

There was a shooting in Shatila.

She's warning me not to go. Then she repeats the pantomime.

My eyes widen and I gasp-

'Oh no! Shooting?' I'm looking for an answer.

'Eh!'

My look becomes blank. I don't even want to picture it, though I'm picturing the whole community of Shatila alerted.

I think of Ilaf, a teenage girl who I haven't seen since I've been back. I think of the cute 5yr old habibi that I saw yesterday and all the kids and faces familiar to me.

I wanna see their faces again yeani.

Fuck sake. 

Day Fourteen

[Yesterday's observations. Tomorrow's actions]

Funny how insecurities come out in the forum 

you need the most.

An attempt to shine should be proven under spotlight right;

Yet there is so much pressure on the spot that 

the light dims.

I hear voices becoming louder with the presence of ears. I see behaviours losing direction when faced with focus. Whatever has been developing internally comes to the ultimate challenge of development;

execution.

Perhaps it is the careless practice that makes the practice worth. 

Perhaps it is the secret greatness that makes greatness great.

The desire to prove or disprove elements of the self known to thee,

is the loss of thee itself.

The implied pressure of acceptance from the out and from the in

denies acceptance in whole

as the mind will think will win.

Yet the backstep into fear of not being in fact a thing,

to the self or to the him

brings you back into point one when the question becomes

was there ever acceptance at all.

.

Day Thirteen

Shift day today and the living is [getting] easy.

Less panic, less stress, less notes

on my shift day.

My duties today also include cooking!

We serve dinners for guests at the hostel.

Dinners are usually vegetarian as many here do not prefer meat. I google some recipes, knowing that Sarah loves eggplant, and pick a delicious- looking eggplant stew served on couscous, with garlic yogurt and light cucumber salad.

My mouth waters thinking about it.

I haven't cooked it yet.

It's the afternoon and it has been quiet as per usual at this time.

It's usually me and Sarah around on the days Maryam isn't working. 

Basem is usually out or up to something.

---

Dinner was great.

The food taste and sensation of the above made a delicious dish.

Sarah and I cooked together, 

and ate together.

Shame there wasn't anyone else around tonight; 

we had all the pleasure to ourselves.

Day Twelve

Baalbeck Day.

Though I had said I was going to Baalbeck, I woke up in a chilled mood, remaining in my baggy pyjamas. 10am and Bogdan walks in the common area, looks around and suggests;

'One more space in the car for Baalbeck guys...'

Nobody answers.

'Ok then. I'll come! Give me two minutes'. 

Chuckles in the background.

I run and get ready- knowing that we're heading to the snowy mountains. We get in the car and instantly start trolling our tourguide and driver Mohammed for not knowing how to get out of the streets of the hostel.

We pass a few checkpoints on the way and gradually lessen the distance to our destination. We are in awe of the snowy mountains and he assures us

'I will take you to Baalbeck'

'Inshallah'

'I believe you.'

We reply.

Baalbeck is considered a 'red zone' area and travelers are not advised to visit. It is on the border to Syria. 

We talk about Hesbola and the war taking place behind the mountains on our right. We pass the last checkpoint and celebrate our success with smiles and hoorays.

We reach the castle and get lost in the hypnotic view of snow-covered ruins and clear blue skies. We explore the area and take scenery, photoshop-like pictures. Our toes are freezing and our noses are red.

We decide to move on.

No photoshop used yeani

We're on our way to a 'very good lebanese food restaurant' that Mohammed wants to take us. He insists that we try this delicious delicacy with beef and I subtly announce that I don't like beef.

'Are you vegetarian?' !

'Yeah..! Yeh kind of.'

'But you are in Lebanon! You must try the meat!'

I laugh and say ok.

We get to the restaurant and he looks quite concerned for my food choices. He insists that if I don't eat meat I will be hungry! I laugh, look at the beef delicacies and turn to the cheese rolls instead.

We eat well, smoke some shisha and make a move as the sun starts to set. It looks like there is a snow storm coming so we decide to take an alternative route as we do not have chains on both tires. 

We reach a village, and, some kilometers away from our route we find ourselves in some mountain snowy turns. It's dark and the driver gets nervous. Bogdan figures out new routes through Google maps and we are stuck in a dark deadlock. The driver takes initiative;

'Guys, we must remember. Safety first. We will go back, safety first.'

We head back to the main road as none of us loses faith. The trip was still a journey and the mood sets back to cosy-comfy. We reach a crosspoint and buy more chains for the tires. I pop to the store to get some chocolate and the journey continues.

The road is dark, snowy and dangerous. Our driver takes it easy. We all keep it cool while Bogdan starts admitting his love for mountains. He sings us a Ukrainian song about love and mountains as the troll continues. We then all take turns to sing a song in our language. Luise is Armenian, Songyue is Chinese, I sing my Cypriot stuff and Mohammed sings in Arabic. Very sentimental, sweet moments as we have no idea what has been sung yet we all listened carefully. 

'Yalla let's sing something we all know!'

pause

'Titanic!'

And so we all start singing 

'Near... Far... 

Wherever you are'

And this is how Celine Dion has been bonding people since 1997.

[LoveLebaon]

Day Eleven

An old man walks up the stairs while Sarah, Maryam and I are giggling on the top step.

He's in his climbing outfit, carrying a big backpack.

'Is this Hostel Beirut?'

Our heads turn and our mouths drop.

'...Yeah' I say.

'Do you have a booking?' Adds Maryam.

It's her shift today so she knew there were no more check-ins.

This was just a very interesting walk-in.

'No!' He says.

'But I checked online and it looked like you had spaces..!'

Maryam walks him in and does the booking.

'Experienced traveler huh!'

'Yeah' we mumble with Sarah.

Experienced traveler indeed.

He speaks about his Chinese girlfriend. He's from Canada himself. He's retired for ten years now and he has been to 63 countries. He loves to share stories and he wears a journalist's hat which hides his eyes unless he looks up. He's a medicine expert and he told us that Vitamin C does nothing to your immune system; unlike popular belief.

Bss I still had my vitamins!

Day Ten

Arrivals, Departures, and the long-term travelers co-coordinating hellos and goodbyes.

Phrases repeated; never with the same enthusiasm. 

Sometimes more, sometimes less.

It's Rushmika's departure day so it's becoming uncomfortable to pretend we're all cool with that. I'm low on energy so I nap on the couches. I hear people coming in, chatting. I cuddle the pillow as the heater warms my back and I remain unconscious yet comfortable in the living room while I hear background conversations tickling my ears. 

Total family vibe.

Rushmika asks if she can use my phone and I pass it to her, half asleep, as I extend my arm and touch her cheek with my palm. 

She blinks with surrendering love.

---

The evening unfolds with our 'last supper' with her and though our focus for goodbye celebrations was a night out, we realise that it's all the small things that are making this goodbye harder.

We dance and sing between the dining table and couches as others watch or chuckle to our belly dancing moves while we become crystalline.

Day Night

Full house!

I made all the beds.

Good nine

Day Eight

On the topic of love I find that distance can be the factor that keeps people apart or the one that brings them together.

People hang out around the hostel in the nicest spirit and when you stick around them for longer you find out deeper lovestory secrets. And this topic always comes up when there aren't any other people around. (Apart from Sarah's lovestory of course, which is a topic of discussion on the dinner table, on the terrace, in the kitchen, at the bar.)

Mia books a private dorm and tells me about her lovestory. She finds it hard to put words to it and I say '...nice!' as if to reassure her that I get it. Unexplained happiness and euphoric comfort flow. I get it.

She asks, 'how about you?'

My eyes glisten as I bring to mind a guy who lives 2,103km away. I explain that it has been a long time coming as I ignored the guy before; trying to protect myself. Almost not allowing myself to accept that he had shown a subtle interest in the past.

Her look surprised, curious to hear more. 

'Well, 

we live in different countries,

 but we're supposed to go for coffee soon!'

She smiles at me yet I don't confess the times I have pictured him here and me there.

Day Seven

'If it meant to be,

it wu be.'

Quote of the day from Lu, from China.

He said 'ma gefrend left me yesteday, ba I'm no sad.

If it meant to be, it wu be.'

Hostel stories usually involve love and separation since it is a home for travelers. Travelers who meet a loving match on the journey, or have left one to travel. 

Yet between us there is this greater confidence that it's not all that bad. We share independence and growth. We share teachings and compassion. Cz we travel alone yet at the end of the day we gather around the table and dine. We serve each other and comment on the hostelmade meal of the day. We laugh and play silly drinking games without drinking. And we're able to say that 'this help me a lat becau I wa feeling down'.

<3

Day Six

First day at work!

Feeling excited, feeling ready, feeling confident, for my first day at work.

I go up to the reception floor and start looking for things to do; 20 minutes before my shift even starts (at 9). I try to switch on the computer and realise that the electricity is off. In a blink of an eye the breakfast has arrived, the guys have opened it, people are walking in and out, water is boiling on the stove, rain is pouring down the skies and an elephant is sitting on the couch.

I look at the clock and it's 10am, 5 people have checked out, 4 have gone for day trips, 3 have stayed, 2 arrived and it's been 1 hour since I started working.

'I QUIT! HALAS!

THAT'S IT!'

I jokingly exclaim on the terrace as I appreciate that the universe wanted me to experience it all in one single hour. 

---

6pm, I collect my thoughts and come to compose this blog post.

The lights go out.

'My nerves!!'

Lights out.

Day Five

Early wake up for training day two and I hang around with my Flora who's leaving at 9am. I whip my hair back and forth to dry it while she checks in her flight. We hear the taxi arriving so we lightly hug with the hope to see each other again.

I wiggle around a bit more as the early birds start appearing for breakfast. I'm behind the desk with Maryam. Antony comes and let's us know he'll be leaving around 12. He goes out to get money and around 11 he hands in his keys. We take a break from training and I approach him at the dining table while spreading out puzzle pieces. I start putting the pieces together and look up at him.

'How are you feeling?'

'Um... Quite sad..!'

He's French and his English is not so fluent.

'It has been the most English I ever heard in my life during a week. It help me a lot to improve.'

Then he asks if I would like some tea. I say yes of course and he makes me one. He places it between the puzzle pieces.

'I will miss you!' I blurb.

And my gut gets a little tied up realising that every time I've been around him he's made me tea. Realising that our communication was never based on intellectual conversations but rather on pure, caring, considerate gestures.

Then I drop a light one;

'So you will cry in the bus?'

'Ah no, boys don't cry!' he says jokingly.

The time comes, he lifts his backpack, hangs it on his shoulders and hugs me. He smiles and winks as if to say take care of yourself in the most non-sexual loving way.

I awkwardly walk towards the couches, and before I have time to save the moment I hear Roman reading out French poetry to, well, the cat, I'm guessing.

'[Je de floop flee

Sleh pu le la lu blah,]

Dormer,

Rever,

[De la floop flah]'

'What does [de la floop flah] mean??'

'It mean <I will be gone>'

He slaps the book shut, places it on the shelf and walks off. I stay staring at the shelf thinking- this isn't happening right;! One of the most surreal French scenes of my life indeed.

I walk around without direction and try to rewind the scene in my head. I walk to the puzzle, then to my dorm, Sarah calls me for tea and I say 'I already have one' as the curtains close and I'm still figuring out how to deal with goodbyes.

12am. Good afternoon.

Day Four

My alarm goes off and I'm ready for 'Valley day w/ Flora'. I wake up in the sweetest mood after spending my night snuggling with Teresa. I remember seeing her tiptoe on my bed at some AM hours. 'oh it's you Teresa, come' as I lift my bed covers for her to land between my spooning arms. The last time we snuggled was the night before I left Beirut in November so it was nice to have her back.

Old photo of Teresa

We set off with Flora into what is a very confusing bus system to get to Sahle Valley. We finally end up in a minibus with loud Arabic music which sounds Syrian to me, and we enjoy mountain gazing through the window.

We arrive at a village with no tourists and have a walk around on the hilly neighborhoods. The locals look at us and call out 'fadale' [come]. They are curiously impressed to see two foreign-looking strangers in their hood. We smile and pretend we're off to somewhere. We can see the valley from where we stand but we can't explain in Arabic that we want to go there. Among Arabic pantomime we figure they're inviting us in but our limited Arabic vocabulary and their limited English one will not get us through an awkward hour in their homely homes. We smile, thank them and carry on walking.

Fresh air, sunny roofs and snowy mountain sites complement our positive mood as we decide to reach the valley. We find a driver in an old Mercedes who's willing to take us. Even though he didn't understand where we wanted to go yet.

Arabic pantomime continues and we finally recognise the valley. We came here to visit Syrian refugee settlements and between untranslated lines he says, 'Dgri Suria!, meaning 'Syria is straight on'.

'Yalla, dgri!' I say.

Day Three

Training day.

So I came back to Lebanon because, Lebanon. 

Everything connects and makes sense here. And i'm staying at Hostel Beirut, where I stayed for Sept.- Nov. 2015 while executing a volunteering project with refugees. This time I'm also taking up some reception duties at the hostel - and today is my training day.

I wake up and look at 'On This Day' FB memories. Massive Attack - Teardrop appears and I start playing it while stretching in bed. Basem walks in on the soft melody,

'Great song to wake up to'

I'm still stretching as I smile at him.

I get up, go to the bathroom and see Antony walking out of a hot steam. There is no electricity and I'm just smiling at how smooth the transition is from sleeping to ambient low lighting. We all brush our teeth in the hallway, still waking up.

My excitement grows as I wear my favourite pants and go out to get paperwork. I feel like this is going to be the most flexible training I've had in years. 

I return to the hostel to find Sarah and Basem on the terrace, preparing work under the sun. I join in, we smoke and laugh at silly things like holding a cigarette with a clip and nervously head off to train. 

Day Two

Well, actually day one, as I arrived at night on Day One. 

Victor wakes me up like we've been siblings for years. He slides the dorm doors and peaks through the split. He's brushing his teeth as he says 'I'm going to Shatila'. He mumbles some hangover words and looks at me. Eyes wide open.

'I wanna go to Shatila too!'

'Ok, we're leaving in 15 minutes.'

He hasn't realised the depth of my excitement, but he was right on time. 

Shatila was familiar. The whole journey there was familiar. And I was experiencing it with people I had just met on Day One. Like Flora for example; who I thought was French for the entire bus ride to Shatila.

Easy, sunny, smooth walk into the heart of my teachings, Bukra Ilna. The place where I started teaching English and 'learning' Arabic.

The kids recognise me. I recognise them too. One by one. Glistering eyes and smiles of surprise overcome them. 

'Habibi!'

I call Foaz, one of the most mature and loving children. He looks at me with disbelief and overwhelm as his face turns into a huge smile of relief.

'Hello Habibi!'

Old photo of Foaz