We are beginning our third week in our new home and are beginning to transition to the new normal. The boys have begun school and I have started to go my office. Kelly is also beginning a new life without paid labor. She is making good use of her time by training for the Beirut International Marathon, a race that one of my friend's jokingly titled the "run for your life!" marathon.
The boys attend the American Community School, which is a private institution that offers an international baccalaureate. It was very competitive to get them into the school. During years when Lebanon is not at war or under attack, the Diaspora returns home and spots at private schools become especially competitive. I'm sure that arms were twisted in order to get our kids in to the school.
ACS began in the early 20th Century as an American school for U.S. oil executives who based their corporate offices in Beirut. In the last few decades, as fewer Americans lived in Beirut, ACS became an international school catering to the wealthy elite of Lebanon, as well as to the families of international diplomats and aid workers.
The boys will spend two-hours per day learning Arabic, as well as a few hours per week learning French. Most of the instruction is in English. All of the classrooms have two teachers, one who is primarily the homeroom teacher and a second that offers instruction in Arabic. Most of the kids at the school are Lebanese, although there are many nationalities represented in the student body. There are a few other Ethiopian children, as well as a few children from Nigeria.
We don't yet have a sense of what goes on during the school day, in part because the kids usually register their feedback about school in terms of "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." (There is also a sideways thumb, representing indifference). Both boys gave two thumbs up after the first day. Our nine-year old can write his name in Arabic and is beginning to use Arabic greetings in public. Our youngest one can only say, "no" in Arabic. He also likes to give "Levanon kisses" when we drop him at school (code for three pecks on alternating cheeks).
My older son's teacher wears a head scarf. He's mildly curious about why she does this. I said he should ask her, and he said he thought it was probably a personal matter about which he shouldn't inquire. But then he proceeded to tell me that he imagines that his teacher is like Professor Quirrell, (from Harry Potter) whose head scarf conceals Voldemort's withered body on top of his own head. Westerners have made all sorts of derogatory assumptions about why some women wear head scarves; my son's reading, however, suggests all sorts of transgressive potential in the head cover.
We are very pleased to send the kids to a school that is only three minutes away from our apartment. The school is so close to our home that we can see the kid's P.E. class from our balcony. We're also cognizant of the amount of time we've reclaimed by not having to commute.
For the last few days, I've been getting to know a colleague I'll never meet. Last week Kamal Salibi, a noted Lebanese historian at AUB, passed away. Partly because of my interest in Lebanese history, and partly because of the sorts of respect Salibi garnered in his memorials, I picked up a copy of Salibi's, A House With Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. It's an elegant monograph that focuses on competing national and transnational histories in this small country. Salibi argues that while Lebanon is a complex web of sectarian histories and politics, the most significant conflict in Lebanon is between a (primarily Christian) understanding of Lebanese nationalism, rooted to memories of the Phoenicians and Romans, versus a larger and transnational Arabism that links former Ottoman territories under Islam. Lebanon, therefore, is to the Christians a natural and obvious formation, while for many Muslims, Lebanon is a colonial construct that bifurcates more meaningful collectivities and national formations (greater Syria, for example). Salibi's writing is lucid and the narrative enacts theory, rather than talking about theory. I'm sorry I'll never meet Salibi in person.
This weekend we plan to brave Lebanese car traffic and to head North. We will rent a car in order to visit the Jeita Grotto, Jounieh, and Byblos. I'm both exhilarated and nervous about Lebanese traffic. It's not just that cars don't observe lane lines and traffic signals; or that turn-signals are treated as unnecessary appendages on a car; it's the fact that maps and directions are so imprecise. I anticipate getting lost with regularity.
