Although we live in West Beirut, a region that is mostly Muslim, Christmas appears everywhere. Christmas trees can be found in every store and in most buildings at AUB. There is a Christmas celebration at the kids' school. There are Christmas trees in every store and Christmas holiday light parades downtown. There are Christmas trees in front of Mosques. In South Beirut, which is a Hezbollah stronghold, you can find yellow Hezbollah flags, billboards with photos of Hasan Nasrallah, and Christmas stores and trees. There are very few real trees for Christmas, there are instead numerous fake tree options, as if to underscore the artifice of Christmas consumerism in the first place.
We are settled into home, work, and school. We have passed the "new" phase of the experience and are just here. The boys seem happy; their school is "fun" and they have a pack of boys at the playground they look forward to seeing after school. Both kids have had parent/teacher conferences and all is fine. Our oldest continues to be a chatterbox in school, but the teacher is very good about not focusing too much on behavior; she sees that he's smart. Our youngest is beginning to read and it's very exciting to see the look on his face when he brings home a new book.
Both kids are developing soccer skills. Solomon has a reputation for his speed. He's impossible to catch in "tag," even when chased by much older kids with longer legs. Eyob was the leading goal scorer on his team. He's not big on defense, but he excels in offensive skills. Solomon goes for Barcelona while Eyob prefers Arsenal.
A couple weeks ago, during Lebanon's Independence day, we left Beirut for a drive with friends into the Shuf. We headed south to the town of Damour before turning into the mountain where we drove up to Deir al Qamar. Today this is a Druze village high in the mountains. The village has a huge open plaza in front of its municipal building. The kids played a long game of tag as the adults wandered around the plaza. Deir al Qamar represents the complexity of Lebanon's past under the Ottoman Empire. The plaza contains a large structure that houses a mosque, a synagogue, and a church. There is likely a Druze prayer room somewhere there as well.
Deir al Qamar was a polycultural village under Druze control for much of it's Ottoman history. It was possible for many hundreds of years for Jews, Muslims, and Christians to be convivial in one place for a long time. This is not to suggest that inter-ethnic relations were always equal or peaceful. Under the Ottoman system, Muslims paid fewer taxes and had greater rights than Christians and Jews. Deir al Qamar is also the site of the Druze massacre (1860) of Christians. But for a much longer historical period, the religious groups coexisted in the same geography.
After Deir al Qamar we headed further up the mountain to one of the few remaining cedar forests. The Cedars of Lebanon are famous. The first temple in Jerusalem and "the Ark" were said to be built with the cedars of Lebanon. The cedar tree is the national symbol of Lebanon. Phoenician ships were built with the cedars. The forest is at high altitude (maybe 6,000 feet) and the air was cold and wet. Cedars grow very slowly and a small tree can be thousands of years old. Unfortunately, the cedars are disappearing due to global warming. Cedar seedlings require a good snow-fall in order to grow. There is less snow in the region due to climate change, and hence fewer cedars. There's also the problem of pollution and excessive wood harvesting.
It was really nice to escape Beirut's noise. Independence day in Lebanon was a time for the country to flex military muscle. The sky was filled with Lebanon's air-force (small as it is and consisting mostly of helicopters), and the downtown was closed for a military parade. The unease in the region, especially in neighboring Syria, can be felt in Lebanon. One day we experienced a relaxing village in the mountains, where we saw evidence of sectarian cohabitation; but one week later, a bomb exploded in the south, targeting UN soldiers enforcing the armistice signed at the end of the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and there are reports of kidnappings in the Bekaa region.
A student of mine told me about a drink she ordered at a local Beirut bar called a "Beirut car bomb." It's a mixture of beer and arak. Alcoholic drinks with ironic titles, like Christmas trees with plastic branches in Hezbollah strongholds, seems to underscore the precariousness and artifice of "holiday cheer" in Lebanon.
