Tripoli July 2009

A few previously unpublished photos of Tripoli. I'd love to spend some time there as a tourist rather than rushing from meeting to meeting.

Hair Saloon

More previously unpublished photos of Beirut from July 2009.

Beirut July 2009

I found some photos from last year's trip to Beirut that I never published, so here they are.

Small Grants, Big Impact

Not one of us who have worked in international development cannot relate to this impact question.

Un jour a Clamart

Musique: Octobre par Francis Cabrel.

Danse Macabre

As I wandered the streets of Paris, I came across this cemetery, Père Lachaise. Many famous French are buried there, including artist Eugene Delacroix and writer Honore de Balzac. It's not every day you wander into a cemetery and stumble upon the graves of people you've heard of.

Music is Camille Saint Saen's Danse Macabre.

Wet

It was a dark and stormy night. No, really, it was. I had left beautiful, warm, sunny Beirut at 2pm for cold, dreary Paris. Oh, it was tough, maybe not as tough as it was the last time I left Beirut, if only because it had been so easy to return, but it was tough all the same and I fought tears in the airport again. I was leaving ten days of 100% contentment - Paris was my buffer between that and the winter of Washington.

I was to stay in a small town outside of Paris called Clamart. I wanted a bit of Europe rather than big city but didn't want to stray too far from the airport, so I settled for Clamart, a town close to Versailles. I had directions, which stated:

From Airport Charles de Gaulle: You can take a taxi to the hotel or you can take the RER B (blue) train and change trains at 'St-Michel Notre-Dame'. Change to the RER C train direction 'Versailles-Rive Guache'/'Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines' and get off at train stop 'Issy'. The hotel is at 25 minutes walking distance from the train station but of course it is better to take taxi from here to the hotel.

Seems simple enough, right? So I got on the train at CDG and got off at Issy (8 euro instead of the 50 a taxi would cost). It was raining.

I descended the stairway to the train station expecting a taxi or two to be waiting in front of it like you would expect taxis to do, but there were none, so I went into the station, where a helpful attendant gave me a phone number to call one. Easy enough, right? Except no one would answer the phone. I walked to the corner of the intersection to try to hail one on the street, but there were few who passed by and none who stopped. I called the hotel to tell them I was having trouble finding a cab (at this point it was nearly 10pm, the time I told them I'd be arriving), thinking they would call one for me, but the guy must have thought I was just calling to tell them I'd be late and he hung up on me. (I don't know how much AT&T charges for international roaming calls, and I'd already made two, so I didn't want to call again.) Did I mention it was raining?

My other option was to walk the "25 minutes" to the hotel. That would have been fine, except I had no idea in which direction it was, so I went to a nearby bus stop to see if there was a map. Nope. There were no people on the streets and nothing was open, so even asking someone was out of the question. I probably stood on that corner for twenty minutes trying to figure out what to do, and I was getting frustrated (and wet), so I just started to walk. I knew the town was Clamart, and there were road signs that pointed towards Clamart, so logically I followed them through the darkened suburbs of Paris on whose roads I had never roamed.

Despite not knowing where I was, I enjoyed the first minutes of my walk. I felt like I was in Europe for the first time on the trip. Paris is wonderful, but it is an international city, and my Europe days were spent in many small towns. I just wanted a taste of that once again, and I got it. But I was pulling a suitcase behind me, and I had a laptop and some books on my back, and after about 20 minutes of walking, I was getting tired and was unsure if I was going in the right direction. I came upon another bus stop. This one had a map, but my destination was not on it. Suddenly, a taxi came by! The driver slowed when I hailed him, and I thought I might be saved. Alas! He had a passenger, but he sympathized with me walking in the rain, pulling a suitcase behind me. He wanted to pick me up, but that passenger said no. %$#@!

So there I was, standing in the rain, wondering what on earth I was going to do. I had no choice but to walk on, so walk I did, walked like I hadn't been on a plane for four hours, walked like I hadn't left my heart behind, walked like I knew where I was going. I got to a curve and I just had to stop. I felt like breaking down right there, but then I turned around.

The whole city of Paris was out there, Eiffel Tower and all.

It was one of those moments when you just feel like you were supposed to be there, one of those times when something sucks all the bad from your soul and you feel like the most blessed person on earth for just being permitted to breathe. And on I walked, no longer doubting my decision to come to Clamart.

I walked another twenty minutes or so until I came to a circle, and behold! A town map! Turns out, I should have gone left a mile back, but it was ok, because I could take one of the streets from the circle to get to the street my hotel was on.

And so, an hour after I had arrived at the Issy train station, I found the Victor Hugo Hotel, where a warm shower and a lengthy sleep awaited me.

To be continued...

U2 in Paris

I couldn't believe I was seeing U2. It was over before I knew it. It was a good show, not great, not like NYC. The energy in the crowd was weird - better than DC, but still not what it could have been. And I got behind the same obnoxious people as I did at the DC show. Can you believe that? Of all the people in the world...

I wrote some notes before the show on my phone:

1. Of course, I had to get beside a group of loud Americans.

2. The queue. In the US, it is called a line, and a line it is - orderly and relatively straight. In Paris, it's more like a rugby scrum. Chaos ensued when the gates opened some 20 minutes after they were supposed to. I got in the slow line, each second getting me further from the stage. When I finally got through the gate and the all-to-familiar security check - the next part could happen in any country on Earth - the running for the grass. (Doucement, said the guards.) I went around back and asked in English if I could go in the circle before the guard had a chance to open his mouth. He said yes, I could go in. Then. A guard told him there were too many people and to cut it off. NOOOOO! I had failed by seconds! Perhaps a mere one person in the scrum I had let pass in all the pushing at the gates...

But.

The guy said a certain number could go in. I was one of the last people allowed. I'm not as close as NYC or DC but close enough to be happy.

3. The pushing is tiresome to me, a demonstration of either cultural definitions of space, arrogance, or, well, what else could it be? I am short; therefore, I get pushed around more than others. Shouldn't have worn so many clothes, as it is hot with all these people and I'm feeling claustrophobic.

I put my phone away once Interpol came on, who were quite boring. That was disappointing. Other things that happened:

I got conked on the head with and elbow and saw stars at one point. The guy who did it was apologetic.

There was this giant French guy next to me who spent more time filming than actually watching the show, and HIS elbow was in my face most of the time.

An Indian-American chick peed in a coke bottle right in the middle of the crowd.

The idiot Americans in front of me were taking up more space than anyone else, turned around, ate junk food they had brought the whole time, and complained about the French, while one of them was so upset by how close other people were to her that she didn't move the entire time. Her giant head blocked my view for a good part of the show. They were typically ugly American tourists, and I was embarrassed by them.

I wondered if Bono's back were hurting him a bit. It looked like he was leaning on Larry as they were leaving the stage and he was holding his arm in a strange way.

Bono spoke French (terrible accent, but he knew all the words). Good thing I could understand it, because aside from talking about Aung San Su Kyi in English, French was all he spoke.

The band didn't seem to have much energy - they feed off the crowd, and the crowd wasn't that energetic except when they seemed to think that songs like Elevation, Vertigo, and I Will Follow were for mosh pits. They did it for Beautiful Day, too. That was the first song they played, and all of the sudden, the whole crowd got pushed over several feet, bringing me a bit closer to the middle of the stage.

Listening to the crowd sing along with their French accents was funny.

Really liked one of the new songs they played - I don't know the title. Wanted more new stuff, but it was a bit weird hearing the new songs and not knowing them.

They didn't play enough from No Line on the Horizon. I really wanted to hear Breathe and No Line, but we only got Magnificent, Moment of Surrender, and the Crazy remix.

Got to hear Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me live for the first time, but they did it in place of Ultraviolet, which had been the highlight of the 360 show.

Got to hear Until the End of the World, still my all time favorite song.

I was a little disappointed with the set list, actually. Some of the weaker songs were played while songs like New Years Day were not.

Bono nailed the Italian opera solo on Miss Sarajevo. It really was incredible - I have never heard his voice sound so good. He had people's mouths drop.

Oh, it was awesome.

UPDATE: Some awesome videos of the show. When they are zoomed in, they are my exact view of the concert, minus the hands and the heads in the way. I'm sure my hands are in one of these videos. Really incredible how technology allows us to recall things we might otherwise forget. Man, life is really amazing, isn't it? Why do so many people waste it on warring and anger?

The videos:

Bono is a rock star, but occasionally, he is also a singer. A real one. And this is the proof. Wait until you get to about the 3 minute mark. Incredible. This may have been my favorite moment during the show.



The new song I loved is called Mercy.



My all time favorite song. Jesus, meet Judas:



They want you to be Jesus, and go down on one knee, but they want their money back if you're alive at...53.



The quintessential international development song, turned into a beautiful weirdness, with Larry playing tabla, Adam playing the bass line from Last Night on Earth, and Bono singing lines from a Duran Duran song. In the 360 shows I've seen, aside from Ultraviolet, this is my favorite song they did. If they want to sell more records, they need to put out more weirdness like this.



I am reminded of a very bizarre dream I had last night with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yeah, him.


The beginning of the show. Return of the Stingray Guitar to start. More of this, please. Then, one of the greatest songs every written, Beautiful Day, about finding the beauty in a world full of shit.



Another awesome new song, North Star. New album now, please?



Not my view, but any post without this song would be missing something great. A very underrated song, and a very good ending to a very amazing show.



This is the song when I got conked on the head.



I am blown away by the fact I got to see this. Not sure what I've done to have the luck I've had in my life, but I sure appreciate it, more than words could ever say.

A Moment in Hamra

It was a shriek that made you forget about the car horns and the din of the traffic. The culprit was a toy whistle blown by a former cop whose mind had seen better days. He was clean shaven and wore a green shirt and jeans that had never been in fashion, but he was well-groomed and obviously had someone to take care of him. Where was that someone as he stood on the sidewalk, blowing the toy whistle and thinking he was directing traffic on Hamra Street?

A massive tour bus from Dubai rolled over the cobblestones. Two truckloads of bored soldiers rumbled by looking like they'd rather be anywhere else. The traffic was thick but moving, always a bonus on this gridlocked street. Arabic music blared from loudspeakers strapped upon the rooftop of a car adorned with flags of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. More sectarianism, each group claiming to love Lebanon the most while taking steps to divide and destroy it.

The SSNP had hung their sectarian flags throughout the neighborhood some time in the night. We had all gone to bed in Hamra to wake up to this nonsense. The Cedar Revolution was dead. One fourth of an entire country had turned up that day, March 14, 2005, but the hope for unity that had been inspired by that day was all but gone.

Wedged between two universities, Hamra is a sore sight for eyes but has the soul of the Left Bank and the desire to be normal in a place where nothing has ever been normal and probably never will be. But there is a fire in the ground now, the same molten hatred that flows beneath the surface of all of Lebanon. Hamra sits across town from the pretentious glitter of Gemmayzeh and the riches of the haves in Achrafieh, two areas that were part of what was once called East Beirut in a city that throbs with the violence of division. East-West, North-South, the whole world is a fractured compass, its needle spinning mercilessly as we all desperately try to find our place in it.

Last week, as I sat beneath the glow of dusk and watched the flutter of bats among the filthy buildings that seemed to be contemplating crumbling their ways to dusty death, I wondered if this was ever a beautiful place or if its creation was a spontaneous explosion of chaos that gave rise to these ugly dwelling stones. The life, though, the life is real. It manifests itself in various forms - in the youth of students, in the rattle of traffic, in the experience of bartenders, in the clacking of prayer beads among the devout and not so devout. Here, people live for Now, because tomorrow violence could take the peace away.

No one wants the violence; they are a weary people, yet it cannot be filtered from their sectarian being. Even when they shun religious identity, they replace it with some other religion - communism, anti-zionism, graphic design, not different than most of the world but far more pronounced.

So it goes.

Finally, some Paris photos

The Beginning

So much to write about - where do I begin? It started with surrealism, moved into perfection, and ended with a heaviness of heart and a rather smooth flight across the Atlantic.

I departed Washington, DC on a cloudy day, racing down U Street to the Metro, then hopping a bus to Dulles before being thrown around the airport. I was flying United because it was the cheapest flight I could find, though I much prefer Air France. United is...how should I put it? Disorganized? When you fly Air France, you check in online and give them your bags. There is no such thing as a line. With United, you check in online then are sent to a billion different places before you finally are able to give your bags to the sketchy looking security people and hope that they actually get to your destination.

I should say bag. I had one bag. It contained a few clothes and 8 bottles of different American beer for my friend Amigo. The beer made the bag pretty heavy. I hoped it'd get to Paris and then to Beirut in one piece. It did.

My greatest curse is my fear of flying. Love to travel, hate getting there. This time, I actually slept a couple of hours on the flight, something I can never do.

During the previous couple of weeks, my brain actually was adjusting to the time zone change - it was quite an amazing subconscious process. I just started waking up earlier and earlier and going to bed earlier until I was already asleep by the time the Daily Show came on. I really can't get over that. When I got to Paris on a Friday morning at 7am, then managed to get to my hotel by 9am (to discover I couldn't check in until 3pm but could leave my bag full o'booze), I set out to wander the streets of Paris wide awake, happy, and not at all full of yawns. I got back to the hotel around 4pm, checked in, and took a two hour nap before heading out to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. Went to bed around 10pm, and voila, I was fully in Parisian time.

But I never felt fully in Paris. Yes, I was physically there and very happy, but I felt a sort of disconnect, like it was all surreal. I went wandering the next morning down streets I used to know and discovered I had very little memory of any of it. I got to Stade de France around 3pm and managed to get in the inner circle for the U2 concert, but never fully felt like I was really there. Even now, a couple of weeks later, I can't figure out how to explain it. What I can explain, however, is how I spent ten days in a place where I felt 100% whole. For the first time since I can remember, maybe in my entire life, I felt like I was physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally in the same place at the same time. As my friend Ash would say, I was totally living in the Now. That place wasn't Paris, it was Hamra.

And so, in the next few days, I will be posting about the trip with photos and videos and write ups of the amazing things that happened and how the whole direction of my life is probably changed and how I am once again scattered across the globe - mentally in Paris, physically in Washington, with my heart stuck in filthy, chaotic Hamra, just waiting for me to retrieve it. And I will, as soon as I can.