Glory Ho

We’d planned on it. Swapped passports in Israel and avoided stamps in Jordan to be sure they’d let us in. Astonished fellow backpackers with our overland plans. Explained how we’d avoid Darfur and Juba. Researched the visa situation. Found the cost of a ferry along the river Nile from Aswan to Wadi Halfa. But in the end, we skipped the Sudan.

It wasn’t because of any potential violence or unrest. In fact, we’d decided to cover the northeastern quarter of this dividing nation, which would put us hundreds of miles from potential conflict. No, it wasn’t the danger. It was because we’d simply had enough Arabs. Enough desert. Because no one had raved about the Sudan. Because the distance to cover was almost as big as where we’d gone in the past six months. Because we weren’t excited about the freshwater-less, 55 hour train ride and it wasn’t worth it just to say: We went through the Sudan.

For the first fifteen minutes of the flight from Cairo to Nairobi, we sat next to African human rights activist extraordinaire John Prendergast. He seemed to have been born with gray hair and introductions rolled off this pseudo-famous guy’s tongue a lot like they do Bono’s—with scratchy, unrehearsed and modest rumble. After his last few projects, which happen to include, ahem, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, the Clinton Administration and Obama, (something called Not on Our Watch–ring a bell?) he was now on how way to save the Sudan. Unfortunately, for the first time, rebels had attacked the capital, Khartoum, our original destination. While the rebels know full well they could not overtake the government’s army, and its strictly a “symbolic” move, this detail may have seemed irrelevant (and unbearable) when we’d have found ourselves stuck in the desert for days due to transportation lockdowns and excessive checkpoints.

Crisis avoided.

Instead, we were about to enter Kenya. Goodbye birkas, hello baboons.

Note: This is a flashback to Beirut. Because I thought it best to wait until we had exited both Lebanon and the Big I before publishing it, it is appearing now. . .

Inma Foundation (for whom we built a website) was founded by a Muslim who follows the teachings of Jesus. Not exactly your typical blend. The foundation does not claim any particular denomination, style or practiced religion, but they follow life in faith, through God’s love. And their foundation strives to give without bias in a country divided by culture, religion and sect.

In January, Inma’s founder hosted an unofficial religious delegation of seminary students, pastors and spiritual leaders, on a three country, five day tour to build bridges between Islam and Christianity. As it turned out, most of these delegates were from Colorado. Cherry Hills Church, Smokey Hill, Denver Seminary, and others. At a reception in their outlandishly Lebanese two-story penthouse, the founder Samir, a charismatic, diplomatic and informal fellow, gave a short lecture on the similarities between the Koran and the Bible and how we are much stronger through unity than division. How we are all living through the love of our Creator. As a souvenir, each delegate was given a large varnished and wood-bound tome, containing each Koran passage which mentioned Jesus.

During their time, Samir organized a meeting with Nabil Kawook, the, Hezbollah’s Southern Lebanon commander. Michael and I were invited along.

TIMEOUT

So for my own sanity, let’s go over Hezbollah for a moment. You might have heard of them. The U.S. and UK, among other countries, classify them as a terrorist organization. Here’s a little more—the most truthful, but neutral description I could find– from another acronym called the BBC::

Hezbollah – or the Party of God – is a powerful political and military organisation of Shia Muslims in Lebanon. It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon. In May 2000 this aim was achieved, thanks largely to the success of the party’s military arm, the Islamic Resistance. In return, the movement, which represents Lebanon’s Shia Muslims – the country’s single largest community – won the respect of most Lebanese. It now has an important presence in the Lebanese parliament and has built broad support by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar. But, it still has a militia that refuses to demilitarize, despite UN resolution 1559, passed in 2004, which called for the disarming of militias as well as the withdrawal of foreign (i.e about 14,000 Syrian) forces from Lebanon. As long ago as 2000, after Israel’s withdrawal, Hezbollah was under pressure to integrate its forces into the Lebanese army and focus on its political and social operations. But, while it capitalized on political gains, it continued to describe itself as a force of resistance not only for Lebanon, but for the region.

BUT BACK TO REALITY

There we were. Eleven men, a Lebanese woman and us. Heavy security. A meeting room which had been host to past negotiations and stalemates, I was certain. No cameras or cell phones. A lot of guards.

Nabil Kawook, arguably Israel’s most wanted man, was tall. He had a beard, a turban and a presence.

He strode up and back the narrow, yellow, sofa-lined, fluorescent-energy-star lit room. Past the Kleenex boxes and candy dishes of gold on glass. He shook each man’s hand, meeting eyes with concentration and confidence. Upon reaching me, we both clutched our hearts with one hand, the traditional Muslim greeting between unfamiliar men and women. He then moved to his throne at the head of the room. Samir, the man who made this meeting possible, and today’s translator, sat beside him. A gold Hezbollah flag stand stabbed the ceiling with power behind him.

I have to admit, I was somewhat afraid to move. As if we were all in a flat-bottom boat and the crossing of my legs might throw the whole gathering off balance and splash water into the freshly-ironed folds of the Sheik’s triple layered robes, tip the caricatured cotton off his head, cause him to drop his prayer beads or extinguish the flammable power of Islam floating around him.

He spoke of Hezbollah and their effort to help those who could not help themselves. He told the story of Ashouraa, the Muslim holiday honoring Mohammad’s martyred grandson, Hussein, and he talked about the miracles he believed had occurred. He answered questions from the delegation—about why Hezbollah wasn’t providing more humanitarian aid to refugees and about how he connected with God. I listened, but my absorption was constantly broken by two things: Unfounded fears of imminent explosion and my mesmerized gazing at his face.

But there’s that Lebanese drama again. We would not have gone unless we felt safe. Because we trusted our guides, Rob and Samir. This meeting was about bridges, not bombs.

After an hour, we all participated in a final prayer. One of the visiting pastors even asked if he could put his hand upon the heart of Nawook while we prayed. You can bet security detail was all over that one. But it happened.

As the Sheik exited, he complimented me on my last-minute dash at immersion—a black winter scarf wrapped ’round my head. He said that I looked like Mary—that this practice would strengthen my faith.

I’m not sure about that. But the experience did widen my perspective. This story is not about dispelling myths. I can’t go into Hezbollah’s tactics, strategies or battles with Israel and just how politics play into their motives. And I know nations have their reasons–good ones–for labeling Hezbollah as terrorists. But this IS about remembering there are multiple sides to a fight and about the unfortunate ignorance of those (including me) who sometimes place guilt by association. Just because the Sheik’s costume and look reminded me of the big O does not mean that he is an evil man. Just because Al Qaeda is violent doesn’t mean Islam is. Just because people don’t approve of our government doesn’t mean they dislike us as individuals.

I do know that for sure.

The Pashmerga, the Kurdish police and security officers were everywhere. At intersections. At fountains. At soccer games. There were never any less than four guards at the gates of our compound, which includes ten-foot high walls. There were always two or three in front of the school, where our couchsurfing host taught English. During the drive to Rania with two University students, we encountered four checkpoints, two which required a look at our passport.

But our first real run-in with the police happened while taking photos there last week. We were caught off guard by two Kalishnakov-swinging camoflauged men who were not especially friendly. One minute there were two of them, the next more than 10. Our host’s face lacked reassurance or comfort.

So we followed the soldiers through mountain-surrounded Rania, a town known for its clever strategies and participation in the 1991 Northern Uprising in Iraq. We walked casually past the cement walls which contain brown courtyards, marble pillars and squat toilets. Past the women in their headscarves and ground-length velor housecoats, past the children in their fluorescent, synthetic clothing and rubber sandals. Past bench after medieval cart of men in their olive-drab traditional Kurdish garb, a cross between a Carhart worksuit, and a brown cummerbund-wrapped tuxedo, minus the bowtie. Past the Armani belt buckles and pin-striped suits. Past a Jack Daniels-bragging liquor store, sometimes a sign of a Christian neighborhood.

At the police station, four gun-wielding guards chaotically search us for a mobile phone. It was hard for them to believe we didn’t have one. Soon, we were herded toward a room and told to sit down. In the next sixty seconds, at least 15 people came into the room. We couldn’t tell if we were the excitement of the day or if they considered us a serious threat. Soon, it was another room. Then another. I wanted to hold onto Michael, but I couldn’t. Not here. Still, no one smiled. Still, our host was expressionless. I was calm, but fearful. I tried to look simultaneously scared, friendly and apologetic, my passport in my hands, ready to submit. Finally, a man behind a big desk in a heated office examined Michael’s passport. He waves mine away. I am just a woman, after all.

No problem. We can go. We can take all the pictures we want. They just had to make sure we weren’t Turkish spies gathering information about the PKK.

Cool.

It was time to go. We spent our last day in Lebanon in typical potential peril as we gathered with thousands of others to commemorate the third anniversary of Prime Minister Hariri’s assasination, which, in 2005, had led to a national uprising and the removal of Syrian troops. We sloshed through puddles, fear, skirmishes and dozens of soldiers to get there, but it was worth it. For the first time in Beirut, we were truly “init”.

Us with Inma Director Rob and his wife Harriet–thanks for everything.

Boudreaux skiing above the Lebanese clouds. . .

Finally, the apartment I’ve been talking about for weeks. . .

(Iman & Suher, two employees at the center.)

You wanna know what’s really going on in Lebanon? So do I. It’s complicated. And as Michael and I discuss Hezbollah over hot and sour soup at Chopstix, or he goes over whos Sunni and who’s Shiite for me ONE more time as we eat turkey sandwiches, I start to think that “complicated” is not the right word and that the phrase “#@$*ing mess” is a a little more appropo.

So I’ll just cover the refugees, Inma Foundation’s beneficiaries, for now. The Palestinians were run out their homeland by Israel after World War II. Some fled to Syria, others to Jordan or Saudi Arabia and several thousand landed here. Around 400,000 Palestinians live in 12 “camps” throughout Lebanon. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are not recognized as citizens, cannot acquire legal employment, cannot vote and are sometimes restricted from beautifying their homes (i.e. settling). Lebanese speculation suggests the following reasons: 1) Official acceptance—admitting that they’re here to stay–would remove one of Lebanon’s important bartering chips with Israel. 2) Since Palestinians are mostly Sunni, their proportional participation in parliament would lopside the current division of power between Shiites, Sunnis and Christians.

But let’s be clear. I DON’T REALLY KNOW. Did you hear me? I don’t know. Because it’s impossible to get an opinion without bias here.

So now, after sixty years, the Borj el Barajne refugee “camp” is not a collection of tents, but a rough, third-world neighborhood. Unprotected cables swing in every direction, children sell lottery tickets, birkas carry babies, garbage piles on the curb, smarmy service taxis carry six, a camel paces impatiently in front of an auto service station, a family of three with an area rug ride on a motorbike. In this square mile area, people sway, a little like rival gang members, in opposing political directions. Some favor Hamas, others Fatah and then there are Jihadists. That’s why the occasional fatal squabble occurs. Yet lucky for us, since we got lost here yesterday, it’s not dangerous. Taxis will still cheat you out of a buck or two when you’re new, but due to Muslim-inspired fear and the consequence of public shame, crime is low.

In a disheveled, cracked nutshell, this is where I’m going a few times a week. To get to know these Palestinians. To search for website photos. To play with the kids. To learn my rudimentary Arabic. To understand.

P.S. Head to Inma Foundation’s new website to learn, donate, browse photos and see how Michael’s style and technical talent and my content have created online presence for this NGO. It’s almost finished!

On our second day in Beirut, a bright Sunday morning, long before we knew how long we’d stay, Michael and I wandered on foot into the downtown area. After twenty minutes, we’d been stopped three times by security officers–told to stop taking pictures and asked about where we were headed. All of this happened along landscaped medians, yellow-lined roads, glass-walled banks and track-suited joggers. As Michael had remarked, apart from the tanks, it looked a lot like San Diego.Taking an unintentional detour past block after block of gnarled barbed wire and barricades, we slowly realized  that this must be Hezbollah.

Aha! The occupied warzone amidst a cosmopolitan city that all those travelers had been talking about. Soldiers were everywhere. Below  we spied a tiny tent city, but left our cameras safely inside our bags. Cars zoomed by, picking up speed toward a kind of highway. But the sidewalk remained. So carefully, cautiously, we pressed on. Clearly, we were on the fringe of what made Lebanon such a clusterfuck of politics, pride and prejudice.

Finally, as we veered slightly left, a black beret stopped us. We told him we were heading for downtown. After a brief conversation with his officer and a lively discussion with us about Hollywood and George Michael, he sent us directly through what appeared to be an army camp of plywood planks, construction, armed militia and tents. So surreal, it looked a little like a movie set. Condoleeza Rice smiled down from a poster. Officers barely glanced at us. At a final checkpoint, our bags were skim-searched and abruptly, we entered a promenade of dusty shop windows and naked mannequins, boutiques which, since the Summer War of ’06 no longer attracted enough customers to survive.

Soon a plaza of chrome and wicker chairs emerged. Hagen Daaz smiled with creamy scoops and I could see Virgin Records across a star-shaped burst of urban renewal. But several storefronts were merely glossy ghosts. Only a few strollers and toddlers wobbled across the cobblestone-ringed center while Sri Lankan nannies followed. A lone roller-blader criss-crossed the clock-tower-centerpiece. But like a Rolex sold on a corner in Soho, the face was a fake facade, the inside dead with dysfunction. Mimicing Beirut,  its’s hands refused to work together. Four coffee drinkers whispered. Armed soldiers—I saw four from where I then stood– paced within their spaces.

We realize now that what we crossed through the remains of the opposition’s sit-in. Tents from last spring. Still there.That’s why the camp had looked abandoned. It was. The guards, with the American Secretary of State watching over, worked for the Lebanese government and were in protection mode. But who did they think would attack? Syria? America? Hezbollah? Al Qaeda? Israel? We learned that depends on who you talk to.

It was the strangest Sunday morning we’d had in a long time.

We’re now struggling to collect just a coin-purse full of unbiased facts. To figure what the hell is going on, what side we’re supposed to be on and how we should feel as Americans

Stay tuned.

(Photo by Michael)

Garret and his sister Esther, the Irish backpackers staying across the hall, were planning a trip to Golan Heights. I’d never heard of it—and I apologize. But as Garret ranted on like an action movie trailer about the special permission, bombshelled buildings and sledge-hammered sight of this strange buffer territory, I wasn’t enthused. Hadn’t we seen enough ruins?

Well. .

It all started back in the 1967 when Syria lost a bunch of land called Golan Heights to Israel in the Six Day War. This pissed them off. So during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Syria won back 450 sq km of Golan Heights, and a demilitarized, UN-supervised buffer zone began to keep the peace. But now Israel was pissed. Just before giving up Quinetra, a part of Golan Heights just lost back to Syria, they went through and systematically destroyed everything in sight, removing, as Lonely Planet put it “anything that could be unscrewed, unbolted or wrenched from its position.” Then they bulldozed what was left.

(Photo by Michael)

While some say it was revenge, and others claim it served to strengthen the security buffer, it wasn’t pretty. Syria, as you can imagine, now welcomes tourists to witness this act of destruction, just in case there was any doubt about which country was or is in the wrong.

Most of Golan Heights–1,200 square kilometres of territory, manned by thousands of troops–is still under dispute. Neither countries seem interested in compromise.

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That morning at the bus station, I realized I’d forgotten my passport, which could have been disastrous. But I was optimistic. We made it through two checkpoints where no one seemed to correctly compare the number of heads with the number of documents. And at our final threshhold, after a promise to take photos and patient smiles, we were in.

Rain fell freely into the roofless shops of Quinetra’s main street as the five of us shuffled in an unintentionally staggered formation up and down the empty roads, each on our own private walk through the modern ruins of real conflict. Dirt-stained goats grazed in the weeds between garlic-colored stone and gravel. The walls and arches of a stone church appeared like so many we’d paid to see in the past. Climbing the dark, narrow, princess-style spiral of a crumbling minaret, there was a disturbing view of Quinetra’s mine-filled fields and the Israeli territory in the distance. But kilometers of gnarled barbed wire and our Syrian guide kept us on the right path.

Coming upon a kind of checkpoint, our tour was abruptly over. We stoo for over an hour in the slanted rain waiting for a ride back to civilizaiton. Soldiers came and went. Gold badged and bereted, some huddled in a small office. Others shot the shit inside a checkpoint station. Another was in charge of lifting the gate for incoming SUVs with “UN” in big, bold and black letters along the side. When encountered, they were timidly friendly, always interested. One little boy, age 10, accompanying his father, practiced his English by shouting to us with a high-toothed, rabbit smile.

Finally, piling into an army jeep with other fatigue-covered men, we rode back to our first interrogator and stood awkwardly in a two by two shelter. Plastic white deck chairs slid on a muddy, public-school tile floor while a red, cable-wrapped, deckless boom box chanted Arabic radio and a small stove dripped propane. An extra-strength candle, which looked a lot like a stick of dynamite had been lit and placed outside the window. Kalushnakas hung on a row of nails. The guards were nothing but nice.

Golan Heights was plenty disturbing, just as anticipated. I kept thinking–all this fighting and destruction over a little piece of land? But Michael reminded me that everything is relative. When your country is this small, a couple hundred kilometers matter more. Who am I to talk, anyway? Had the United States ever permanently lost any sizeable land? No, it seemed like we’d had much more experience in taking it away from others.

I am still digesting.

He had helped us find a taxi from the bus station to our Damascus hotel. It took longer to find kind strangers inSyria, but all we could do was argue with belligerent overcharging taxi drivers until someone intervened.

A week later, we met Abdullah for dinner in the Arabic equivalent of Chili’s. Here, instead of Duncan Sheik, Egyptian music wavered through weak acoustics. Rather than green lamp shades and baseball, lights were bright and soap operas flickered with muted melo-drama. Fountains springing from marble replaced booths and sectional dividers. Busboys in bright cumberbunds, baggy trousers and red tassled top hats, the outfit, which thanks to slapstick American comedy, we’ve most often seen on monkeys, scurried from pipe to pipe, adjusting coals. Apple smoke and cologne mixed with our oxygen. On the table, hummus, fatoush and kebabs were predictably flavorful. Syrup-strewn dates and figs, along with a fruit plate belonging on a lady’s hat, arrived for dessert.

Earlier that evening, he’d taken us to Umuyyad Mosque, from which the souks of Damascus darted and diagonalled. Built in the 8th century, and allegedly containing the head of John the Baptiste, Umuyyad Mosque was originally revered for it’s fine mosaics depicting paradise. According to story, they so impressed Muhammad that he declined to enter, preferring to taste paradise in the afterlife. Umuyyad’s, courtyard, fresh from an afternoon rain and shining with the frost of a light-polluted, but indigo sky, was like a football field of pure marble peace. We’d visited mosques before—in Istanbul and Adana. But tonight, we’d arrived during evening prayer and at this hour, in a rented hood and cape (looking a lot like a character from the Handmaid’s Tale), I was the only pretender in sight. The cold carpetland was nothing like a church. Men and women prayed in their own private, but invisibly-bordered space. An imam read the Koran aloud to a group of worshippers. Whispering wasn’t required.

Abdullah had walked us through Umuyyad with obvious pride, but he wasn’t a man of Allah and rarely attended mosque. An electrical engineer, he came from a family of professionals, owned real estate, and talked excitedly about the red-label whiskey in his studio flat. He seemed so very. . . .Western.

Yet at a one point, Abdullah refused to have his picture taken. He was nervous about my note-taking. Twice, he warned us not to give out his mobile number to anyone else at the hotel. And now, during what would turn out to be a three hour dinner, our conversation tooled through topics like Brittany Spears, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzzeneger; couchsurfing, the Discovery Channel and European travel. We were fusing common bonds through pop culture and not much else, navigating through a safe and easy, Sunday-morning street kind of discussion.

And our conversation would go no further than this.

Ever since we’d arrived inSyria, we’d felt it impossible to deny the slightly grim disposition of its human faces and cement facades. These people weren’t rude, but they didn’t smile a whole lot either. They were guarded. Unmistakably suspicious of strangers. People who felt the intangible squeeze of a socialist state. Assad was everyone’s big brother and the posters didn’t let anyone forget.

Consequently, as visitors, in our own tunnel between the surfaces of a socialist looking glass, even if followed or monitored, we faced no danger. If an issue erupted, it was Syrians who were called in for questioning. Syrians who would be penciled into a logbook. Syrians who would, from then on, save real conversation for behind closed curtains. This we knew.

Yet we remained a novelty for Abdullah. He practially begged us to hit a bar in the Christian Quarter–an evening that would end around “4 or 5 AM”. He offered his extra studio flat to us for free during the summer months. He seemed hungry, stomach rumbling, for outside influence.

I never, not once, thought we’d see the communist ghosts of Sofia directing thought traffic on the streets of Damascus. But that’s what happened. Talk about a complex world. And we hadn’t even reached Beirut.

I’ve always been a big fan. Spunky, cowgirl hip, remarkable vocal and instrumental talent, melodies that reminds me of home and lyrics that elucidate strength and softness. A little Charlie Daniels, a little cherry cheesecake, but chock full of sophistication, they’ve helped country become more cosmopolitan. And I’m all for that.

As I’m sure you heard, a few years ago, at a London performance, on the cusp of both their Top of the World tour and America’s invasion of Iraq, Dixie Chick lead singer Natalie Maines announced to the audience, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”

It was (and still is) her opinion. Protected by free speech, a constitutional right, Natalie certiainly broke no laws. Just a rule. That one about insulting your primary fan base.

It’s not something I would have chosen to say to a crowd of millions on foreign soil. Regardless of my opinion on Iraq or Bush, it just wasn’t a dignified move. But because she’s from a genre of music known for their conservative (and often radical) views, I understood her need to clarify. And I’m sure thousands more wholeheartedly agreed with her anyway.

But many more did not. Overnight their reputation crashed like a pick-up truck in an old country song. The KYGO’s and WLLR’s of the USA banned their music. Sponsorships were pulled. The Free Republic, an independent online forum for grass-roots conservativism, organized and riled their devoted followers to hold cd-burning parties. Country’s primarily red-state audience spat into their spit cups with protest and outrage. Even moderates were stung by this interpreted lack of support for our troops. Hate mail and death threats followed. Maines eventually made apologies but they were later retracted.

By expressing their political views and reacting to controversy with somewhat naïve, knee-jerk reactions, the Chicks had shot themselves in the feet. More than once. While many fans remained, that group was a fraction of their original following.

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In 2006, after three years of musical silence, they released Taking the Long Way Around. With songs like “Not Ready to Make Nice”, “Everybody Knows” and “Bitter End”, their lyrics do more than just mention the emotional strain of audience rejection and unintentional martyrhood. But there’s not one note of apology or backpedaling. Not one regret. With an album Continue reading ‘A few words about the Dixie Chicks. . .’