Maine Adventures

I have now been up in Maine "Down East" since June 1st. Been busy doing care-taking work for Papa's Mother-in-law who is recovering from hip surgery, and odd jobs around the summer cabins: bonfires to burn off two-year-old brush from fallen timbers a few winters ago, cleaning and organizing the cabins and the new tool room, sorting through old linens.


Papa






Cousins Jenny and Eric arrived this past Monday and have been busy at work doing their own tasks. Last night I stayed with them at the cabin and helped to discover various red squirrel nests full of empty acorn shells, pillow stuffing, shredded tissue paper, and such odd things. This morning we took the boat over to the other cabin (or rather cottage if you want to be technical) on the island across the river exactly one mile away.

We got busy right away clearing out the kitchen and putting in hard labor repainting and building new shelves. After four hours or so, it was really time to go. It had been storming all night and the wind was starting to really kick up again. We got everything together, down our rickety ramp, motor started, and over the perilous reefs that sit in front of our dock. Buzzing along in the gray sky and choppy water from the strong wind, but no rain.






Half way across the river, about half a mile from each shore, "putt, putter" goes the motor, then dead silence.

Yank. Choke out. Yank. Choke in. Pump the gas. Look for seaweed in the propeller. A few more yanks. Meanwhile, paddling with one small oar and sculling with a deck plank as another, Jenny and I are doing our darndest to keep the boat inching forward, if just staying in the general direction of home. Yank. About 7 minutes later the motor finally gives in and turns over.

Moving along again at a decent pace, we are home free. But we relax too soon.
"Putt, putter." Pure sweet silence.

We start this Yank, choke, yank, oar, plank, yank series all aver again. No luck. We are drifting in the middle of the river going nowhere, the tide moving one way, the wind the other.

A curious seal keeps popping its head above the water and ducking down again, only to resurface moments later. Clearly wondering why these humans have decided to take a rest in the middle of the river on such a gray, dismal, and rainy day.

Cell phone dying, but enough to make a call. "Papa, we are floating in the middle of the river."
"What sound did it make when it died?"
"A sort of putt, putter, then silence."
"Is the choke connected?"
"Yes."
"Did you check for seaweed?"
"Yes of course."
"Is the choke connected?"
"Yes! We are going to need a tow. Do you know anyone close enough to come get us before the rain comes?"
"I will have to come get you myself."
"Well should we go back to the island if we can manage it? We might make it with the waves."
"Alright. Call me if you manage a tow."

Meanwhile we have still been floating in the middle of the river, the seal still popping up every so often. We manage to turn the boat around using the oar and the plank. We have large plastic rain-ponchos on board due to the weather. I get this wild idea that we might use one as a sort of sail. I grab one end and Eric the other. We stretch it over the boat and the strong wind catches it beautifully. "Pull up the motor jenny and use the oar for a rudder! Look at that! We actually have a wake! And we are making progress!"





We move along in this manner for 15 minutes or so, and had we gone another hour, we might have actually reached the island. Fortunately, the makeshift poncho sail also signaled beyond doubt to the sole lobster-boat in the river that we were in need of some SOS. The "Michaela…" from Sebasco, another harbor away, came to our rescue and gave us a tow home. "Some weather to be taking a boat ride," Raymond says. "Thanks a lot for the tow. We will sneak a six-pack in your boat sometime next time you are in the harbor."

So, we made it home. Papa met us at the dock on the other side of the river and eventually took the motor in to the shop. Turns out it was an electrical problem.

I never will forget sailing the "Whaler" with a large rain-poncho and a rudder made from an oar. I suppose anything is possible if you put your head in the right place.

try again.. ya hussein, it is all your fault...

I should be working…


I can't seem to get up early enough these days. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe the fact that I am leaving soon…


I am tired of reading about Lebanese politics. Even when they find solutions, they find something else to argue about. It is as if they don't know what to do with them selves if god-forbid they actually have a functioning government one of these days. I am tired of reading about Libya and Gaddafi and NATO and death. Tired of reading about Syria and Assad and promises never kept. And don't get me started on Palestine and Israel.


But aside from the news, I actually love what I am doing. I love coming every day and working. Making jokes with my colleagues about emails telling us the world is coming to an end on May 21. I love sitting at my desk and within five minutes Mahmoud has brought me a cup of Turkish coffee, within 20 a manousheh with zaatar, cheese, mint, and tomatoes.


Appearently the end of the world is going to start with an earthquake in Rome today…


Hussein, "So we should forget about work and go enjoy the day … we are wasting our time here … Fuck it!"


Me, "I thought it wasn't till the 21st?"


Hussein, "Today is the 12th, we still have nine days before, before the Tsunami comes."


"You are missing a comma here and you added an extra 'and' here. And you should say a definite article before 'power vacuum', we spell Jumblat with one 'T', I know they use two at the 'Daily Star' but they are stupid and full of mistakes. Please put dots between the 'U' and the 'S' in U.S., but omit them from UN EU UK and so forth. I am having to delete dots constantly."


This is what I do from 8:00 am till 2:00 pm when deadline happens and I have to cram about 5 articles in 20 minutes and make the corrections. (Damn dots!) That is the only stressful part of the job outside of the depressing news.


Yesterday: Hey good news, the Lebanese finally agreed on a minister of interior solution.


Today: agreement reached, but snags still present.

Come on people … just make up your mind. Do you want a government or not? How long will you let outside influence affect your decision-making? How long are you going to let selfishness rule you? It is an endless story. And to think for fun I am reading 'Visions of Cody' by Kerouac. Man, he doesn't take a breath. Some paragraphs are 2 pages long. Some sentences are 2 pages long!


I really should be working … I suppose I will get back to it now.


I guess I just can't be bothered with it this morning. Instead, I am writing for myself and listening to music on my headphones. Terrible employee I am. Actually, they are very happy with my work and I will be taking it with me when I leave, at least part of it.


It was grey this morning, but the sun is starting to shine and it matches the 'Boards of Canada' that I am listening to perfectly. I might even get some good news to read on my desk today.


Cross my fingers.

Beirut-Cyprus-Coming home

One monkey don't stop the show, so get on board. Here comes a freight train. So get on board.

Empty room save for two thin mattresses on the floor, a pillow, and a comforter. But, it has a door that closes and I am by myself. For the first time in a very long time over some wild few months, I start typing again.

Listening to Gillian Welsh and feeling the end of a chapter approaching. Honestly Beirut is such a Debaucherous city, I feel embarrassed to write about it sometimes. Maybe in the future in some alternate memoirs under an alias.

Been working my 'dream job' copy-editing for a Mid-East news wire this last month. It has been great, but I am still not convinced I am cut out for a desk job. The hours are long and the work is tedious, and it doesn't pay much. Still, it is work and way better than working at a pub. I did that too, but it only lasted about 2 weeks. The guy was cheap and only wanted to pay me $15 a day for 6-8 hours of work. A dead and lonely place except on Thursdays and Fridays when they have events, but I didn't work those nights.

Eventually I found this editing job and over-all it has kept me going.

I managed to make it to Cyprus to visit my friend there for about 5 days. That was a whole other adventure. Cypriots are a bit funny. They are a very open society, but very sexually frustrated. I spent most of my time hanging out with these wild tranies who run phone sex lines. They put ads in the paper for different options—girl, gay boy, couple, trani, etc.—and have a phone that is connected to each ad. We sat around the house drinking frappe and watching weird Greek TV shows waiting for the phones to ring. And they rang.

"Ne?" (Imagine trying to speak like a girl).

The people calling pay 2 Euros per minute. The goal is to keep them on the phone as long as possible. I wish I understood Greek, because even not understanding it I was laughing, but I can only imagine the things they were saying. Sometimes it was just phone sex, sometimes they agree to meet the guy, but they don’t go. After a while the guy calls back, again at 2 Euros per minute, and they go into some long explanation about why they are late and say they are on their way, but they still don't go. He calls back and again they make up an excuse as to why they can't actually make it. Meanwhile, the guy has been sitting on the side of the road some place. And all this works, because Cyprus is so damned small and families are pretty traditional so it is not really acceptable socially to just go out and hook up with some one (though I am sure that happens too).

Anyhow, it was wild.

Aside from the tranies, I did get to visit the beach Where Aphrodite was born out of the sea. The tradition is to make a wish on a pebble from the beach and toss it high on the rocks. Mine always fall down, but my wishes have come true so far. I visit the place every time I am in Cyprus.

We also went to some little village fair where vendors sell all sorts of junkie shit, toys, socks, doodads, nuts, preserves, ice cream, balloons. There is a church there with a deep cave behind it. The corridor is long, dark, and narrow and plunges into the earth to reveal a small natural well. The water is supposed to be healing and bring you love. So, I tried a bit of that too. I have never cared much who I wish to or pray to or ask for help. I say the more the merrier. Anyone who wants to help can be my guest: Santa Maria, Saint Christopher, Kali, Durga, Guru Nanak, the Jinn, I don't care. You got some random African tribal saint? I will take that too.

The last night I was there, I was at a pub with Karaoke. No, I did not sing. But I did make friends with these four British marines who were on a break from Afghanistan. One of them eventually told me he was just sick and tired of seeing his friends dying. He still has three more years to go, poor thing. I actually changed my ticket because I wanted to hang out with them more.

My friend Stelios, one of the gay boys, was begging for me to come back to Cyprus in the summer. I told him I would be back soon.

I did eventually make it back to Beirut. That was a little over a week ago.

Rob finally got to Beirut and I moved in with him and out of Rawya's. That lasted until Yesterday. Rob went to Oslo for an interview with NRC to take a position in Iraq. While I was here, he did a two-week bit in Kabul. I, myself, am coming back to the states now to stay with my dad for the summer at his place in Maine.

My ticket home is, funny enough, on Cyprus Airways to London with a 6 hour stop over in Larnaca. So I guess it really wasn't that long after all that the little island called me back.

I will be in London for five days before catching a flight on some Icelandic airline that I cant remember the name of with a stop over in Reykjavik before landing in Newark. One night in New York and then back to DC on the bus.

What a wild trip it's been.

Cairo to Beirut

Beirut
February 28, 22011



It has been raining for the last three days now. Traveling here happened so fast that I had not had a chance to write. One day we are in Luxor, the next in Aswan, and the next back in Luxor to catch a flight back to Cairo. After just 14 short hours in Cairo, I am in a taxi on my way to the airport to come to Beirut.


A warm welcome from my friend Ghas who has fetched me from the airport the last three times I have arrived here, and a short visit to bring birthday cake to his daughter, I meet up with my friend Rawya whose home I will be staying at while I am here.


The first day is sunny and blue skies with scattered white clouds. I take a beautiful afternoon walk across town to my favorite hangout to meet a friend. Sitting at the bar, I hear a familiar voice behind me (it is a very small place). I turn around and catch the eyes of a blonde woman. After staring at each other for a minute or so:


"What are you doing here?" "What are YOU doing here?!"


It is Arwa, a CNN news correspondent that I had met just a week prior in Cairo. Turns out all the foreign correspondents in the region are taking their R-and-R in Beirut these days. Now that’s a fun twist of circumstances.


That was the 24th. The next day it started raining and it has not stopped except for brief periods. I took a walk around Hamra the other night to visit some friends who were working in various pubs in the neighborhood, and had the pleasure of bumping into two very dear friends whom I have not seen in years. I thought they were in Canada. It is a small world after all, especially in Beirut.


There are a few changes here; about a dozen new pubs and bars, major construction of apartments and other buildings all over town, people actually following traffic signals, but for the most part, it is still that familiar Beirut. I have become so accustomed to it now, that it doesn't even feel that much like a foreign country to me, except for the language barrier of course.


I look around as I walk through town and think to take pictures, but then realize I have taken all those pictures before. I think to describe what the city is like when it rains, but I have written about this in a previous Blog years ago. So, I sit with Rawya and her family watching the news in Arabic and bad American sitcoms waiting for the rain to stop.


We were supposed to join a protest that happened here yesterday against the sectarianism that is meshed into the political system. President has to be Maronite; Prime Minister, Sunni; speaker of parliament, Shia, and so on. I am sure that there was a certain logic to it when they set it up that way, but it has complicated things a bit and there is a certain segment of the society that would like it to change, have people elected on their Merit, rather than their religious lines. It is really way to complicated to explain in the short run, especially if one is not so familiar with it to start.


Beirut is its same beautiful self. Some things are very easy to sort out, like getting my earring soldered back together the first day by a jeweler friend; and others are not, like solving the complicated political problems. But life goes on.


It feels so calm here compared to Egypt, which really reminded me of the chaotic New Delhi streets; dirt, people, traffic, shouting, noise, over population…I was really starting to get worn out from it. Who knew one would come to decompress in Beirut of all places. Though it is a much different city since its Civil War days, the stigma from that time has never seemed to reverse itself in the minds of many in the West.


Downtown is thriving again, where just in the spring of 2008 saw the end of the 2-years-long tent city protest of the opposition movement. Pubs, bars, and restaurants are popping up like a chain of mushrooms nearly over night, and they all seem to get business. There are a lot more foreigners here these days, like it was in the summer before the start of the 2006 war.


I went with a bunch of friends Friday night at 3:30 am to catch Nick Warren who was DJing a party in BO18, a club here. We missed his set, but the place was packed like sardines as usual even though tickets were $70 a pop. I didn't pay of course; even in Beirut, I have my ways of getting in for free. I didn't get home till 6:30 am. I think it took me till this morning to fully recover. My body just can't do it like I did when I was 20, dancing for 8 hours non-stop and doing it again the next night. Thank-God those days are over.


I am going to my old place of work today to meet with my old supervisor and check on the progress of the programs we worked on together. It is nice to see some of my efforts being put to use after all these years. (www.dhiafeeprogram.org many of the photos and descriptions are mine, but labeled 'ANERA Staff').


I am waiting for Rob to come from Cairo, as he has got some things he is working on there, and I was eager to come here. That won't be for at least another two weeks or so it seems. Until then, I have to figure out things to keep me busy, lest I end up in the house all day.


The rain has let up now, hopefully the sun will even come out today for a little while. Maybe I will take another stroll across town and get my boots fixed. You never know who I might run into this time. There are plenty of friends who I have yet to see. Every time I manage to get out of the house, it turns into an adventure.


Just what I live for.


In case you are interested in that earlier piece I wrote about rain in Beirut, or my writing from before, its in my old Blog on myspace: www.myspace.com/sathari

Luxor, Valley of the Kings

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A few lazy days in the apartment in Cairo after the excitement of the revolution was coming to an end and life in the city was returning to normal. The streets noisy and filled with traffic, honking, and exhaust. It was definitely time to move on with this adventure.

Some time at the beach in the Sinai sounded just right. 2:30 pm: Our bags packed, we head out into the afternoon din to make our way to the airport to catch our 5:00 pm flight. Taxi to the Metro, Metro to a station closer to the airport, taxi from that station to the airport. 4:30 pm: Gate is closed. We miss our flight.

Having no desire to venture back into the city, we look at the other possible flights. No more are going to the Sinai for the rest of the day, but we see that there is a flight to Luxor at 7:00 pm. Why the hell not?

Change the tickets, coffee in the airport for an hour, and we are off. One hour later, we are in Luxor next to the Valley of the Kings. We arranged a hotel and had a driver collect us from the airport.

"Welcome!" Along the way to the hotel, we learn that we are his first tourists since the start of the protests. "Fifty percent of the economy here in Luxor is tourism. Most people are happy about the change, but they need life to return to normal so that people will start to visit again."

"If you have not been working these last twenty days, what have you been doing with your time?"

"Hanging out with my friends everyday, playing dominos and smoking. Normally we don't smoke because we are working, only on special occasion, but we have nothing to do, so we smoke."

It was not exactly the answer I was expecting. I thought for sure at first he meant smoking sheesha, but he added, "Well, yes, but also other things…"

The Nile is beautiful at night. The lights along the banks reflected perfectly in the calm waters. We overtake lorries, donkey carts, scooters, and other vehicles. No one uses their headlights. A mystery I have not been able to find an answer for. We cross the river to the side that is more local, less lights, smaller buildings, quiet.

The salon of the Senmut Bread and Breakfast is full of family members of the proprietor. Hanin, about 5 years old and the eldest of the 3 daughters, smiles hugely and cocks her head from side to side looking at me inquisitively in that 5-year-old kind of way.

We are the only guests. They bring us tea and water, later we take a simple meal on the roof terrace overlooking the Nile, the lights and sounds of the East bank in a distant universe across the river. Senmut, the lover of queen Hatshepsut, built a temple in her honor to proclaim his love for her. Now this little temple bears his name…

…

The sun is hot in Upper Egypt. There are no tourists left here in Luxor. Our new friends have been forced to take a one-month vacation, so they build "illegally" on their own land. The government wanted to usurp their lands to sell to foreign investors and would not let them build. Here they are having a revolution of defiance. Everyone is building. Brick by brick, floor by floor, since the last two weeks.

It is a different revolution here in Luxor. They had only 2 days of protest. But the economy is suffering. Tourism makes up almost 90 percent of the economy here. We are the first tourists since people evacuated.

This is the final resting place of the Pharaohs. The Valley of the Kings. Home to amazing temples built to Ra, Queen Hatshepsut, and Hathor among others.

Yesterday I was gazing at the mummy of king Tut Ankh Aman. I sat beneath the lid of the sarcophagus of king Merenptah (the guide let us because there was no one else there. We stood in perfect silence. I could not get over the feeling that this must be what it is like in the afterlife…silence, ceiling covered in heirogliphic stars painted azure blue, with the goddess Nut to watch over your journey. Silently touching the relief of the body of a goddess carved carefully into granite, so heavy that it took 2000 years for someone to disturb you. Now, in normal days, the lines to visit are so thick, it is unbearable. Today, during a revolution to bring about a new Egypt, there is no one; we sit in the king's grave, absorbing the five pointed stars, Nut, Isis, Anubis.

Queen Hatshepsut's temple. Built into the mountain. A small temple dedicated to Hathor, my favorite, Goddess of birth and renewal, love, and music. She happened upon me suddenly. I have been in love with Hathor for many years but I did not understand the guide when he was explaining where we were going. All of a sudden, I am standing in the middle of pillars adorned with the pleasant face of Hathor. Carvings of her Mother Cow form on reliefs of the walls behind, the sun reaching its evening peak, silently she is calming the heart.

I am so tired. I did not sleep at all the night of our arrival. Now back at the hotel, I lay prone. There is a part of my back that is vibrating: as if the scarab that was inked there long ago has been awakened, pushing the sun towards the new dawn.

Day by day, this life is formulated. So many unknowns. There is no way to predict the future. One day I am meant to travel to Sinai, but here I am in Luxor. The Pharaohs are calling.

One day there is a dictator, 18 days later, there is no government, and others around the region are finding their voice. It may not overthrow all rulers, but it will produce change, and that is something that is a true sign of the times.

I think my mother's text to me last night puts it best:

"Solar flares & full moon & revolution. Fun love you."

Tahrir Square the day after Mubarak

Walking to Tahrir square the day after the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, the energy was alive, invigorating, only getting more visceral as we moved deeper into the square...








Children are lifted onto tanks to pose for photographs




Many people carry brooms and dustpans, volunteering to clean the streets




There is a crowd silently taking pictures of the burnt NDP headquarters


Ibrahim and Mahmoud follow us for a time, posing for the camera


Mahmoud



The crowd starts to thicken




Volunteers make a human chain to protect the freshly painted curbs






Little children sit atop their father's shoulders carrying baby flags





The youth dance toward the crowd




"Sorry for the disturbance, we build Egypt"




The water bearer




Osama and the creepy short middle-aged man


Ibrahim



I never got her name