Moldy pita bread, elevator drama, and missed marriage opportunities

A problem I’ve been running into at the grocery store is finding smaller packages of pita bread. I live alone and don’t have time to go through a whole package before the bread starts to mold, so I’ve been on the lookout for smaller packaging. But then it occurred to me that no one lives alone in Lebanon, so why would stores sell small packages of anything?

Also, I got stuck in the elevator the other evening. Not because the power went out, as it does 4+ times a day, but because it just decided to malfunction. With me in it. Apart from being buried alive, getting stuck in an elevator is one of my biggest fears. I am not a fan of confined spaces, literal or metaphorical, and I usually opt for the stairs in any reasonable situation. But I live on the sixth floor….and I get lazy….

I certainly don’t want to be a drama queen (it really could have been so much worse), but I was in there for a good 10 minutes before my friend Wael was able to talk me through what to do on the phone while the building’s super and her friend pounded on the door and yelled in some Indian language so loudly that I could hardly hear what he was saying. (Side note: I seriously owe Wael the next two years of my life for the amount of times he’s saved my butt since moving here). 

Needless to say, I will be taking the stairs from now on. The upside is that I will have a toned derrière in about two months. Mmm…maybe three. 

Something that makes me chuckle is how puzzled people look when I tell them that I recently left Sweden to come live in Lebanon for a couple of years. They’re like, why?!? Everyone from the college student to the lady at church to the taxi driver will say, “Man, if I lived in Sweden I’d never leave. It’s so nice there; why would you come here?” And their puzzled expressions will grow even more pronounced when they learn that I live alone. Like, really?? You don’t have any friends? Or my favorite: You don’t have a husband? 

Not yet. But I almost caught one in the taxi ride home this evening. The driver could barely speak a word of English, but I managed to explain - in rudimentary Arabic - that I’m from Sweden (again, the puzzled why would you come here if you could live there look) and that I’ll be here for a couple of years. He said he was 32 and I said I was too, and then he asked if I was married and I said no (another puzzled look) and then he asked if I lived with family, to which I again said no (a third puzzled look). Had his English been better, I’m fairly certain he would have proposed marriage. 

Shucks. Next time. 

The daily grind

It’s been two and a half weeks, and I’m finding my rhythm. 

Every morning at 9:00, I make the trek to work (all five flights of stairs) and help Maher stay on top of all of the written communication that needs to go out (newsletters, prayer updates, project proposals, grant applications, progress reports etc). It’s not difficult work, but it can be tedious and very time consuming. Each foundation/donor organization has its own template and set of questions it wants answered, and I’m not always sure of the level of detail expected. Some want super wordy, in-depth descriptions; others want bullet points. Oof. 

I’m loving being back with my tribe. It feels so natural to be working shoulder to shoulder with them, even though we all do different things. 

YFCL staff and volunteers

After work I’ll sometimes take a walk down Slaf Street to buy fresh produce at the corner stand. The locally grown fruit is delicious, but I get most excited about the fresh mint leaves. They use mint in everything here, and it is completely delightful. 

If I’m feeling more adventurous, or simply desperate for some fresh milk, I’ll make the slightly longer trek to the grocery store chain nearby. It’s only a 10 minute walk, but you take your life into your hands as you contest with the mad drivers on the road. An especially tricky part is crossing Dekwaneh Circle, a roundabout of sorts that has cars coming from six different directions and everyone has the right of way. It’s intense. I’d take a photo of it...but I’d be hit by a car...so I’m making survival choices. 

My evening ritual is to sit on my balcony with a cup of fresh mint tea and watch the light transition behind the city skyline. Every night there’s a football (soccer) match on the pitch just below me, and I like to observe how the cars weave through and around my block. If you forget about standard rules of the road and think of how pedestrian traffic flows in, say, midtown Manhattan, you’ll get a better sense of how things work here. Mmm...but even Midtown is ordered and precise compared to this, so never mind. 

In addition to drinking mint tea in the evenings, I barricade myself in the living room with the AC on and practice my Arabic. So far I can say very useful things like, "I like to make eggs for breakfast" and "I want to make chicken for dinner, but you're not invited." Perhaps the most useful phrase though is this: Arabe tabahe mish'm'nieha bas ambet haalem (phonetically spelled to say: My Arabic is not good, but I am learning). 

That one's going to be on repeat for a while.