An ode to Uber drivers

Because I’m pretty slow at being modern, I had never used Uber until I moved to Beirut, took one look at the way people drive and decided that I didn’t want to buy a car. To my great surprise and convenience, I learned that Uber was a thing here (as is Caribou Coffee from Minnesota - random), so I decided to give it a try. A year later, I’m still alive and still saving money on car insurance. 

Here are the guys who have been getting me around town… 

The introvert. The best Uber driver is the one who doesn’t feel the need to make conversation, he just gets me to where I want to go. LOVE that guy.

The extrovert. This guy likes to make conversation but generally only speaks Arabic or French, and when we establish that I don’t speak those languages, he makes a few feeble attempts at English but eventually falls silent and just drives. Sometimes a friend will call him on the phone and he’ll happily chat away and forget I’m there. 

The DUI guy. This has only happened to me once, but he’s the guy who smoked or snorted something before picking me up, has no idea where he’s going, drives over a cement divider, looks confused about what that noise was, and doesn’t respond when I give him direction. 

The guy who has relatives in Sweden. There are anywhere between 9 and 14 million Lebanese living outside of Lebanon, most of them in the States, Canada or Brazil. But quite a few live in Europe, and there will always be the driver who, when he learns that I’m Swedish, sits up straight, turns around and excitedly exclaims, “Hur mår du?!?” (How are you?). He then proceeds to list off all the relatives he has living in Göteborg, Stockholm, Malmö and Linköping. Usually he’s the unfortunate sibling who didn’t manage to snag a Swedish spouse and is therefore relegated to taking care of the matriarch who refuses to leave her village. 

The moonlighter. He works as a high school teacher by day, an Uber driver by night. Since most west-bound flights take off in the middle of the night here, he’s usually the one driving me to the airport. His English is pretty good and he asks me for suggestions for where to go on his honeymoon since he’s finally saved up enough money to marry his fiancee of nine years. 

The archeologist. This one is my favorite. He’s educated, cultured, speaks seven languages, and engages in genuinely interesting conversation about religion and politics in Lebanon. He can tell me anthropological stories about the buildings we drive by and I think to myself, what’s he doing driving a taxi for a living? (Then again, I was an educated, cultured, multi-linguist who worked at a car rental desk once upon a time, so I don’t judge. We all have our journeys.) 

The responsible citizen. He’s the one who shyly but kindly suggested I change my Uber profile name from Annika to something else as the last syllable, if mispronounced, sounds like a sexual expletive in Arabic. (My profile name now reads ‘Ani’.)   

And my (least) favorite…

The flirt. This is the guy who barely speaks any English but insists on ‘teaching me Arabic’ and asking questions like “Do you have a husband,” “Why aren’t you married,” “Do you have a boyfriend,” “Why don’t you have a boyfriend.” And even though I’m trying demonstrably to be wrapped up in what’s happening outside my car window, he’ll move on to ask how old I am, and when I tell him I’m 33 he’ll tell me he’s 37, and also single!!…then waits for me to make the obvious connection. Also, he’s so busy looking at and talking to me through the rearview mirror that he keeps missing the turn. The Uber app doesn’t include “flirts too much” as a reportable problem, so I choose “GPS map” (‘cause he’s certainly reading my map wrong). 

That all said, I put my life into these men’s hands almost daily, and I’m alive to tell the tale. So hats off to the Uber drivers of Beirut. You may vex me at times, but you also save me from having to deal with crazy women driving black SUVs. For that, I thank you.

Affirming the good

I suppose it’s late for me to start voicing thoughts about the #MeToo campaign, but neither do I have that much to say about it, truthfully. I’ve stayed peripherally aware of the goings on, and I certainly champion the idea that it’s time for despicable male behavior to be called out and publicly condemned. I also applaud the tremendous bravery that women have shown in voicing their painful experiences for the sake of future generations of women. That said, I do have reservations about the extreme degree to which the pendulum has swung, because I fear it will only swing back to the opposite extreme once the fervor has cooled and/or persecuted parties get fed up (rightly or wrongly). 

I almost feel ashamed to admit this in the face of so much female long-suffering, but I’ve never been the victim of abuse, harassment or blatant discrimination by any man - and apparently this makes me the exception. I’ve never been given a reason to hate or distrust men, and I credit my family for that gift. I am a granddaughter to men of kindness and decency, a daughter to a man of integrity and perseverance, a sister to a man of profound emotional courage. I am also a friend to many many good men - men of great intelligence, empathy, conviction, love, humor and generosity; single, married, old and young. 

Because so many voices are already addressing the evil, I want to lend my voice to affirm the good. There are so many guys out there who don’t know how to be proper men. But there are so many who do. So here’s my love letter to all you decent, kind hearted, secure, responsible, protective, encouraging blokes out there: 

Thank you for respecting me, even after having seen me at my worst. 

Thank you for not feeling threatened or competitive when interacting with me in a professional capacity. 

Thank you for noticing and affirming my giftings without flattery or flirtation.

Thank you for allowing me to be ‘one of the guys’ without chiding me to toughen up. You’ve allowed me to be myself without making me feel less than. 

Thank you for making me laugh and teaching me not to take myself too seriously. 

Thank you for seeing the leader in me and for giving me a chance to prove myself. Thanks also for not forcing me to prove myself in order to be worth something. 

Thank you for giving me a place at the table, whether that be your kitchen table or your corporate table. 

Thank you for liking my cooking. 

Thank you for being my travel companions and sharing the thrill of discovering new places. 

Thank you for opening the door for me and paying for meals once in a while. I actually think it’s really nice to be cared for in that way. 

Thank you for being honest about your feelings. They haven’t always been in sync with mine, but we’ve been able to rise above it and not let our friendship suffer. That means so much in the long run. 

If I ever have a daughter, I will teach her to befriend men like you, to affirm men like you, to love men like you. 

Not all men have behaved well around me, but they fade in my memory; you are forever etched. Again, thanks guys. You may not know who you are, but I certainly do.  

Reconstructing the comfort rituals

Lebanon is the third country I’ve lived in as a financially independent adult, and I think my conclusion after having moved around a bit is this: the hardest thing for me about starting over in a new country is starting over. And with that I mean, there are rituals that I’ve created and built my enjoyment around in one country that are impossible to recreate in another. I can make new friends, I can discover new cafes and restaurants, I can settle into a new job, a new neighborhood — those things have never been a problem. What I can’t do is recreate my comfort rituals. For the first month I’m usually too preoccupied with discovering the great things about my new home that I hardly feel like I miss anything about my previous one, but the initial stimulation wears off and I’m left grieving the loss of ritual. 

For example, I’m intensely missing autumn. This was always my preferred season in Sweden, and as the nights grew longer I would light candles, bake bread or cinnamon rolls and listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing Cole Porter on the stereo. I just can’t do that here. Even as I write this, I’m listening to Ella Fitzgerald, and it’s just not the same. I’m not getting the feels. And I miss the feels. 

Another favorite ritual was to take brisk walks to my favorite pier, sometimes with a friend, sometimes by myself. The air was crisp and clean and marvelous. I would sit on the edge of that pier for hours.  

Nothing about Beirut’s air is crisp or clean. Also, there’s really nowhere I can go in this city to take a brisk walk among trees. It’s strange; I never cared that much about trees…and then I moved here, and suddenly I’m lamenting the loss of trees in my life, ha ha. (To be clear, the rest of Lebanon has lots of trees, but Beirut has concrete). 

So the challenge is to create new rituals that keep my melancholy soul fed and nurtured. I very much enjoy sitting on my balcony watching the light shift and sipping fresh mint tea. I already know I’m going to miss this when I leave Lebanon. I’ve also found a delightful cafe/wine bar that I intend to spend many hours in, both with friends and in solitude.  

Isn't this wine wall sublime?

...and this corner perfect for reading or typing away on my laptop?

I've kept up my tradition of making pancakes on Saturday mornings, although this particular practice has increased exponentially in price as maple syrup is a spendy import. I may have to limit that ritual to once a month (unless someone wants to come visit me and bring a jug of maple syrup…?). Next is figuring out how to operate my gas oven. I’ve been as yet reticent to turn on the gas and start lighting matches as there’s no button I can push that lights the stove automatically, and I'd rather not perish in a gas explosion if I can help it. I've never used a gas oven before, so I may have to go through a few batches of brownies before I get the hang of it (but when have gooey brownies ever been a problem for humanity?). 

Thankfully, the one ritual I can reproduce anywhere is blogging. :) 

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. 

Trust the sunscreen

Being a red head, I have pretty fair skin, but I am also fortunate enough to be able to decently tan as long as I wear proper sunscreen. If I cover my whole body with SPF 30, I can spend an entire day at the beach, say, in southern Spain, and not end up with a serious sunburn. I might look a little pink that evening, but by the time I wake up the next morning, I’m fine. However, while I’m at the beach I can easily get a little nervous because I see my skin getting a bit red and I think, crap, I’m gonna burn. 

But I’ve learned to trust the sunscreen.

Earlier this week (Monday), I moved from Spain/Sweden to Beirut, Lebanon. Towards the end of my first full day in my new apartment (Wednesday), I ran out of water. When I went to take a shower before heading out for dinner, there was barely more than a trickle and I was told that the government water hadn’t been replenished in several days (not an entirely unusual phenomenon apparently). Upon returning from dinner, Wael, my YFCL colleague, friend and fixer, had his guy at a private water company bring their truck and refill my tank. At 10:30 p.m.  

Thank the Lord for friends who have contacts and are willing to wait an hour for the truck to arrive and give this damsel in distress a hand. 

Just before flying out to Beirut, I spent the weekend in Switzerland. This was SUCH a gift. Not only because I got to spend time with two fantastic new friends in a country that I’ve been dying to visit for a long time, but I was able to reconnect with some people who have meant a lot to me in recent years. These individuals are the most unassuming, unpretentious people you will ever meet, yet they are, and regularly rub shoulders with, highly placed people within international governance and humanitarian work. Their warmth and generosity, their genuine interest in me as a person and their love for the Kingdom of God are beyond what I have words to express. 

The fact that all of us are in this one picture is incredible in itself. With very little notice and a very narrow window of time, we all converged at Wilf’s house for a bbq in Berne. I still have no idea how that came together, other than the fact that Jesus freaking loves me. 

My Swiss launching pad  :)

Although I’ve been preparing for this move for a full year, it’s still a big deal and a significant adjustment. But I feel like I have been generously slathered with SPF 30. I’ve been showered with so much love, prayer and support from friends and family all over the place, and I have no doubt in my mind that they are my protective factor. There’s no way for me to know all that will happen in the two years I’ll be living here, and I’m under no illusions that it will be smooth sailing the whole way, but I know that regardless, I’m covered. My skin might get a bit pink, but it won’t burn. I can trust the sunscreen. 

The panoramic view from my balcony

A new reformation?

This year marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Reformation, a movement that saw nearly an entire continent transformed and millions of people gain access to the Word of God for the first time. 

Fast forward to now, the transformational effects of this reformation seem to have waned. Our society is in distress, our relationships are broken, the Church is polarized over any number of issues, and Christians struggle to have positive impact on public policy and debate. 

We need another reformation, but of what sort? We have the worship movements, the prayer movements, the missions movements, but still we see society going in the opposite direction of God’s commands. So what’s missing? 

One of the greatest revivals recorded in the Bible took place under the reign of King Josiah. It is written of him, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses” (2 Kings 23:25). 

Josiah places among the last in a long line of kings of Israel and Judah, most of whom did evil in the eyes of the Lord. But even at a young age, he had a heart after God and took steps to repair the temple. At one point, the high priest finds the Book of the Law (known to us as the Mosaic Law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy) underneath a pile of rubble and brings it to the king. Upon hearing the Book of the Law read aloud, Josiah tears his robes because he realizes how far away God’s people have strayed. He then inquires of the Lord - who in turn was pleased with his responsiveness and humility (2 Kings 22:29); he gathers the community together - the elders, the priests and prophets, and “all the people from the least to the greatest” (23:1-2); he has the Book of the Law read aloud to the people; and finally, he renews the covenant in the presence of the Lord, essentially instigating a societal transformation (23:3). 

The parallels between this story and our present day are really quite striking. Our temple (both physical body and church) is in disrepair. Many popular pastors and teachers don’t preach from the Old Testament apart from Psalms and Proverbs, and very few broach the subject of Mosaic Law. Instead we focus on the life and teachings of Jesus, forgetting that Jesus himself said that he came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it.

This begs the question, what is it about the Law that was so important to God and to Jesus? And how far have we strayed?

The Mosaic Law is commonly summarized in the Ten Commandments and was even more succinctly interpreted by Jesus as the following: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31). 

In essence, the Law was given to guide people into right relationship with their God and right relationship with their neighbor. The intention was for God’s chosen people Israel to be set apart, holy, different from the rest. That is still God’s intention for his people. Since we gentiles have been grafted in, it’s his intention for us to be set apart, holy, different from the rest. Which we believe and preach in theory, but are we really that different in practice? 

Let’s look at capitalism. Our entire system is built on debt and interest. Yet this goes directly against God’s framework in Deuteronomy: “Do not charge your brother interest…” (23:19-20), and “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts…” (15:1-4). How far have we who call ourselves Christians gone to question these mechanisms in our economic system? How many of us are drowning in debt? How many of us play the stock market and invest in funds that we really don’t know that much about? We trust financial planners to invest our money, but do we do the research to find out whether or not our money is funding industries that honor God’s principles? 

Let’s look at work ethic. The Sabbath (day of rest) was of utmost importance to the Lord. Yet how many of us struggle to find work-life balance? How many of us consistently work late, or on the weekends and during times when we should be prioritizing family and other relationships? How many of us make career decisions based on salary and upward mobility rather than on what’s best for the marriage, the kids or the extended family? 

Let’s talk about the criminal justice system. Most of us would agree that criminals should pay for their crime and serve time in jail. But how aware are we of the fact that prison didn’t exist in Hebrew culture? Offenders didn’t get removed from society like they do today. Instead, the offender and the community had to live with one another, forcing them to find the means to restore what had been broken and seek forgiveness from and restitution for the people who had been hurt. This is relational justice, and God is not anything if not relational. Criminal justice should seek the wellbeing of the victim, the offender and society as whole, but this rarely happens. How often do we as Christians question the destructive and non-relational dynamics of our prison system? 

By largely discounting the Mosaic Law as no longer applicable since we are now ‘under grace’, we’ve essentially neglected God’s commands and left them under our own pile of rubble.

The first reformation brought people out of spiritual darkness. Today we need a reformation that will bring us out of relational dysfunction. Let us follow the example of Josiah, the king who turned to the Lord “with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.” Let us seek the Father’s heart behind the seemingly harsh and culturally irrelevant rules of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Let the Book of the Law be read aloud again and let us renew our covenant with the God who loves us, who has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future (Jer. 29:11).