Peace and Quiet

I found it. The café I've been looking for this past six weeks. It has tea. And on Sunday mornings, there are no screaming kids and pretentious ladies conversing in Arafrenglese. It's just me and my omelette and scones (yes, scones). Heaven.

Peace and quiet are two things that are rare here. Well, peace - if defined as the absence of violence - does exist. At least currently. You're probably all following the developments in the region. So far, nothing major has happened here. But if things in Syria deteriorate, it might. I am not going to lean myself out of the window and make predictions. As you have seen, nobody expected these revolutions to happen. And everyone kept saying that Syria will never witness them. How things evolve will depend largely on how Bashar al-Assad will react (whether he will actually implement the reforms promised). But as I said, I don't wanna go too deep into politics here. Even though this is what I am confronted with every day. Yesterday, we had a "work" dinner and all we talked about was politics. Over sushi of course. 

As to the second part of peace and quiet: Beirut is definitely the wrong place to look for tranquility. I am starting to curse the person who invented the honk. And construction sites. The only thing you can do is either get up "early" on Saturdays and Sundays or just spend the entire weekend out of town. Lucky me, I found out that I have some very distant relatives here that invited me to their place three weeks ago. The fact that they produce their own cheese and spoilt me with home-made Raclette only added to my delight. They took me to see another Swiss family in Qadisha valley (up north) on Sunday and I cannot tell you how gorgeous that was. Fresh oranges, mandarines and lemons from the tree in the backyard. Yummy. And fresh air. Also a rarity in traffic-ridden Beirut.  

Argh, I just managed to delete a huge junk of what I've written. Fantastic. The next bit might just not be as witty, as I am trying to re-construct what I've just demolished. 

Life here, in general, is great and I'm very happy. Work is still very interesting and I am very attached to my team. They're just a lot of fun to be around. As I mentioned, we had a work dinner yesterday. And it wasn't one of these akward, help-when-is-it-gonna finish dinners. We talked about politics and the events in the region quite a bit (mind you, half of our team is on mission currently, as Headquarters keeps on requesting Arab-speakers to go to Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, etc.). But the best about my team is that they are acting like friends amongst them, laughing a lot and making fun of each other. I'm the running joke because I like Amman (my boss smirked when I said I was going there for a weekend... said it was a bit boring, no?). And because I have frequented a certain bar in Amman (close to the Egyptian Embassy, for those who know) and might have been amongst those inebriated staggering out of it at prayer time, causing some sleeplessness to the mother of one of my colleagues. 

At work, my small struggles stem more from an administrative-hierarchical-responsibility-related dispute between the administrative assistant of my office, UNV and Headquarters in Geneva. I only recently got my proper e-mail address and UNV and OHCHR like to play the game of oh, no, that's not me, that's them back and forth. Which frequently results in me running up and down between the 5th and 7th floor of our building. I take is as an exercise. It took me four weeks to get a radio and I still haven't been briefed on how to act in an emergency (insh'allah, not gonna happen). They make a huge fuss about these (very useless) Security Trainings before you leave (yes, I feel extremely security-competent now, because I know how to locate north based on tracking the stars. And I'll never camp underneath a palm tree. Think coconut.), but once you're in the country, your best option in case of a "situation" might still be to just hide in your closet. 

Outside of work, things are going well too. We (that is me, my roommate Dominique and the nicest taxi driver on earth) went for a plant-shopping trip recently. The result: we now proudly host an olive tree, a lemon tree, jasmin, a ficus and many flowers in our apartment. Don't ask about how we got the plants up the five flights of stairs. And no, old buildings in Beirut do not have an elevator. But the sweat and future back problems were worth it as our balcony looks even nicer now. We're also getting chairs and maybe (definitely) a plastic pool. And on these sunny days (spring, finally!!), it's lovely to sit outside. We even have a cat (yes, I insisted we have one) but she is unfortunately a very - ahem, let's put it nicely - shy cat. I'm not gonna comment on it further. 


Well, my breakfast is finished and so is my imagination. Thanks for all the lovely comments on my last blog. I greatly appreciated them and they encouraged me to continue the blogging-adventure. مع سلامة و الى اللقاء