Homeward Bound

It has been quite a ride!

This most difficult of decisions has been made and we will be heading back to Vermont at the end of this school year. It has been a roller coaster back and forth on this issue. Back in early December, and right up until our girls departed a week ago, we were quite sure we would return to ACS and Beirut for a third year. But the pull of family and friends hit us when the girls left. We missed some important events in the lives of family and friends last year, and we don’t want to experience any potential similar events from the other side of the planet. Learning that our tenant did not want to renew the lease on our house was just another sign that it was time to go home.

We have had…and will continue to have….a great experience here. We will go home with no regrets and will be enriched for the rest of our lives as a result of our time here.

Christmas 2011

The whole family, finally with us in Beirut

We finally got both our girls here, along with Ben and Victor, all of which made Christmas 2011 a very special one for us.

In the souks of Saida

We enjoyed Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Kate’s birthday, Dec. 26, in Lebanon.   Mike’s Playstation quickly became the entertainment for our time in the apartment.  Thanks to Victor and Ben we were able to play split screen, head-to-head racing games.  The competition was intense, with Ben showing early signs of racing prowess, only to be overtaken, first by Mike and finally by the ultimate champion of the track, Brittany.  You go, girl!

Kate and Ben

Brittany and Victor

We rented a car which allowed us to get around city and country easily.  Well, easy does not really describe the driving in Lebanon, but you know what I mean.  We showed them ACS, we walked the Corniche and the new Marina, as well as the downtown area.  One afternoon we headed down the coast to Saida where we toured the Crusader castle, the souks,  and the soap museum.  We finished the afternoon off with some great falafel sandwiches.

The highlight of the week was four days in Istanbul.  Each couple headed out each day to tour the city on their own.  This allowed Sharon and me to have new adventures in Istanbul.  We took a short boat ride up the Bosphorus, we learned to enjoy the Grand Bazaar as well as the Spice Market, and we made our way up to the old land walls and the Chora Church/Museum.  This place is a true gem and I advise visitors to Istanbul to be sure to visit.  The mosaics, some of which are still in excellent condition given their age, are magnificent.  We spent some time across the Golden Horn in Beyoglu where we visited the Pera Museum, the Pera Palace Hotel and The Istanbul Modern Museum.  Istanbul ranks right up there as one of our favorite cities.

On the Bosphorus, with Istanbul and The Golden Horn in the background

Oh, ya….we even convinced all but Victor to experience a Turkish bath!

We returned to Beirut where we celebrated the week and New Year’s Eve with Sandra and Phil in our apartment.

It was wonderful having the kids here.  Their departure made us realize how much we missed being near family and friends, which led to our decision to come home at the end of this year.

Happy New Year from Beirut! Inshallah

To Stay or Not to Stay

We are currently in our last year of a two contract with ACS Beirut.  We have known for quite some time that we would need to decide by December 2011 whether we would commit to a third year at the school.  The Head of School has asked for a decision by the beginning of this month and we have been struggling with this decision since returning in August.  What to do?  Stay or go home to retirement?  Here are some of the major points we have to consider.

Stay for Year 3

• Living Internationally – Living in a foreign city still intrigues us.  Beirut has such an interesting blend of western and Muslim cultures.  We enjoy laying in bed hearing the call to prayer, eating at a different restaurant most weekends, living amongst and working with Muslims, and trying to understand the intricacies of Lebanese culture.
• Show Us the Money – As two public school educators we were never able to put significant amounts of money aside for retirement.  We have been able to save some money while here, and could continue to do so another year by staying at ACS.
• Travel – Since coming here we have visited Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Kenya.  We have seen the pyramids, been on a safari,  swam in the Dead Sea, watched the sunset on a Grecian isle, and visited some incredible sites we hardly knew about before coming here.  We would love another year of this travel.
• Not yet ready for retirement – This is Sharon’s issue more than Mike’s but we are still young…well, we think we are anyway… Sharon is enjoying being back in the classroom.  Mike can go either way on this one.

Go Home

• Family and Friends – We miss our family and friends.  Our kids are coming in a few weeks, Brittany came last December, our best buddy Donna visited earlier this fall, and my brother Dave and his wife Deb visited last spring, but otherwise we go for close to a year without being with the people we love.  Last year we missed two important family/friend weddings and my brother’s 70^th birthday party.  Might we miss other important family events if we stay another year?
• Retirement – No 5:30 alarm clock.  No 10 hour work days weeks in a row.  Leisurely mornings, yoga, walks, golf, skiing, cooking and entertaining, and more leisurely travel.  Sounds good.
• We have done what we set out to do.  We committed for two year and will have done that successfully.
• Arab Spring gone bad – Will Lebanon stay calm?  Are we pushing our luck by staying another year?  Another bombing of a UN vehicle recently is not a good sign.  Syria is very close by, both geographically and politically.
• Things we miss –  Our family and friends, fresh air, entertaining, fall foliage, skiing, golf, walking dirt roads….
• Hard Work – We work damned hard here.  And if Sharon’s class size increases, and knowing that TA support is not going to happen…these might be vital factors in our decision.

A tough call.  Fortunately, we feel we are in a win-win situation as either option is a positive one.  We are nearing a decision, and will post it once we make the decision and tell our bosses, family and friends.

Cairo

Shopping in the 14th century Khan el-Khalili bazaar

 

We seem to have good timing when we travel.  Last year we visited Damascus, Syria in February, just a month or so before the Arab Spring arrived in that country.  Now, less than two weeks after returning from Cairo, that city is once again experiencing revolts, injuries and killing of protesters.  When I mentioned this to our school counselor today, he called me “The Destroyer”.  It would be funny if this wasn’t such serious business for the people in these countries.

Tahrir Square, site of the January revolution that toppled Mubarek

A small protest in Tahrir Square, viewed from our hotel room

It saddens us to watch the current events in Tahrir Square.  Many of the pictures we see of that site could easily have been taken from the same hotel we stayed in while visiting Cairo and The Pyramids.  We had a bird’s eye view of Tahrir Square, and actually witnessed one very small, short, and peaceful gathering one morning.  We send our prayers  to the people of Egypt.

The National Antiquities Muesum on Tahrir Square

What a city.  It is much easier to romanticize this metropolis of 22 million from a distance and after a visit than it is while there.  We were greeted by many friendly people who loved to welcome us to their country.   We have found to be true in all the Middle Eastern countries  we have visited.  In Cairo this friendliness was, at least in part and at times, a guise to get us to go with them to their relative’s shop to spend, spend, spend.  And once they convinced you to look, the pressure to buy was remarkable.

The Mohammad Ali Mosque

It wasn’t so much the vendors in the Khan el-Kahlili bazaar that got to us.  The pressure from them was to be expected and at times was even humorous.  It was the people on the street who offered to “help” us, AND then brought us to their shop so we could spend money.  We had to work to not have this color our experience while there; not an easy task.  We do understand that given the poverty found in this country, people are just trying to make a buck from the western tourists.

In Coptic Cairo. Coptic Christians make up 10% of Cairo's population

Even with all this, Cairo is a place that was worth visiting.  It is the gateway to the Pyramids which we could visit again anytime.  The city and its museum, bazaars, history, and strong Muslim identity make it a fascinating place to visit.  As we advised in the blog on the Pyramids, having a guide is the best way to tour in this city.  Again, we recommend Hesham.

We ended our visit to Cairo with an evening boat ride on the Nile.  A buffet dinner, belly dancing and whirling dirvish dancing capped a great trip to the land of the Pharoahs.

The Nile with Cairo in the background. The land to the right is an island in the middle of the river.

Dinner show, Egyptian style

At the entrance of a Coptic Christian church

The Pyramids

The Pyramids of Giza. The people in the foreground look a bit tiny in comparison.

The Pyramids.  Is there a more iconic image than that of the three Giza pyramids or the Sphynx in front of The Great Pyramid?  As with the blog on the animals we saw during our Kenyan safari, words can hardly begin to describe what it is like to be at the pyramids.  For that matter, it is also impossible for pictures to capture the breathtaking size of these structures, their age, the steepness of the sides, and the wonder one feels when there of what the building of these structures required.

Love those camel rides....especially ones only 20 minutes long.

The best thing we did on our trip to Cairo was to hire a driver.  By doing that we also hired a guide for the day.  Hesham was a wonderful guide who knows the history of the pyramids and his native country very well.  He began the tour in Memphis, the ancient capital of pharonic Egypt.  While there is not all that much to see there, it was a great first stop on our day’s travels.

A massive statue of Ramses II, believed to be pharoah during the time of Moses. He ruled for over half a century.

From Memphis we went to Saqqara, the site of The Step Pyramid.  The book we bought on the site says The Step Pyramid is the oldest stone structure on earth.  It was build around 2500 B.C.!  Amazing.   Using my telephoto lens I captured an image of the Bent Pyramid in the distance.  This pyramid was begun with sides that were too steep.  As the structure began to collapse the builders changed the angle of the sides, thus giving the pyramid its “bent” look.

The Step Pyramid

After leaving Saqqara and a rug store (no pressure to buy, but….) Hesham took us to lunch in a wonderful outdoor restaurant, hotel, entertainment complex where we enjoyed a mezze/grilled meal and a beer.

From there it was on to the Giza Pyramids.  Just incredible.  This where I will let the pictures do the talking.

P.S. Anyone making plans to travel to Cairo should consider hiring a guide (the driver comes with the guide).  And we highly recommend Hesham who can be reached at:

Hesham_aref_zaki2008@yahoo.com

Mobile – 018 30 787 20

The Bent Pyramid from Saqqara

At The Step Pyramid with our guide, Hesham

Donna at The Sphynx

Taking a rest during a grueling day of sightseeing

A sense of the steepness and size of the pyramids

A rather old chair

Donna and Sharon in front of The Great Pyramid

The entrance to The Great Pyramid. We did not go in.

Recycling in Beirut

It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Beirut and we just returned from our weekly walk to the recycling bins located on the Corniche.  It is actually a relatively pleasant walk, particularly when the sun is setting, for it gives us a chance to catch the sun as it settles into the Mediterranean and the sky becomes a canvas of pink and purple.  If we are lucky, the mosque on the corner will be calling Muslims to prayer, adding to the charm of the experience.

Recycling is a relatively new idea in Beirut, and we suspect, Lebanon as a whole.  We feel fortunate to live where we do for we have not seen all that many recycling bins in other parts of the city.  It might have to do with the concentration of Westerners in this part of town.  Even though we know we are by no means the only people using the bins, we always get stares from locals as we deposit our bottles, cans and waste paper into the containers.  We can only imagine what is going through their minds as they watch us, and can only hope they are thinking that what we are doing is a good idea.  Recently we had a local woman, who had watched us doing our thing, tell us that she admired what we were doing since Lebanese do not know about recycling. Progress.

Recycling is such a crying need in this country.  While the city of Beirut is relatively free of trash compared to the rest of the country,  many roads outside the city are heavily strewn with trash.  Lebanon is a very beautiful country in many ways.  It is such a shame its citizens despoil it so.

ACS does recycle its paper, water bottles, bottle caps and batteries.  Given that most of the kids are Lebanese, we hope this habit will be one they continue into adulthood and that it will ultimately impact the amount of trash idly tossed onto the ground and into the sea.

Constuction – Lebanon Style

The view of the sea in the middle of the picture is now blocked by a new building

This is a city under construction.  Cranes fill the skyline in most if not all parts of the city.  Within a stone’s throw of our balcony are five apartment buildings that have been completed within the past six months or are in some phase of construction.  The same is likely true in many parts of Beirut.

The odd part of this construction boom is that many of these apartment buildings are either sparsely occupied or sit empty.  Supposedly, some of the apartments, especially those with views of the Mediterranean, are owned by wealthy people from the Gulf states who only come here in the middle of the summer when Beirut’s 95 F degrees is a cool retreat from the 135 F in the Gulf states.  We see at least one new apartment building from our balcony that has never had more than one floor of lights on it at any time during our time in Beirut.  We were out of town all of July, but I can’t believe the place fills up for that one month only.  We have also been told that the builders do not need to pay any taxes until the building is occupied.  Don’t know if that is true or not, or why it would serve as a reason to allow them to sit unoccupied.

That's not much of a platform

That said, one aspect of the building of these high rises that continues to amaze us is the method of construction.  Everything is concrete and cinder block.  Very few buildings, except for maybe the tallest, use any steel framing.  Some walls are poured concrete, while others are cinder block.  I suppose there might be a reason for that, but I’m clueless as to what it is.  Some of the crews working on these multi-story buildings seem to be as small as six people.  The block work seems particularly shoddy, with sloppy looking mortar joints common.

If only you could see the platform sway!

The most incredible aspect of the construction methods used here is the utter lack of safety measures for the construction workers.  Hardhats?  Have not seen one.    Buckets of concrete hanging from a crane, suspended over a busy sidewalk or road?  No big deal.  I was able to capture on camera a great example of this lack of safety measures this morning.  There is a 12 story building going up within 100 yards of our apartment.  Unfortunately, this building blocks a whole section of view of the Mediterranean we had up until 6 months ago, but that is another story.  Anyway, the last story went up over the summer, and now workers are putting a finish of some sort on the exterior.  The minimalist platform on which these men work exemplifies the lack of interest in safety in this country.  Take a close look!  Amazing.  The pictures don’t even catch the platforms as they sway from side to side.

OMG!

Traveling Kenya

Sharon with the Great Rift Valley in the background

These final pictures from our Kenyan safari are a bit random.  We thought they would round out the posts by giving you a picture of places we stayed, what our travels were like, and some other views of Kenya.

This is our kind of tent!

The path from our tent to the lodge

We stayed in a comfortable tent camp our first three nights.  We enjoyed spacious lodging, including a fully functioning bathroom, good meals, and cold Tuskers at the end of a long day

on the Maasai Mara.  Packed lunches allowed us to stay on the day’s game drive each day of our safari.  While out room in Lake Nakuru left much to be desired, the park was a nice change from the Mara and the lodge provided its own great views.

The patio at our tented camp site

The roads in the lands inhabited by the Maasai are some of the worst roads we have ever traveled on.  The little bit of paved road is totally pot holed, and the dirt roads are full of craters, huge stones and many, many stream crossings without bridges.  We were fortunate to have our own van and great driver, Martin, who navigates these “roads” with the greatest of skill.

Coming out of a stream crossing....probably in the game preserve

The savannahs of southwestern Kenya provide stunning scenery.  It is a vast and beautiful part of the world.

A toast to Kenya, compliments of Andre and Alex from Germany. They stayed at the same lodge as us and we toured the Game Preserve with them one day.

Stuck in a streambed...

Safari Kenya – The Animals

The major reason anyone goes on an African safari is to see the wild animals.  As we began planning this trip we learned that a trip in late August would coincide with the end of the wildebeast migration to the Serengeti in Tanzania.  So our hopes were high as we headed out on this trip.  We wanted to see giraffes, elephants, zebras and lions.  Mike was also hoping to see herds of animals.  We were not disappointed.

When reading about what we might expect to see for animals, we often read about “The Big Five”.  We were under the impression that this referred to the most popular and most sought after sightings by tourists.  Such a Western and ethnocentric point of view.  Our wonderful guide, Martin, informed us that this term refers to the five most problematic animals for the locals; lions, buffalo, elephants, rhinos and leopards.   We saw all but the elusive leopard.

Our five day, four night safari included three days on the Maasai Mara.  One of these was on the Maasai Mara National Game Preserve.  The other two were outside the park, but still on the Mara.  We traveled to Lake Nakuru for our last two days (one night) where we saw pelicans, flamingos, and our first rhinos of the trip.

But enough of this…here are thumbnails of a small sampling of the 1000 or so pictures of the wide variety (many more than we expected) of land and water animals we saw while on the trip.  Click on each thumbnail to get the enlarged picture.  Enjoy.

Sisel cat

Wildebeasts on their migration back to the Serengeti

Herd of wildebeasts

Watus, crawling on their knees to eat.

Waterbuck

A hyena

Wildebeasts

A jackal

“The Lion Roars Tonight”

King of the Savannah

The lion.  King of the Jungle.   Not sure about jungle, but certainly King of the Savannah.  We were fortunate to see lions every day on our safari.  Most often this included at least one male and one female, several times we got to see lion cubs, and on our last day in Lake Nakuru  Game Park we sat and observed a pride of twelve lions; 3 males, 4 females and 5 cubs.  The thing about about many of the animals you see on a safari, including the lion, is that they are completely non-chalant about a bunch of humans  watching them from a vehicle parked 20 feet away.  They are magnificent beasts and it was always difficult to drive away from a viewing spot.  While every lion viewing was special, our best lion story was an auditory experience, not a visual one.

Are they cute or what?

For the first three nights of the safari we stayed in a camp just outside the Maasai Mara Game Preserve.  This camp included a large structure for dining, a patio and outdoor eating area, and about ten permanent tents.  Our tent was very comfortable and spacious, and we felt very secure in it.  The wooden door locked, and we were able to lower shades over the screens, which served as windows.  A path in front of the tents dropped off to a stream; about 30 feet away.

Female sitting on a termite hill

Two females, with cubs and a recent kill

Our tent; sitting area, path. The stream is just outside the picture to the right.

We had just gotten into bed the second night of the trip and were reading when we heard the very loud, very close and very distinctive roar of a lion.  We looked at each other with wide “Holy Sh…t!!!” eyes.  Adding to our sens of unease was the fact that ten minutes earlier we had decided to turn up a couple of the window shades to allow some fresh air into the tent.  We were not about to get out of bed now, that’s for sure.  A second and a third roar kept us frozen in place.  All three sounded as though the lion was outside on the path.   Somehow, Mike was able to sleep well that night.  Sharon, not so much.

Inside the spacious and comfortable tent

In the morning I checked the streambed and found tracks of a large animal in the sand.  Proof enough for me that the owners of the camp didn’t pull a Disney trick on us by playing a tape of a lion roar.  I can hear that roar to this day.

The path leading to the lodge

Tracks in the stream bed the next morning