If you don't know Arabic DON'T F*%$IN USE IT!

One of the things I that I think will be missed from the Biden-Palin debate is this gem by Biden "There have been 7,000 madrassas build along [the Pakistani] border, we should be building schools to compete for those hearts and minds." Oh really? Because the word Madrassa literally means school. It can be an Islamic school but it doesn't have to be. You can have an Islamic Madrassa or you can have a public Madrassa. So Biden's quote translates basically to this "There have been 7000 schools built along that border, we should be building schools to compete for those hearts and minds." Speaking of consistency, I'm waiting for the Stop the Madrassa coalition to fulfill its promise and shut down every school as its name suggests. Maybe while we are at it we should shut down all Christians, Jewish, and Islamic schools to stop the preaching of religions.

Of course to be fair Biden isn't the only one who does it. Ever since September 11th, we've seen commentators use Arabic words like "Shahid" or "Jihad" but rarely other Arabic words like "salaam"(peace) or "Zakat" (purification or growth, usually in reference to alms giving). I wonder what the point of using Arabic words have been aside from making Arabs out to be evil and inhuman. People need to either learn the language or stop using the words.

Khalas, bitti, done

Well this is my first time writing here for awhile because now is the first time I got free time to write on this blog. However, the program is over which is what is giving this free time. Beirut has also been very quiet since the prisoner exchange so I have really had anything that I urgently wanted to right about. At least until now. First some reflections on the program. My professors were great and in the in-class time was great and really helped but the amount of homework assigned left me feeling a little cheated. It was enough busy work that kept me from seeing more of beirut, making more friends and hence kept me from interacting with more locals (granted some of my friends are from places like Jordan and Saudi Arabia but you get my point), and the homework left me feeling so drained that I didn't want to learn anymore arabic or speak it. Granted it is incredibly difficult to run a program like this and learn a lot of arabic in a month but still I was hoping for something more like my turkish program last year even though that was four months.

The other thing I was thinking about a conversation I had with a teacher and a friend of mine yesterday. We were talking about being pride and being self-critical in the Arab world. Despite the image Americans have of all Arabs only criticizing the U.S. for anything bad that happens in their lives, the majority of my friends spend the most time blaming themselves sometimes I think unnecessarily. What also happens is they think I am way to self-critical of my country. My teacher put it best when he explained the pride that exists here and criticizing your own country is like criticizing family which can make you look really crazy. As long as my friends understand that I love my country its fine but otherwise its bad. In most cases it was pretty minor but I had a friend who when he heard I wanted to study in AUB for my masters in psychology he passionately tried to dissuade me from studying in Lebanon and tried to get me to study in the States until he realized that I was firmly and genuinely committed to studying cross-cultural psychology in Lebanon. I'll be writing more over the next couple of days as I unpack my whole experience here in Lebanon to make up for the lack of updates during the program.

Sick on a busy day.

So I ate some chicken last night which has made me a little sick and I had to skip class. This is a strange day to be sick considering there is a lot of celebration in Beirut over the prisoner swap with Israel. Everywhere gun fire can be heard in Beirut as people are celebrating. In the meantime I'm worried about being sick since it will hinder my ability to learn Arabic. Everything seemed fine over the weekend as we went to byblos which was really beautiful. I took lots of pictures and it was just nice to be with everyone having a good time. Now there is a mid-term on friday and I'm hoping I will be able to drag myself to class tomorrow so I can review for the test. Guess I'll see where things go these next couple of days.

Middle Eastern Nightlife...

For most Americans, the Middle East is the last place you would expect to find great nightlife but then again, many of them would never make it to Beirut. One can find themselves drowning in the choices of different bars and clubs in gesemynie street. Of course you have to be really careful getting into gesemynie street since it has one of the highest traffic densities in Beirut, especially on weekends. The club we did settle on incorporated a nice mix of Euro trance, rap, and Arabic music. What you have to watch in Beirut unlike most Middle Eastern cities is prices. We easily ended up running up a $160 bar tab between six people in one bar alone (Andrew, if you want us to pay our share of the tab, we’ll understand). While food and transportation are cheap (chicken swarama is $2 a pop and taxis are $1.25), entertainment clearly is not.

While fun, clubbing is not the peak experience for me here in Beirut. For that there is the question of what can I do here that I can’t do back home. Yesterday we went to pigeon rock which is a natural rock formation you see on a lot of postcards from Beirut. Even though we are in a major city, the water is as clear as you would see in a small resort town (though you do see more trash). The rocks themselves and the cliffs are truly breathtaking and the swimming did feel great. The only hard part is getting out since you have to move with the tide. When I finally got out I felt like a beached whale.

The Arabic classes that I am taking have been fun and simple enough thanks to Aziz’s tutoring even though I am in the Intro class. I get one hour of colloquial Arabic and four hours of modern standard (al-Fars?). While the write is important I want to take more time to devote to speaking and vocab so I can get out and practice among the local population inshallah. Although the homework does take awhile, I am here to learn Arabic and not go clubbing so I don’t really mind. I’ll be back with more later.

Finally in Beirut.

"Wow, your finally in Beirut" my friend says with a look of near disbelief. I can't blame him: I'm surprised that I'm in Beirut myself. This place is hard to understand in many ways. It is extremely beautiful and very prosperous. It is hard to imagine that nearly a month ago that everyone was worried Lebanon would slide back into a civil war. I also want to stay so badly that it is hard for me to see why people would want to leave. Of I course I know that I am more well off then some and feel that I can maintain my safety here should something happen.

The thing I can't shake is the feeling that I should have been able to place myself in high introductory instead of regular intro. It is probably better that I go with a class I know I can handle and I don't regret coming to Beirut without knowing any Arabic but I just felt that I should be able to do more. There will be more updates later.