Coming down the switchbacks of Baabda, the surrounding hills dive towards the sea. Among the apartment buildings and corner stores stand a few trees, just enough to blur the colour of concrete and dirt into a more pleasant pastel green. The trees stand conspicuously, as though they were not wilderness but merely a side effect of concrete and asphalt.The sun is setting somewhere beyond the Mediterranean, but all the sea is lost in a grey haze and the buildings of Beirut seem to cling to a giant abyss - a shelf of jagged concrete floating in smoke.
Suddenly the switchbacks end, and the peripheral presence of the hillside is replaced by blinders of concrete towers. The roads straighten, and as the sky darkens, the lighted signs of advertising mix with traffic lights and headlights. In an instant Beirut becomes Toronto, London, Havana, New York; any place where city-life passes by the windows of an automobile.
In Canada, a city street is lined with lights, even in the suburbs. This situation is not mirrored in foreign sprawls, and the odd darkness along the sidewalks ignites a sense of mystery, if not a little fear. Walking, the side streets are deserted at 9pm, but here and there, along better streets, oases of light fall on the uneven streets. People huddle happily in these pools of cleanliness. They eat and laugh in three languages – Arabic, French, and English. It is a McDonalds or a Hardee’s or a local chain selling pita-bread creations and hummus. Viciously sanitary, these places stain the surrounding bullet-marked neighbourhoods with a tenuous portent of civilisation. “Was there so recently a war here?” the question occurs repeatedly. Pedestrians shuffle homeward with shopping bags or flowers. Lovers kiss.
The new regional fad is for women to smoke the “hubble-bubble.” In almost every window, a pair of young women suck slowly on the plastic-tipped hose. They chat about family and men or television and university, switching effortlessly between languages. On top of the water pipe simmers a wad of flavoured tobacco. The smoke smells of roses and strawberries and it wafts into the street.
A corporation called Soldiere (Soldiere) controls Central Beirut. And here the Paris of the Middle East is once again full of cafés and art. Here the Switzerland of the Middle East is reopening banks. Soldiere is charged with restoring the war-torn downtown. Residents can pay the money, say $250,000, in order to keep their apartment, and if they cannot they must sell it to Soldiere. The company is behind schedule, but this section of Beirut is filled with pleasant buildings in shades of yellow, pink, and orange. The Prime Minister of Lebanon is the primary shareholder of Soldiere, and one of the richest men in the world. A clock tower is the centrepiece of the Soldiere commercial district. Oversized photos from a famous photographer are on display throughout the square and along the pedestrian mall. Here is a picture of thousands of flamingos; here is one showing a graveyard of Russian tanks in Kuwait. Soldiers with M-16s stand on guard casually as tourists and rich Lebanese mingle in the outdoor cafés.
Mono Street in Achrafieh, Beirut, hosts the best nightclubs in Lebanon. The real “Electric Avenue” fills up at dark with thousands of well-dressed youth, and here sixteen-year-olds diplomats’ daughters mix with oil-rich Saudis. There is a great variety in venue type: a Spanish bar, an English pub, a Moroccan saloon - some more expensive and popular than others. Much of the party is in the street as friends meet and talk and dance to the music pouring from the buildings around them as if from rain gutters. The mood of the international crowd is upbeat and friendly, and it only begins to thin at 3am. An illegal taxi driver is fined $25. He charges his tourist-passengers $10 for a $3 trip.
The hotel pub is just like any hotel pub. Sitting outside, West Beirut moves around the patio working its way through a half-day Saturday. Across the street, a teenager in soiled clothes sifts through some dumpsters and puts empty bottles into a large sack. BMWs roll past him playing loud hip-hop. Two young women in mini-skirts stand twenty metres away from him, whispering and pointing. A man tosses two plastic bags into the dumpsters, and, after a brief exchange, he gives the teenage boy a half-empty bottle of water. The boy drinks from the water bottle before putting it into his sack and moving off down the street. Meanwhile more exotic cars mix with the taxicabs in the street. A store selling artwork closes up. Two pitiful children with large eyes and dirty faces approach the patio. The more brazen of the two comes up to the table to beg for bar snacks. He speaks only Arabic. His face is gaunt and limbs thin. The bartender, in his red vest, rushes outside and unleashes an angry fury of language, forcing the children away. But the brazen, filthy child returns a moment later, peering through the patio fence. His hands on the black metal bars like a prisoner’s.
[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: wei-chi ]
Email this thread to someone!
posted 02 October 2002 09:16 AM
