Marriage proposal (type 4)

He was moving a small stick from left to right in his mouth, his head shaven and his army-uniform adorned with a little cedar on the shoulder. He was sitting in front of me on the cheap bus that takes the long coastal road instead of the highway. There was plenty of time to talk. Initially, he only glanced over his shoulder every once in a while, with a smile so big it seemed as if he was unaware that his gums were black and some of his teeth were missing. Then he asked me where I was going. ‘Home. Beirut.’ His accent was heavy, full of OOOs, I thought he must be from the North. What I was doing here? And was I married? My answer was the usual lie: ‘Yes, I am. Yes, he’s from the South’. He no longer smiled, that was a piece of information he didn’t like: his family came from Akkar, up North as I had guessed, and I should have picked a husband from his region.

I returned the question. No, he wasn’t married yet, but his beautiful apartment in Tripoli was almost finished, and then he would find himself a wife. A high-ranking officer like him – he kept pointing at the little sign of the cedar, it seemed to mean a lot – would have no trouble getting married. His bright smile suddenly returned to his face. ‘I would like to marry someone as pretty as you… don’t you have a younger sister?!?’

Sorry, sis, but I told him I don’t.

El Maktab*

In Libanon hoef je over het algemeen niet veel zelf te doen. Arbeid is goedkoop, dus er is overal personeel in overvloed. Bij de organisatie waar ik werk, betekent dat er overal een mannetje of vrouwtje voor is, van het aanzetten van de fontein in de hal tot het sorteren en nieten van je papieren aan toe. Een document afleveren? Hoeft niet, hebben we een mannetje voor. Kopje thee zetten? Hoeft niet, hebben we een vrouwtje voor. Twee zelfs. Elke ochtend, precies 10 minuten nadat ik het kantoor binnenkom, wordt mij een glaasje dampend-hete thee geserveerd.

In het begin was dat wel anders. De dames wachtten keurig tot mijn baas gearriveerd was, om dan giechelend het kantoor binnen te schuifelen, een schuine blik op mij te werpen en hem te vragen: ‘Wat wil zij drinken?’ ‘Dat weet ik niet,’ antwoordde mijn baas dan steevast, ‘vraag het haar maar’.

Vol ongeloof keken ze hem dan aan, elke dag opnieuw. Die blonde, ongehoofddoekte buitenlander, die zou hen toch nooit begrijpen als ze haar in het Arabisch zouden vragen wat ze wil drinken? Er werd nogmaals een blik op mij geworpen, schouders opgehaald, en dan werd me voor de zekerheid een kopje koffie én een kopje thee onder de neus geschoven. Toen ik een week lang consequent de koffie had laten staan, werd de conclusie getrokken: thee graag. En thee komt hier automatisch met een paar flinke scheppen suiker.

Het duurde even, maar na een maandje waren de dames over de schok heen en raakten ze eraan gewend dat ik hen in keurig Arabisch, in hun eigen dialect nog wel, een goede morgen wenste. Ik besloot de stap te wagen en hen te vragen of de thee ook wat minder zoet kon.

Laat ik het zo zeggen: of het de perfectie van mijn uitspraak was of de aard van het verzoek zelf is mij nogsteeds niet duidelijk, maar de vraag bleek goed voor een gierende lachbui die zich herhaalde elke keer dat het verhaal aan een toevallig langslopende collega werd verteld. ‘Die buitenlander, die spreekt Arabisch!’ En omdat in Libanon een middenweg niet bestaat, betekent dat dus dat ik volgens hen de taal volledig beheers. Ik speel het spelletje vrolijk mee, met mijn baas als lachende derde op de achtergrond: hij wil graag zien hoe ik me eruit ga redden als ze me een keertje een sandwich met vlees serveren.

* El Maktab: in het Nederlands te vertalen als Het Bureau

Just what we needed to hear from the prime minister

Saturday night, message from a friend“Hey, if you are out, be careful, Amal and Moustaqbal are shooting at each other and they torched a Hezbollah post at Ras Naba’a. Please be careful.”

Monday morning, conversation with my boss “Nicolien, you live in the Hamra-neighborhood right? Have you thought about what to do when a war starts? If it comes to war with Israel, there are two scenarios; air and land. If it is land, we will have time to prepare ourselves because they will definitely tell the UN-soldiers first and let the foreigners evacuate. If it is an air-attack, all we can do is wait and hope not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If it is civil unrest, you can come to Sour, the Foundation has facilities to shelter its employees coming from dangerous areas.”

Tuesday night, written on the wall of a café “War is like love, it always finds a way. -- Bertolt Brecht”

Wednesday, on the Naharnet newssite “Premier Fouad Saniora has said civil war is unlikely in Lebanon… ‘I don’t think civil war will happen’ he told BBC.”

Very comforting words. Reassuring indeed.

Waiting for nothing to happen

We think it will happen. In fact, we are quite sure it will happen. In a way, we are waiting for it to happen – at least when it happens, we know it is happening, and then we are finally sure. Yet at the same time, we don’t want it to happen. We hope against all odds that it won’t happen. So what we are doing is waiting for it not to happen. ‘It’ being a war, civil or otherwise.

As I told Sietske, quoting Einstein: ‘One cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war.’ Everyone in Lebanon is preparing for war. Those who want to fight are getting weapons, those who don’t want to fight make sure they have some food, water and a spare recharge card for their mobile phone – you don’t want to get stuck in your house for a week without being able to communicate with the outside world.

I had an argument with a friend; I said her mother panics too much. She says her mother is very calm, she just asks her to come home whenever something happens – for example when there is a car-crash and the drivers have gotten into a fight. To me, this should not be a reason to abandon everything and go home; it’s just two people settling a dispute in a rough way. To her mother, this could be the one incident that sets off a civil war.

Maybe they are right. Maybe my youth in a peaceful country has falsely made me believe that things are right until they go wrong, instead of wrong waiting to explode as life is considered here. Maybe the best thing to do when on the brink of war is to always play it safe, to be well-prepared in as many ways as possible. But then who is going to stop it?

Current topic: contraceptive techniques.

My boss (a single man nearing his 50s) and I are writing a report about our project on Reproductive Health in one of the villages in the South. The women have been tested, poked, tickled, and listened to, and now is the time to look at the results and decide what to do next. However, the data have been collected in Arabic and those paying for the project (the World Health Organization) need the findings in English, so our lack of Arabic-English dictionary means we have to do some creative translating. My boss: Ok, so there is this thing that women use, it goes inside and the Arabic word means it is twisted. Me: What is it made of, rubber? Metal? Could it be a diaphragm, is it shaped like a little bowl? Yes it is made of rubber, but it is not shaped like a small cup, it really is more like a, well, ehm… An IUD – Intra Uterine Device then, maybe? But then it is not made of rubber, those are made of copper, I believe. Copper? Contraceptives made of copper? Alright… Anything else? Well, there is another method, it is, well, you count, you know? You count? What do you count? Well you count the days that you can and that you can’t… Ah, yes, let me look this one up… ‘periodieke onthouding’, ehm… here it is, ‘the rhythm method’. Any others?

Yes, there is also, when you stop. ... Celibacy? Abstinence? No, you stop while you are busy… in French it is called ‘ejaculation extra uterinaire’ … … Do you mean coitus interruptus? That you end it just before you get there? Yes, yes! In Arabic we call that, ehm, you know, when you have diabetes and your hand or foot is so infected it has to be cut off… what is that called? Do you mean amputation? That’s it! That’s what it’s called in Arabic. Amputated intercourse.